Skip the Scams, Build Real Wealth

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.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Washaw, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality.

She's my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Tanner's in Oklahoma City.

Hey, Tanner, what's up?

Hi, Mr.

Ramsey.

How's it going?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

I'm dealing with some family law issues,

and it's kind of taken over half of every one of my paychecks.

And I'm kind of dealing with a dilemma where I'm trying to find the balance between

trying to do what's right for my kids and be financially responsible at the same time.

Can you elaborate a little bit?

What are you going through?

So, sure, I have

I had a son when I was 22, still in college, and

I later divorced my wife that I had that son with.

Then shortly before I graduated, I had a girlfriend and we got pregnant.

She disappeared on me while we were pregnant.

And shortly after I, or right before, as I was about to graduate,

you know, every month I was having to spend several hundred dollars towards attorney's fees to get, you know, testodial

that yes originally okay um so you found

what happened

so the then around a couple months before I graduated both of these custody disputes kind of started being simultaneous and in tandem so my ex-wife we had 50 50 when we divorced I was seeing my son every week for the whole week and I had him and then we would trade off like that.

She and the ex-girlfriend, they became buddies and they just both started.

I've never met my daughter that I have with the ex-girlfriend and my son I haven't seen in over a year.

So this isn't any petty dispute over, you know, who gets the teddy bear that he liked when we divorced and then, you know, whose house does that stay at?

It's like,

if I don't spend all this money on these attorneys, foreseeably, I won't see my kids at all.

Can I ask you a question?

But at the same time, can I ask you a question?

And just be honest, as much as you're willing to be, do they have a reason that they're keeping these kids from you

no is there a real reason there like did were did you go were you an alcoholic did you was there something there no drugs no alcohol no abuse um

the second axis is trying to has tried to you know throw out abuse allegations um

but it's it's you know that that's so there's allegations there are allegations but you're saying they're not true

right right okay got it yeah okay Okay.

What do you make?

I make 78.

How old are you?

I just turned 30 in January.

And this dispute, the legal bills have been going on one year.

I would say they've been going on since about summer of 2021, and they've only kind of increased and gotten worse.

Okay.

I'm confused as to why the judge hasn't ruled on this in four and a half years.

Well,

so

with my son, we had a totally amicable divorce.

I know you told us that.

You told us that.

So why is that if it's been going on since 21, she's been reneging on what the divorce decree said, why has a judge not ruled on it in four years?

Well, it's different judges in different states.

With my daughter's case.

No, no, no, no, no.

Back to your son.

Let's just stick with that.

My son.

Yeah, sure.

Oh, okay.

So with my son,

it's a very small town in Oklahoma, and I guess the court's docket just gets really backed up.

Last year, I was supposed to have my son for spring break.

She texted me the night before, said she wasn't going to give them to me.

And so I filed something immediately.

I got a lawyer.

We showed up to a hearing in May of last year, and they kind of ran the clock on that hearing to where we weren't really done with it.

It was 5.30, and the judge said, y'all go home.

We'll schedule for another date.

That, you know, because we've run out of time, that got scheduled out into late summer last year, like into August.

And then my attorney I had died.

And now I've got a different attorney, and I've got something scheduled for middle of April.

And you're trying for 50-50.

That's all you want, 50-50.

On the

original child, yeah.

Okay, so

the overall answer to your question is, is this is not only consuming your money, it's consuming your brain.

And so,

and you have relied on legal counsel that sucked.

So you need to get a lawyer that is much smarter and much meaner than the lawyer that you've had.

It's way past time playing nice here.

And so we need to make an example out of these people.

I'm going to start filing with social services.

I'm going to file 60 different ways.

I'm going to make all of these people's lives miserable so we can put an end to this.

And so you guys have been trying to, you've been trying to play real sweet and real nice, and your lawyer was old, and then he died, and he was playing nice with the small town judge instead of just going in there and raising hell.

And so you need an attorney that you don't even like,

that kind of mean attorney, okay?

And that's so smart, and they're a little more expensive usually, but they're worth it.

And try to bring it to a head.

That's the only answer I know for you.

But just talking to you for four minutes is exhausting listening to what you've been through.

And it's so chaotic.

It's all over the place.

It's left, right, turn, flip, back, flip, double flip, turn right, turn left.

There's all these different moving parts.

And it just takes up, you're burning all your calories on these issues.

And

so.

You know, you got to spend the right amount of money in a short period of time and blow everything up,

or you've got to turn and talk about, you know, what's the right thing to do i i i tried to be in my son's life i tried to be in this uh

child that was born outside of wedlock's life i tried to do that and instead i what i got is crazy women uh and so um you know i don't know i can't tell you you're gonna have to measure how far into this you go but i can tell that there's no um

systematic anything in your description of this.

And that tells me that you're getting the runaround rather than giving the runaround.

And so in a lawsuit situation, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

And so I want you to file like, I want an attorney's filing like seven motions every morning just to piss everybody off, including the judge.

I'm just going to screw with people for a living for a short period of time

and just knock the snot out of everyone to where they're all back on their heels and they're all burning calories trying to keep up with you instead of the other way around.

It's your only shot here.

Or you need to flip and just walk and let the thing die.

And then they'll come wandering in, maybe wanting child support.

Oh, wait, maybe now we get a hearing.

Okay.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Money's tied to this.

So I don't know, Tanner.

I can't tell what's going on.

I can just tell that you're worn out and that you've been getting the runaround rather than giving the run around.

I can feel that, and that's where all your money's going.

Because the legal system is not a just system

and it is not a good system.

It sucks and it will drain you dry.

So

I pray good luck for you, sir, but I don't.

I think it's going to require some pretty aggressive moves beyond what you've been doing.

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Brian is in Pittsburgh.

Hey Brian, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello Mr.

Ramsey, thanks for having me on.

Sure, what's up?

So

recently passed away and they're with the Lord and they left myself and my brother an inheritance.

We both paid off our mortgages and then we both invested.

He invested in a way, I'd say, the typical average way, and I sought out like a Christian financial advisor, and he wanted, or I invested in, I guess what we'd say, more Christian-friendly stocks.

And he invested around June last year.

And so he had his money in about six months, and he had made probably 50%

more.

than what I had made with my stocks.

And they had only been in there about three or four months.

When I talked to his advisor then and told her how I was investing and she said oh she just she didn't say it out loud but basically what she was saying is I'm going to earn about half as much as he is if I invest that way so I wanted to see what your thoughts were on that

well

there are a couple of thoughts that come.

Number one, that way is you've got a small portfolio of single stocks and you can't keep up with good mutual funds regardless of the ethical standards of the selection

so just you because he's he's investing he's more diversified um across a many many stocks and mutual funds and so forth i would assume in other words like you got 10 or 15 stocks he's probably got 300

okay

so that that way

even if we take out the ethical considerations of the selection of those companies,

it's not there.

