Protect Your Wallet From Other People’s Chaos

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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.

Thank you for joining us, America.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of the brand new runaway hit on the Ramsey Networks.

It's called Front Row Seat, where he does long-form interviews with all kinds of famous and big people that are giving you insights into success.

It's really, really good.

Ken, who's dropping this week?

Of course, you asked me, and I don't even know who's dropping tomorrow.

I want to say

it might be Rachel Cruz.

She's in the hopper.

That was a fun conversation.

Gary Smith is already out.

That already came out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Lieutenant Dan.

Yeah, and we have Ethan Cross has been out for a week.

It's doing very well.

Ethan is a professor and a two-time best-selling author on Pivot, and it's all about mindset.

And so this is all about emotion in the professional setting, in your personal life.

How do we shift our mental mindset to win?

So it's pretty deep stuff.

I can't say the word pivot anymore after COVID.

I get PTSD.

Actually, I said that wrong.

The name of his book is Shift.

Oh, that's much better.

That's a good book.

Okay, now I know the book.

It's a runaway bestseller called Shift.

It's huge.

It's a great book.

I didn't know what you're talking about.

Well, I used the wrong pivot.

What was the other COVID word we can't say anymore?

Oh, unprecedented.

Unprecedented.

Oh, my God.

And you're right.

That was ruined in about three days.

I'm just over both of those words for the rest of my life.

All right.

Pamela is in Alabama.

Hi, Pamela.

How are you?

Hey, thanks for having me on the show today.

Sure.

What's up?

Hey, well, this question is a mix of financial and family issues.

Maybe words of caution for your listeners, Mr.

Ramsey.

We recently changed our financial advisor.

I was with him for 40 years, and my husband moved his money over there 13 years ago, a second marriage, and we both retired, myself as recently as 2023.

My advisor was my brother.

I come from a larger family of seven.

There seemed to be a lot of unspoken rules.

Use your sister as your insurance agent, your brothers as your financial advisor, your other siblings for such and such.

And I have to admit, I was on autopilot, Miss Ramsey, for about 40 years, finishing college, marriage, kids, growing a career, getting divorced, remarried, you know, life.

I simply handed my brother money over time and occasionally looked in on my investments.

I do want to be clear, he did no harm.

However, he did nothing special either.

And now that I'm retired and I've been studying in depth about retirement planning, I think I've got a great deal of ground to make up around tax planning.

Things like wealth conversions, I got hammered on deferred compensation plans, things like that.

He never had those conversations with us.

So before I retired, my husband and I requested requested of him multiple times of a retirement plan, and it just felt like it fell on deaf ears.

Even tax planning.

And then our net worth increased more.

Our last parent died.

And I got, I don't know how to say this, I wanted some privacy

in what our financial position was.

So

we did eight months.

of really hard work and research and we jump shipped and we hired an advisor that's meeting and exceeding all of our needs.

And we feel relieved and confident every day where we're going.

I mean, financially, tax planning, charitable plans, legacy.

This was not an easy thing for us to do.

Oh, it's very

painful.

I'm sorry.

Very painful, but very wise.

So, here's my question.

Telling my brother the news went horribly, disastrous.

He didn't want to hear our reasons.

He heaped a flurry of F-bombs on us.

He announced I was dead to him, other unpleasantries.

Even his wife and one of my siblings piled it on.

I mean, I was beyond shock.

And when we hung up the phone, because we live in different states, my husband looked at me and said, I guess we made the right decision.

And I said, I guess our money really wasn't our money.

And it's been almost a year and virtually no communication from nearly any of my siblings.

And I know I had turned down at least one family event because I was concerned I might get attacked there.

So,

is there reconciliation here?

I mean, our financial life is our lifeline, and we have to do what was right for us.

But

I hate this family rift and fracture.

What have you seen in all of your journeys in life?

Wow.

I'm sorry.

That's so painful.

Yeah.

Well, you did, obviously, your husband's right, made the right decision, and this all confirms it.

Reconciliation, it sounds to me like, is up to him.

I don't think that ball's on your side of the net.

Okay.

You know, he's the one that said you're dead to me.

He's the one that sicked his wife and the sibling on you and those kinds of things.

And so,

you know, I do a couple things.

I just sit back and

let it cool.

You might consider writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting a letter before you send it.

I don't think that boundaryless people, people that don't respect boundaries, will ever accept a reason for the boundary.

In other words, there's no amount of logic that's going to make him okay.

This is not a logic scenario.

This is just...

Hey, listen, I know you don't...

It might sound something like this.

I know you don't understand what we did.

I wish I could have explained it better.

I'm sorry for that.

Our goal was not to hurt you.

Our goal was to get some privacy and to get a new set of eyes.

And we've done that, but we're very sorry we hurt you in the process.

That was not something we wanted.

And anytime that we love, I love you.

And anytime you want to talk

and have a relationship, I'm here.

Or just something that's something open-handed like that.

And,

you know,

and sometimes that changes it.

But don't try to get him to be convinced that this was the smartest thing you ever did.

It's just simply, this was something I had to do, and I know you don't understand, and I'm so sorry.

That's simple.

Because the more you get into it, the more it picks the more the poor salt in the wound.

Right.

Right.

Because basically you're telling him he sucks at his job, which, by the way, he does.

Well,

he does.

I know.

That was the conclusion you came to, anyway.

Right.

No point in bringing that up.

No point in bringing that up.

It's just like,

no, is a complete sentence.

Okay.

I'll