And so it's not just that Sin pays more.

Okay.

It's the way you've structured your portfolio is the thing.

Now,

then

if you want to investigate a mutual fund that has done pretty well with that, the Timothy Plan out of Atlanta has a long track record.

I am in that one.

Do what?

I am in that one.

That's one of the, there's 10 different funds that I'm in in the Timothy Plan.

Oh, you're in funds.

You're not in.

I thought you said you bought stocks.

I'm not really sure what it is.

I just invested with them.

Ding, ding, ding.

Okay.

Number one, don't put the money in things you don't know what they are.

Okay.

And the Timothy plan just rung a bell because it was one of the things on your list, but you don't know much about it is what you're telling me.

Because it has kept up pretty close to the S ⁇ P the last time I looked at it.

So, and they are selecting stocks that are,

you you know, I guess the best way to say it is anti-sin stocks, if you will.

So no alcohol, no tobacco, no drug companies that are doing the abortion pill, no anything that follows an evangelical belief system,

no wines,

you know, no alcohol of any kind, no tobacco of any kind will be the two primaries.

And then, again, anything having to do with the right to life, those sorts of things

is that that's where Timothy's going to fall.

All right.

And then you can get into

that.

Now,

I like

the fact that your heart is telling you to try to do this.

Okay.

I do want to give you,

because my heart functions the exact same way.

I don't want to do things with money that God gave me to manage that is dishonoring to him.

And that's your...

That's your approach, I assume, right?

Correct.

Okay.

Now, once I did that, then I had to think through,

okay, what is really happening here?

All right.

Let me give you an example.

If you disagree

with something morally that

company A is doing,

and so you don't buy company A's stock,

that does not,

if you did buy company A's stock anyway,

That company does not get the money.

I'm buying that stock from Jade, who's selling it.

Unless the company is doing a treasury issue or an initial public offering, they're not getting the money when you buy the stock.

That's a very good point.

So you're not funding the thing that they're doing when you buy their stock.

Now, are you benefiting when they make money from the thing that they're doing?

Yes, you would be.

So that would be valid.

But if I buy a, you know, like George posted the other day that his Tesla reached 200,000 miles, he was real proud the battery battery lasted that long.

And we made fun of him for it and all this.

Well, some of these lefties that are going berserk on Elon all trash George in the columns because he has no ethics.

George did not buy the Tesla new.

He bought it from a guy named whatever, Joe.

Joe got the money, not Elon.

So there's no ethical consideration for George buying a used Tesla, nor positive or negative.

He did not support Elon or, you know, whichever side of that you want to come down on.

So it's just stupid people posting in George's comments, which is generally who posts in comments anyway.

But,

you know, and I was just laughing at him at lunch.

He's telling me about this because he reads the comments.

I don't read them.

And he told me about this.

And I'm like, George, number one, stupid people.

Number two, you didn't, you bought a used Tesla.

Now, Rachel bought a new Tesla.

Okay.

So Rachel, you can trash because she supported.

And she didn't do it to support Elon.

She did did it because she wanted a car with a battery or whatever.

And she didn't even do it for climate change.

She did it because she thought it was cool.

But anyway,

but you see what I'm saying?

So the deal, Brian, is if you're buying stock in one of these companies, you're buying it from someone else who's selling it, not from the company.

That's the thing.

The second thing I had to consider in my decision-making period, and I'm not trying to talk you out of doing what you're doing.

I think you can do it do what you're doing successfully if you'll manage your portfolio closer and do stuff like the Timothy Plan has done.

They have proven it's doable.

Now, the second thing I had to decide is I also do business in other places with companies that engage in things I don't.

So if you're anti-alcohol and anti-tobacco, I don't know where you're going to buy groceries

because they sell tobacco.

Well, I'm thinking about oil.

And how everything goes back to oil.

Like you, you got to do it.

I don't know how you're going to.

It's hard to do anything.

I don't know how you're going to support.

I mean, you know,

Your bank

supports United Way, which supports Planned Parenthood.

So they're doing abortions with your bank money.

But how far down this rabbit hole are you going to go to measure everything and try to figure out who's doing what and which CEO's got a personal life you agree with and doesn't?

I can't keep up with all of it.

It's too much legalism for me.

And so I don't, I mean, there may be a hustler magazine in the market inside when I bought gas out at the pub.

And so I guess I supported pornography.

I don't know.

But I don't think that's, that's not how my brain works.

So,

like, if I, if I don't engage somewhere in the process, I don't have any influence anymore.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

Those are some thoughts I went to.

And so I quit worrying about it.

Yeah.

I'm not, I'm not flippant about it.

I'm not going to directly invest in a company that's doing harm to people.

And if I can't stand what they're doing, I generally quit buying their products in general,

you know, just as a personal thing and makes me want to throw up.

So I just don't do it.

But it's not really some big boycott.

It's not really some holiness thing on my part.

It's more of just a temper fit.

I think, Dave, what you said is exactly right.

Unfortunately, we do live in a broken world.

And whatever you choose to focus on, there's going to be a rabbit hole.

I mean, if I say, Dave, who made that shirt?

Where'd that come from?

Was that rut row?

I got no idea.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, you could pick anything and go down a deep rabbit hole.

And as people, we can't carry all of those burdens all the time.

We're not intended to.

And that's where my brain goes because there's a cause and probably a very meaningful cause underneath every stone that you turn if you go down deep enough.

And I just think it's in a moment, what are you choosing to focus on?

And I think like for him, if that has been a convicted area in his heart,

like I said, I'm fine with going with it.

I'm just telling you how I

and I and I don't, so I don't spend an inordinate amount of time time trying to only find quote unquote ethical stocks to invest in.

Yeah, it's just and that's my reasoning, mainly because their company's not getting the money anyway.

And I, and I don't think George benefited, because I'm positive George did not benefit Elon by buying a used Tesla.

Elon didn't get the money, stupid.

That's how it works.

Come on.

I mean, this is dumb.

Well, it's an ethical consideration.

Who are you typing this on?

An iPhone?

You moron?

It was made by a child in China?

I mean, come on.

Geez, you people in your mother's basement with an opinion.

you drive me nuts.

This is the Ramsey Show.

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Anna is in Austin, Texas.

Hi, Anna.

How are you?

Hi, Dave.

I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Well, I received this weekend.

I received some devastating news

that my husband

was scammed out of

almost his entire 401k.

And

so now it's tax time.

And

we're going to have to pay taxes on it.

So we have no more retirement.

and our savings is going to be wiped out.

And

I don't know where he began from here.

How did he get scammed?

What did he put it in?

It was a crypto.

Crypto.

It was a, yes.

How much?

And

$270,000.

$270,000.

Yes, sir.

Oof.

This is a little bit of a backstory.

I'm not making excuses for him, but there's a little bit of a backstory as to why he felt financially strapped, that he felt he needed to do this to secure

our financial future.

How old are you?

I'm 57.

He's 58.

We have no debt.

We paid off our home in February of 2022.

What's your household income?

Right I right now he makes

approximately $98,000

annually.

And

I I'm currently not working.

I

had to quit my job in January of 2023 because I was diagnosed with cancer and

the medication that I'm on just causes me a lot of side effects that we chose it's better for me to stay home because because we could afford it obviously we had no debt again and um

he was i think he

he was looking into securing our future so that he may be able to retire early he started

um doing some research as to how to invest money he knows nothing about he's not he's not educated in that so

your voice is fairly muffled speak directly into your phone please okay there you go um he's not okay he's not um no he's obviously, even if he is educated, he's not wise.

And he got desperate.

It sounded like.

He did.

And

the way.

Right after I get desperate, I usually get stupid.

That's what it was.

And oh.

So that happened in January 2024.

In about March or April, he came up to me and told me that

he had invested a little bit of money and I was like, okay.

And he says, and he showed me that it was, he showed me the app and he showed me that the money was, I mean, we had made it, made about three, four hundred thousand.

And I said, okay, well, how much did you invest?

And he told me, at that time, he said 30,000.

I said, where did you get the money from?

Because I take care of all the banking.

And he said that he pulled it out of the 401k.

And I said, okay, no mistake.

You know,

we'll get through this.

I found a temporary job.

I made enough money to cover the taxes.

I calculated we probably owe about 6,000 taxes.

I said okay great.

Well I'll take care of it and I'll get a permanent job so it won't affect our savings.

And

now that it's tax time I kept looking for the form that comes in the 1099R I believe and he kept making excuses as to why he hadn't gotten he had we hadn't received it.

So I kind of had a feeling that it was worse than what I knew and that it was worse than what he had told me.

And this weekend he gave me the paper and it was $270,000.

So now we will have to and now it's worth zero, of course.

Yes.

Well, he I looked at it last night and there was about $16,000 in it right now.

Was it really a scam or did he just lose?

Like, did he get scammed by a scammer or he invested the money and he lost the investment?

No, it wasn't an actual scammer.

I had demanded that I, back when he told me it was $30,000, I demanded to know where he sent it, how he sent it.

I wanted to know everything, and apparently it was a company in Hong Kong.

And

I looked up the address, and it's in the slums of Hong Kong.

I'm like,

why didn't you do the research before?

Well, the thing is now, he said that it was the 200,000.

I'm like, how can you go from 30,000 to 270,000?

And he said it was about the same time.

He invested here, you know, in a couple of different

does he now own that this is stupid or is he still defending?

No, no, he owned it.

He's been living with this for the past year, and it's, I mean, he had his.

Well, he was lying about it 20 minutes ago.

Yeah, you said he just came clean with it.

Yeah, he just came clean with it, but he was living with that lie for this part of the year.

But I I mean, he's now saying out loud, I completely screwed this up.

Yes, he has.

That's important because otherwise he's going to do it again.

Right.

And he's like, I'm prepared to work till I'm 70.

I mean,

I'm losing a job right now.

That's not a choice at this point.

Belly up, buddy.

How's your health?

Are you improving?

It's getting there.

I'm on a clinical trial.

Okay.

And so I'm hoping that this will be something that will, you know, give me more time.

And I feel pretty good, except, you know, just the usual side effects.

I mean, not the usual, but the side effects of the medication.

But thank you.

I'm happy to, you know, every day is a good day.

And I'm not going to let this bring me down.

But it does scare me for our future.

The good news is you have no payments.

And so what he needs to do is max out his 401k.

And you all need to max out your Roth IRAs.

And you need to tell him that if he makes any transactions without the two of you being in agreement ever again, that that will be the last time he'll do so as your husband.

Absolutely.

He needs to understand that this has extreme consequences.

Because he not only did something stupid, he lied about it.

At length, deceived, created a web, a full scenario of lies.

That concerns me actually more than his stupidity.

Correct.

And so,

you know, that's a big deal.

So, yeah, you guys can catch up.

I mean, you can make 100, 120, and you can max out your 401ks and Roths, max out your Roths and work another 10 years, 12 years, and you will have enough of a nest egg to retire on if you don't do this again.

But as soon as he gets desperate and tries to pull off a fast one, that's when you get messed over.

And so, ouch, I'm so sorry, honey, with everything you're facing.

It's just not fair.

Wow.

All right, guys, let me give you a couple principles on that.

There's a guy who scammed a bunch of people and wrote a book from jail in the 70s.

The book he wrote about himself was Conman or Saint.

Obviously, he thought he was a saint, but he was in jail, so he was a con man.

Okay.

But I read that book

in the early 80s as a teenager, early 20s.

And the only thing I really got out of the book was he said, it's very, it's almost impossible to con

someone unless they are afraid or greedy.

This guy was afraid.

His wife had cancer.

He's trying to get a bunch of money so that he can not have to work and take care of her.

And he got desperate based on fear.

And that set him up in the emotional category to be conned.

The other crypto people that get conned are the greedy ones.

They're trying to make double your money in 20 minutes because I'm the cool kid and I'm the smart one and I grew up with a cell phone in my hand, a smartphone in my hand, so I know everything about digital.

No, you don't.

You're a greedy fool and you're going to lose your butt in crypto also.

The second thing

you can do is, who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies?

The heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain.

If you have to hide the investment or the financial move from your spouse, warning, warning, warning, you're screwing up.

I have no lack of gain because share and I talk about it before we do it.

And it keeps me on the rails.

This is the Ramsey Show.

All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions.

Possibly, yeah.

I think so.

Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.

So why is that?

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.

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 on the credit union.

So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric.

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.

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

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.

And the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you're right.

Their customer service is unbelievable.

Winston and I just signed up and we got an account.

And I'm not kidding.

It took less than five minutes.

It was so user-friendly.

Like the step-by-step approach was unbelievable.

And then the next day, my phone rings and it says fair wins on my phone.

So I answered it and talked to someone there.

And they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.

And so again, they just really care about your experience.

And I so, so appreciate that.

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

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.

Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general.

And so for me to do this is a big deal.

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.

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.

If it sounds too good to be true,

it is.

That'll keep you from getting scammed, too.

If you think you found the one place in the history of man that you can double your money easy and quick,

you're about to be scammed.

Sounds too good to be true.

It is.

It's one of my gripes about crypto.

It's not the concept of crypto.

It's the spirit that's around it,

which is all of that.

Quick, easy money that only the cool kids can get in on.

And if you're not cool and you're not digital, You're just an old boomer, Dave.

You don't know.

Oh, yeah, I do know.

Absolutely, I know.

Completely understand how crypto works.

It's not the working of it that bothers me.

It's the spirit of greed that's around it, which is

greed is different than ambition.

Greed is simply, I want something super fast and easy.

And honestly, I just don't find that in the money world.

I find slow and steady.

Every time I meet wealthy people that have built wealth and have sustained it, they are the tortoise.

They're not the hare.

That's right.

Slow and steady.

Slow and steady.

Slow and steady.

Slow and steady.

They're freaking boring, is what they are.

Slow and steady.

There's no flash.

They're not on the cover of Fast Company magazine.

They're on the cover of Slow Company magazine.

Slow and steady.

Not in a hurry.

It's okay.

I'm not desperate.

I'm not greedy.

I'm not fearful.

Slow and steady.

Just slow your roll, boys.

You won't get screwed.

That's what happens.

But you step up into an old bear trap when you're trying to get something for nothing quick.

And whatever your motivation, that's still where you're going to end up.

Do you know what I think is a deeper part of that?

Is

hopefully I can articulate this in the way I'm thinking it.

When you do something that's slow and steady and it's a day-after-day discipline, there is more confidence that you have to put in yourself.

versus somebody else who's promising you results quickly.

I can just quickly put my confidence in them and they'll take care of it.

That plan will take care of it.

That drug will take care of it, whatever that thing is, that's the quick thing.

Whereas the slow and steady almost always depends mostly on you.

You are the, you're the thing that's showing up week after week, month after month, whether it's a training program or an investing slow and steady overtime.

I don't feel confident in myself, so I have to find someone else that can place my confidence in.

I think that's what's at the core of that, Dave.

You know, I ran into that when I used to, we used to coach all these NFL guys, and I would go into a rookie camp and try to explain to these NFL rookies, NFL stands for not for long.

You're going to be there 3.8 years on average, and you can't buy all of your cousins a house.

You don't have the money.

And so, but I remember talking to one of those guys.

He goes, Dave, I got it covered.

I got me a man.

And I went, oh, I got a guy?

I got a guy.

Okay.

Yeah, you're screwed.

You're about to lose all your money.

When you say, I got a guy, that's exactly what you're talking about right there, isn't it?

Yeah, that's what it is.

He's got it under control.

I know how to play football.

I don't know anything about money, so I got a guy.

And I don't have to be responsible then because I got a guy.

Yeah, that's right.

And it's all floating.

The responsibility.

Yeah,

I didn't have to do anything.

I didn't have to think.

I didn't have to learn.

I didn't have to grow.

All I got to do is put the ball in the end zone.

That's a good point.

Because I told him as soon as he said, I got a guy, I go, you're screwed.

I don't even know who your guy is.

You're screwed.

I don't even care who it is because it's your responsibility to handle this money, not his.

That's right.

And so you're screwed.

You're going to lose it all.

You're going to be one of those people on the dead gum Sports Illustrated special of stupid athletes that lost all their money.

You'll be the next one.

And that's exactly where you're going to be.

And the other guys are laughing as I'm doing that because that's kind of exactly how I answered the question from stage.

But yeah,

I got a guy.

Colby is next.

Colby's in Des Moines, Iowa.

Hey, Colby, how can we help?

Hi, Mr.

Ramsey.

How are you today?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

A good deal.

So I am I'm a college student a long ways from home, halfway across the country, and I have a cattle herd that I bought

from one cow and

bred up until

all right size over the last 11 years.

And I'm now deciding to get out of the cattle market.

And so I'm going to be selling off my cows.

And I'm going to have about $20,000 come into my possession.

And I'm just trying to find what the best way is to safely safely store that money and I've thought about investing it

into a CD or some sort of retirement account or something that can build wealth over time.

You're in school?

Yes, sir.

What are you studying?

Ag business.

What year are you?

I'm a sophomore here.

How are you paying for it?

My parents are helping me as well as I have scholarships.

Okay.

All right.

You know what?

I think the best investment Colby can make is Colby.

And that means I want you to finish this degree debt-free

more than I want you to be a professional investor.

So if I were in your shoes, I would just park this in a high-yield savings

as an insurance policy that you get out of school 100% debt-free.

And then when you get out of school, the $20,000 will have grown a little bit, not a lot in two years, but when you get out of school, you'll have a little more money and you can use it to set up house and start your new life when you get out of school if you don't need it to finish school.

But you're a, the actual math on you getting a four-year degree, you're obviously a kid grew up on a farm, you're growing, you grew a herd of cattle, and that's back home and your

dad and mom's helping you get them sold off.

You're going to put that money in the bank.

And

now you're getting an ag business degree, which is a valuable degree.

It's a degree you're actually going to freaking use.

Way to go.

Good job.

And so that,

what you learn is going to give you a better, for what you pay to learn that, is going to give you a better mathematical return than putting it into a mutual fund

because you are a better investment than a mutual fund, literally.

I mean,

not only philosophically and spiritually, but financially, you're a better investment.

You know, so what you're going to make because you're getting smarter, in other words, is is

going to be a good return on the tuition dollars.

So, yeah, pay cash for your school.

And when you get out, then you've got a little bit chunk sitting there if you don't touch it.

Yeah, it's perfect.

That'll be your emergency fund, and it'll be your first department fund, which is wonderful.

Yeah, that's the opposite of getting fancy right there.

You know, if you want to take some risk with it and put some of it in a S ⁇ P 500, you could.

It's down right now.

It's a good time.

Everything's down.

I feel like I'd probably still wait, though, Dave.

I wouldn't.

I would just, I would do just what I said.

I'd just put it in a high-yield savings.

I don't because I really don't want that.

I mean, if he put 10,000 of his 20 in the S ⁇ P and it goes down 2,000 bucks, which it would have in the last three weeks,

you know, he's going to freak out.

The only way I'd do that probably is if you had a bunch of money somewhere else that you're like, hey, I already have that.

I already have my emergency fund.

I already have the money set aside for, you know, and you didn't need it.

But knowing that this is a short horizon and you're likely going to need the money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I i think you get out of school and you pay cash for school and you're studying there in iowa way to go man proud of you good that's good stuff i like that

here's the other thing

we know that kids um that know how to work before they get to go to college and let me tell you what you you grow some cattle That's the grow a little herd.

You've been doing some work.

Yeah, like some real work, like early in the morning, late at night.

It's cold outside, all that kind of stuff.

And no bitching and whining.

Go get your work done.

And that kid, he's set.

I mean, his mom and dad have not only given him the ability to go to school, they've helped him get in school, but they also gave him work ethic.

Oh, by the way, they taught him how ag business works.

We just turned one cow into a small herd

over 11 years and show him how this works.

So he's got hands-on P ⁇ L experience.

That's right.

And

what a gift.

Yeah, he's going to be all right.

He'll be just fine.

Yeah, I mean, there's something about that that we lost when the vast majority of us no longer grew up on a farm.

Back when most Americans started their lives and their careers on a farm, they started life with a different, with a callus on their hands.

They know how to do something.

I think it is important to get outside.

You have to learn how to work.

You got to learn how to sweat.

do things that are uncomfortable very early on.

To win.

Yeah.

That's where winning usually comes from.

So what a great kid.

He's on his way.

And what a great, mom and dad.

We salute you.

Well done.

You did it.

You did it.

You did it.

That's cool.

Very good.

This is the Ramsey Show.

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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.

Jade Washall, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

TJ's in Pittsburgh.

Hi, TJ.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

So ten months ago, my father unexpectedly passed away, and he had two apartment buildings that inevitably fell into mine and my mother's hands.

I'm an only child.

So

my question today is just is do we keep the buildings or do we sell one?

Oh, only one, not both?

So, yeah, one of them is it's 17 units in total.

Uh one of the buildings is twelve units and the other one is five units.

Um the the twelve unit one,

whenever he passed, uh the initial thought was to sell them.

So I I just posted it on Zillow and Facebook as as an off-market deal.

And we had a lot of interest in it.

We had offers for 1.3, 1.4, but the number my dad uh wanted was 1.5.

So I really wanted to honor that.

And the 1.4 offer, the the guy was really interested.

He came and looked at everything but the building was only only seven of the units were filled and the other apartments that weren't they all needed done so that's why we didn't sell at that time and that was inevitably like why everybody was turned off from buying the building

that was eight months ago so the last eight months my mother and I have been working our butts off flipping those apartments and we now have it that 10 of the 12 are rented.

So the question has been popping back up, do we try to sell it again or do we

keep the building?

Both situations are a blessing.

But

who owns it?

You or your mom?

My mother.

Okay, so it's not we, it's her.

It is, it is legally

you when she dies.

Yes, yes.

Legal.

I say legally because

we work as a team.

She couldn't do it without me.

I couldn't do it without her.

Well, what does she want to do?

What does she want to do?

Why are you

working?

I mean, what do you do for a living?

So I do YouTube full-time, which I know what that sounds like, but

I'm in a group channel.

We have 350,000 subscribers.

And it's

how much are you making on YouTube?

So it's different every month, but around 2,000 a month.

Okay.

So you're not making a living yet, but you're making some money.

Okay.

And

that's your only job.

I also have a Christian clothing brand that I run.

That's the other part.

Is it profitable?

Yes.

Okay.

And how old are you?

24.

Okay.

The way to decide whether to keep something, I'm sorry for the loss of your dad,

is

to decide what's best for your mom yes not what your dad wanted

yes other than the fact he would have wanted what's best for your mom too i'm sure but but now in this situation your mom's over there flipping apartments with her 24-year-old son who's a youtuber um yes so what's best for your mom it's probably to not be in this business

okay

i guess what do you what do you think

what do you think

say that again i said what do you think do you think it's but Do you think she wants to be in it or she just got left in it?

She's in a very tough situation, too, because she also works full-time.

But

we're surviving.

We have been doing it.

I mean, we were obviously thrown into it.

It was all unexpected.

I'm hearing what you're feeling.

I'm asking about her.

Right.

You're extrapolating the way you feel about it onto her.

That's not accurate.

She lost her husband.

She lost her husband and she's having to hold all this together.

Right.

I might be wrong, but I don't think she's having fun.

No,

it's not typically a fun situation.

No.

This is also her life insurance, quote unquote.

She was never.

Is it all paid off as a property clear?

No, no.

There's

$400,000 on the mortgage for the 12-unit building.

The other building is about $200,000 on the mortgage.

And then her personal home is about $30,000.

And then miscellaneous things come to about $12,000, $20,000.

So it's a little bit more than a million.

So you could clearly clear a little over a million selling the 12-unit and pay off her house and put the money in investments, and her life will calm way down.

Why wouldn't you want to sell the five-unit one as well?

Yeah.

Just clear it all.

The five-unit one has been knock on wood a breeze.

There's been very little issues.

And she is able, her and I are able to run that smoothly without stress being thrown into the factor.

It's the 12-unit one that is like every week

ring, we don't get a phone.

If you had a pile of money in the middle of the table, if she had a pile of money in the middle of the table and didn't own that, I don't think she'd go buy it.

Yeah, and it's only been 10 months, you said.

So it's not like you guys have been doing this as a quote breeze for years and years.

So I just wonder about that statement:

the owning it for 10 months?

Yeah, that it's a breeze.

I think Dave might be right, and it might be

at a minimum, we're getting rid of the 12 immediately for 1.4, 1.5.

Yes, I would sell that.

Because

I'm looking at this situation, and I'm hearing a widow that inherited her husband and her son's dream of owning real estate, and I don't think it's her dream.

I might be wrong, but I'm just reading between the lines, and I'm listening to this.

And

the thing you've got to do, be very, very careful of, TJ, in this situation is to not let your

desire, your dream interfere with what's best for her.

And I'm not talking about what's best for her financially.

I'm talking about the calories you all are burning, she's burning, trying to pull all this and keep all this done while she's working a full-time job.

I'd put a million dollars in the bank if I were her, in a mutual fund if I were her, and I'd be out of the apartment business.

And I love real estate.

I'd probably buy that myself.

I mean, I love that stuff.

So that's not the

question of the investment.

It's a question of the appropriateness of the investment for the people that are involved.

And the good news for you to do.

Hey, the one that's a breeze, if it turns out not to be a breeze a year later, you could dump it too.

Yeah.

And then TJ can then put more of his time into doing things that are making him money.

Yeah.

Instead of

instead of working on cleaning carpet in his mother's apartment complex.

Yeah.

And

which is a pain in the butt.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Been there, done that.

It's not easy.

So it's tough.

Sunk cost analysis is pretend you have that pile of money and not that thing.

Would you go buy that thing with that pile of money?

Many times the answer is no.

I'll bet you if I had a million one sitting in that lady's kitchen table and she didn't own this apartment and gave her the opportunity to go buy this apartment, she'd say not just no, but

yeah, that's what she would say.

I'm just betting that.

I might be wrong.

No, you're right.

I'm thinking she'd be, but I mean, I'm sure her husband would be like me.

He was probably good at it.

It's not a big deal.

It's what he does and it's our running a business.

And yeah, but it's a little different when it's left to her and the and the son to do it.

So

yeah, don't don't.

You can go buy some more real estate with the cash after she passes away if you want to be in the real estate business, TJ, but don't make your mom stay in it for your sake.

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Well, let's face it, money and relationships are intertwined, and when they're out of whack, they're both out of whack.

You don't have to stay stuck in that, though.

I'll be with Dr.

John Deloney in six cities in the next few weeks.

We're going to be doing the Money and Relationships Tour.

We want to have you come out.

We'd love to have you.

Dr.

D and I will be in Louisville, Kentucky, April 21st.

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We're going to be doing some stuff we've never done before on tour, and you guys are going to have a good time.

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Might not be in all states.

All right.

Today's question comes from Tarek in Washington, D.C.

He says, I understand your advice that a house payment should be close to a quarter of your take-home pay.

However, if someone is a high-income earner, say $20,000 a month, couldn't the percentage be higher?

If the mortgage were 40%, that would still leave $12,000 a month for all other expenses.

Would a sliding scale

be

more applicable depending on income?

You know, for this,

you want to buy a bigger house.

He wants to buy a bigger house.

I mean, that's

probably, Dave, there's probably a point where it does run out, right?

Like when you're really just Dave Ramsey.

I could see that.

I don't have a house payment, so it doesn't

go away.

But I mean, there could probably be a point where it doesn't hold as much water.

But I think at that level that you're talking about, it still does.

Because really the way I think about it is all of these percentages.

as a whole.

So if you say, okay, 25%, that's going to my mortgage.

And then, yeah, at some point, you're going to need to be investing 15%, you know, into at least 15%, right, into mutual funds.

Then if

we say, you know, generosity is important.

So you're going to be needing to do 10% there.

And let's just say, yeah, now you're in baby steps five and six, too.

So you've got kids college and maybe you're paying extra extra towards the house.

That could be another 10%.

So now we're at 60%

and we really haven't even, we haven't gone on vacation.

We haven't just been living life.

So you see that the money goes very quickly.

And that for me is why 25%

is, yeah, it makes it to where that house is a blessing and not a burden.

And when you start creeping above that, you will find, especially, especially depending on season of life, you will find that it's too tight to make everything work.

If you have, if you're trying to cash flow college, if you're trying to cash flow daycare, when you are out of whack in those in those areas, you will feel it very quickly.

And that's that for me is a real-time example of that.

No, Tariq, a sliding scale would not be appropriate.

A percentage is appropriate because a sliding scale would make the assumption that you're going to keep the stupid mortgage.

I want you to pay off the stupid mortgage.

And if you keep the percentages down, you can pay off the stupid mortgage.

We're not keeping it.

It's not a pet.

We're not trying to manage our debt.

We're trying to freaking kill it.

So that changes the discussion, dude.

If you want to keep it around like a pet, then a sliding scale would be applicable.

But wealthy people don't do that.

Wealthy people pay off their mortgage, as is told to us in the data when we studied...

More millionaires than anyone else has ever studied in the Ramsey Research Project.

They pay off their mortgage, Tariq.

They don't don't keep it around and manage it.

So, no.

You just want a bigger house.

That's all it is.

No.

And his.

Get your stinking debt down and pay it off and kill it fast.

Then you can build wealth and do anything you want to do at that point from that point on.

Yeah, because

you're just looking at the numbers and you're going, $12,000.

I'll still have $12,000.

That's a lot of money.

But you're not thinking about all of the other things that you will need to do with that money that makes it.

You throw that money at the debt so you kill the debt

instead of you know, gee, it's not we're not again we're again we're not trying to manage this now change of subjects.

Yeah, did you notice Jade

that the news people are melting down?

Oh, oh, they're

Did you notice that the internet is ablaze That we're all going to die because we've had three or four consecutive days of the stock market going down yes Dave I've noticed

I'm real I think Charles

is alive and well.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

The market's down.

Well, over the last two years, it's still net up 80%.

Let's not forget that.

So here's the rule, boys and girls.

If you're going to be an investor, the definition of investor is you are thinking long-term.

If you're going to be a day trader, We can look stupid up in the dictionary and find your picture because 82% of day traders lose money.

So stupid is what that is.

But we don't do day trading here.

We do investing.

We have a long-term

mentality.

So when, if you have a long-term mentality and the stock market goes down, those of us that have been investing in the market steadily for 30 or 40 years, not 30 or 40 minutes,

we smile when it goes down.

and buy more.

It's on sale.

When I was a little kid, there was a company called Kmart.

Oh, yeah, I remember Kmart.

Go shopping at Kmart.

The blue light.

And they had this little thing that they, a little cart, they would roll up with a blue light on it.

And they would put something in the store on sale and turn on the blue light.

And all the redneck hillbillies would run to the blue light like moth

and buy crap, cheap crap at Kmart on sale for a blue light special.

It was a blue light sale.

The stock market, boys and girls, has a blue light over it right now.

It's on sale.

Not, I'm going to lose everything.

Oh, God.

Oh, geez, take a dadgum chill pill.

Seriously.

Y'all lose your dadgum minds.

Turn off the news in your computer.

You have to.

Jeez.

You have to.

Investors are like,

right now,

do I know how much it's going to fall under the Trump tariff thing, whatever the flip you want to call this thing is he's doing right now?

I can't tell.

But

aside from all that, do I am my three?

Doesn't matter.

100% chance that the American economy is not going to crumble over this.

100% chance.

So 100% chance that a year from now we're going to be sitting here smiling, those of us that did not take out our money.

I know that's right.

100% chance.

Y'all remember when COVID came and the world was coming to an end?

Y'all remember the Fauci pandemic, right?

And so,

you know, you remember?

And the stock market dropped 57%.

Oh, my God.

Not only are we all going to die, but we're all going to die broke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Neither one happened.

No.

Didn't die.

Didn't die broke.

Kept buying.

All the way down, all the way up.

Last two years, the market's up.

Dadgum, 80% plus percent.

In two years,

you've almost doubled your money.

Did you hear any headlines going, you're so rich, you can't breathe?

Nobody said that.

What if they were as enthusiastic about reporting prosperity as they were a temporary dip in the market?

Think about this.

You people, man, it's like the same thing.

It's like

we had thunderstorms come through and I got seven different apps on my phone going off saying, you're going to die.

You're going to die.

If you don't believe me, the other app just told you you're going to die.

Good God, man.

the anxiety-inducing stuff we have in this culture today.

It's unbelievable.

So, yeah, chill your butt out.

The only person that gets hurt on a roller coaster are those that jump off in the middle.

Keep your hands inside the ride at all times, boys and girls, and wait for the roll coaster to come to a stop.

And you will be just fine.

Yes, you might get a thrill.

You might get a thrill.

You might hear click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click when it's going up.

And then you go,

right?

You may get a thrill, okay?

It could happen.

Welcome to investing.

But investors stay the course.

They stay the course.

20 years from today, 10 years from today, what do you think it's going to be?

I lost.

Oh, no, you didn't lose all your money.

You didn't lose all your money.

Calm.

Damn.

Just ride the ride.

It's okay.

It's what I'm doing.

I would put more in if I had a Lexter right now.

This

is the Ramsey Show.

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Enter before April 30th at ramseysolutions.com slash teacher.

That's ramseysolutions.com slash teacher.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Eric and Cassie are with us.

Hey guys, how are you?

Hi, Dave.

Hi, Jade.

We're doing well.

Good.

Good, great.

Thank you.

How are you?

Better than we deserve, brother.

Where do you all live?

We live in Louisville, Kentucky.

Oh, just up the road a few hours.

Well, welcome to Nashville.

How much debt have you two paid off?

So we've paid off $283,000.

Yeah.

How long did that take?

Took us two years and eight months.

Good for you.

And range of income during that time?

Yes, sir.

So we started out at $189,000 and we finished at $240,000.

Way to go.

What do y'all do for a living?

I work for a mortgage lender, actually.

I lead the sales team.

And I work for a regional bank located out of Louisville.

Okay.

Wow.

You managed to get your income to go up as a mortgage lender in the last two years and eight months.

You are a magic animal.

I wish I could take credit for it.

It was more Cassie than it was in eight days.

Man, it's tough out there in the mortgage world right now.

Oh, man.

Hoping these rates come back down with the stock market movement.

It'll be great for you.

Yes, sir.

So $283,000, two years and eight months.

Would that be your house?

Yeah, it was our house and also two cars.

So

yeah, we purchased our home in May of 2022.

And a banker and a mortgage guy paid off their house.

We did.

I love it.

We know.

Yeah, we, we, uh, we know.

Oh, it was a benefit.

That's right.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And so we knew at that point that we wanted to be debt-free, but we weren't really doing anything to do that.

It was just a dream.

So I think it was January of 2022.

We had kind of a financial conversation about, okay, what are our goals in the next two years?

What do we want to do two to three years?

And so.

Knock it out.

Knock it out.

Knock it out.

What's the house worth?

The house is probably around $275,000.

And how much is in your old retirement nest takes?

Retirement, we've got about $500,000 for mine.

And then I think on the way over here, we said you had around $200.

I think together, we were just shy of $800.

Nice.

Okay.

So well over a million dollar net worth.

Yeah, good.

Way to go, you two.

I'm so proud of you.

Thank you because

we started the job.

I'm 37.

And I'm 34.

Wow.

Young millionaires.

Yeah.

So proud of y'all.

Thank you.

We didn't really know how to go about it.

And so we looked at the baby steps, found we had already knocked out one, three, and four.

Five wasn't applicable, but it's on the way.

Nice.

So we had to go back to two.

To go to two, and that was a big question that we had on the table was,

you know, cars or the house or how do we do this?

We just didn't know, right?

If we did, then we wouldn't have been in debt.

And so we looked at our cars, read, you know, the book.

Yeah, total money makeover is kind of what got us sold into it, Dave.

We started listening to your program and really just made a commitment to each other.

You know, it's a team,

not individuals.

It's both of us together, setting goals and then really holding each other accountable.

One of the stories that we kind of laugh about is I was walking around Cabela's with my brother Andy and he came across a real Dave Ramsey tweet.

Well, it wasn't real, but it said, life short by the boat.

And we laughed.

Have you seen that one?

Yeah.

We laughed when we saw it.

And so

I sent it to Cassie, and she started panicking.

She said, I can't believe Dave would say that.

There's no way.

And everything on the internet is true.

Abraham Lincoln said that.

That's right.

And I think the point of sharing that story is the temptation is real to really deviate from the plan, but really making a commitment to each other, setting a clear goal, and then using the seven baby steps to work all the way through it.

Life is short, but don't buy the boat.

Really pay off the debt.

Or buy the boat in cash after you've paid off the debt.

There we go.

That'll work too.

We can go with that one.

I like it.

I like it.

So let me ask you, you guys said, you said, we knew we wanted to do this.

We didn't know what plan to follow.

Then you found the baby steps or you found more money makeover.

How did you you find it and what made you go, this is the plan?

Yeah, so I think both of us were really, you know, when we had that meeting in January of 23, it's really trying to figure out how to tackle it.

And of course, we had heard of the Ramsey show before,

but we hadn't read the book.

We really hadn't listened much to the radio program.

So it was really just trying to think, what are some logical steps we can do to really start tackling this debt?

And really where we started to struggle was, you know, what do we pay off first?

Like we said, we both work in banking and we thought, well, the interest rate's higher on the, you know, on the house than the cars.

You know, would it make sense to tackle the house first or how do we do it?

And really looking at the seven baby steps really answered that question for us.

And it was really a very simple, straightforward plan that we knew we could do together.

Yeah.

And so reading Total Money Makeover was really what sold us together on that.

And then, of course, we've become listeners since then, too, and really enjoy your show.

Well, thank you.

You know, being in the mortgage business, the banking business, also probably some academic training in those areas

gave you all

probably a huge advantage because you're used to looking at numbers and you're used to thinking through, you know, how to win this process.

And then all we did was just give you a clear plan that matched up with common sense for you.

you know you know like i got a degree in finance but i remember just i you know i remember distinctly the first time uh after sharon and i were married that i sat down this guy started showing me a stupid compound interest chart on investments growing.

And I went,

I got to do that.

It didn't take me about like a nanosecond to do it because I'd played in those numbers, but it never was presented to me like it was for me.

It was just a math test I had to pass, you know, back in college or something.

And but then when I looked at it and I went, wait a minute, that magic of compound interest, as Albert Einstein called it, the eighth wonder of the world.

You know, I can get that working on my favor instead of working against me.

Right.

And Dave, it seems so normal.

I think people become comfortable with debt.

It's so normal to have an auto loan.

It's so normal to have a mortgage loan.

And it doesn't have to be.

And I think that's something that, as we read your book and listened to your show, we shouldn't just accept that as normal.

And both of us work hard.

We make good money.

We've always managed our money fairly well.

But we fell into that trap of, well, doesn't everybody have an auto payment?

Doesn't everybody have a mortgage loan?

You don't have to live like that.

It's a very simple program, very simple steps, straightforward, and you can conquer it.

How does it feel to be millionaires, no payment on your house or anything, and you're not even 40 and a baby on the way?

This is awesome.

Yeah, we're just excited to be new time, you know, new parents.

We have that weight lifted off our shoulders.

We're just

such a huge weight.

I mean, going from even looking a couple years before we bought our home, renting, and just feeling like we were lighting our money on fire every single month or just flushing it down the toilet.

And now we're homeowners.

We own our home.

The bank doesn't own our home.

That's when we bought our our home we were like the bank we the bank bought our home yeah people are like you're homeowners it's like not really the bank owns our home right but we're homeowners and right so it feels great and to anybody that's listening you can do it um it's it's it seems insurmountable when you start but if you just take it one step at a time create a budget that was key after we paid off the house or paid off the cars because we could do that it was the budget um yeah and you start seeing where all this is going yeah i mean we make you got to make it a quarter million dollars you You know, where the flip is going to be?

We're making too much money to be this broke.

To be this broke.

That's right.

So, how are you going to celebrate?

What's next?

Well, we're preparing to be parents.

So

we got really crazy.

We went to dinner when we paid our house off, which was really, really nice.

And planned something else, too.

That's right.

That's right.

Do like a baby moon or something.

That'd be great.

Yeah, we've talked about doing that.

Yeah.

That's still TBD.

Yeah.

I mean, we just paid off the house in February.

So

the baby's due in May.

So we're kind of

figuring out what that big celebration thing is going to be.

Way to go, y'all.

Thank you.

So proud of you.

Well done.

You're amazing.

Rock star couple.

You've changed this baby's life.

You've changed your family tree by doing this and by getting control and working together.

Amazing, amazing.

Eric and Cassie, Louisville, Kentucky, $283,000 paid off in two years and eight months.

House and everything.

Baby steps, millionaires, not even 40, making $189 to 240.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt-free.

Love that.

Yeah, wouldn't you like to be a millionaire before you had your first kid?

34 years old?

Love it.

I wouldn't know how to act.

That is just so freaking awesome.

That is awesome right there.

Man, I'm so proud of them.

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Carol is in Phoenix.

Hey, Carol, how are you?

Hey, I'm doing great.

Good.

What's up?

Well, I'm 63 and a half years old.

My living situation has become a little bit unstable.

I'm single.

And I don't know whether I should take some of my meager retirement savings and buy a townhouse or a place to live or if I should continue maybe to rent and stockpile for retirement.

How much do you have in retirement now?

401k.

I I have $57,831.

Money market, $58,381.

An IRA for $14,981.

I'll have a small

$204 a month coming in from UPS in

perpetuity.

$10,000 in savings, $6,000 in my checking.

And that's all I've got to my name.

No debt.

I drive a

2007 sunburnt car with 144,000 miles on it.

You've been very careful.

Congratulations.

Okay, so you're telling me

you got about $150,000 total to your name, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I just found a second job last week to learn how to do bookkeeping.

So what's the unstable part of the living arrangement?

It's It's where I'm living

that

they may not

rent to me anymore.

It's a little bit of a messy relationship kind of thing.

Were they giving you some sort of great deal, or is it something that you could just take and go elsewhere?

Their home is paid off, and I paid like $450 a month for its expenses.

So super duper cheap.

I just got a raise at work.

Now I'm making $58,000 a year.

But it's no longer fun to be there.

No longer fun to be there.

Need to be somewhere else.

At times, yeah.

I'm not,

I don't know whether I should go, whether I should stay.

And if I go, a one-bedroom,

one-bath apartment's like $1,500 in a safe area, you know,

trying to find maybe a place to roommate, but that's not manifested itself yet.

Okay.

So yeah, the living situation is just kind of up and down.

Well, I think you need to keep shopping on both of those.

The one bedroom that you picked out was just the first one you drove by

because one bedrooms are expensive in a lot of areas of Phoenix,

but there are some safe areas that wouldn't be quite as high as you found, although that is an expensive real estate market.

So

I want you to learn a lot more about rental prices in different neighborhoods, And I want you to investigate the roommate situation a lot further.

Because if you put down 50 grand on a townhouse, you're going to have a pretty substantial payment, right?

Right.

And you're only going to have $100,000 to your name at that point.

Right.

And I assume that obviously this is in a retirement account, so it wouldn't be penalized because you're over 59 and a half, but you would be taxed on it, right?

yeah well the money market's just that okay so you could throw the money market at it that's true

as long as you had a good emergency fund that you could get a hold of after that that'd be fine yeah i'm okay i'm okay with you buying but i really want you what i would do is i would

here's what i would do i would shop all three things till i became an absolute expert on roommates in the area one-bedroom rentals in the area and townhouses in the area and see if the decision doesn't just present itself to you

Kind of like my second job did.

Yeah.

Dropped in my lap.

Yeah, well, but it dropped in your lap because you were scratching around.

True.

You know, what I found is the more options I have, the more power I have

and the better a decision I make.

When I narrow it down to, oh, there's only two things I can do and they both suck.

You know,

that's the drama queen in my head.

And I haven't done enough work yet to find all the possible things I I can do.

Yeah, that was the panic button.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that's, that's, and it kind of forces you into two things that are both untenable or three in your case.

Stay with people where things are weird.

Go take an apartment I can't afford or a roommate that's nuts.

You know, those are three things we don't want to do, right?

Go from frying pan into the fire with roommate things.

So,

you know, I think I'm going to work on that that way and just build up.

And one of those is going to be okay.

I'm okay with the townhouse move,

but I'm not okay with using this whole situation to justify a bad townhouse move.

That's right.

It's still got to meet the right parameters so that you're not strapped, right?

You've still got to be able to do this where that payment's no more than 25% of your take-home.

And the truth is, you've been used to $450 on rent.

So you're really going to have to.

Ouch.

Yeah.

You're really going to have to get in that budget and see what this means for you going forward.

And, you know, good job on getting the bookkeeping thing.

Make as much as you can doing that.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's the way to go on it for sure.

Marissa's in Baltimore.

Hi, Marissa.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello.

Hey, what's up?

Hey.

My question is: do I need to be patient and trust the process, or should I be more gazelle intense?

I have paid off, well, my husband and I have paid off probably $32,000

since October of 23, and we still have

$28,000 left to go.

What's your household income?

It's fluctuated, but it is

not last year, but the year before it was $120,000.

And I'm not quite sure what last year's was, but probably something.

So you're still going out to eat and going on vacation.

Not vacation, but eating, probably, yes.

Yeah, I'm 100% sure.

You make too much money to have only paid off $32,000 since October of 23.

You're not gazelle intense at all.

Okay.

Where are y'all spending the money, do you think?

Well, rent is almost $2,000.

That's 24 out of 120.

Yeah.

And then

I know that we have to pay for health insurance out of pocket, so that's $1,000

a month.

Are you and your husband both on board and doing a budget every month and talking about all this, or are you trying to pull this wagon by yourself?

Yeah, I thought so.

The budgeting, probably not so much.

We're both on board with paying off debt.

Yeah, in general, that's a general concept, but you're both not leaning into the details and treating this like it's a business, and we've got to try to stay open and get this done fast.

He's not doing that.

He's out just working.

And yeah, I hope that thing you're working on over there, honey, I hope it works out.

Yeah, it feels like it's almost to the extent that it doesn't make you feel too uncomfortable.

You're doing it.

And that's the result of it.

No, you shouldn't be more gazelle intense.

He should.

And the two of you together need to get on your every dollar budget.

That's right.

Let us get you signed up for that.

We'll pay for the premium version and give it to you.

And you guys sit down and do your budget like your life depends on it because, by God, it does.

Start acting like it.

Get this cleaned up.

As a couple, you need to get more intense and focused, yes, because you make too much money to have not paid off any more debt than you have.

This is the Ramsey Show.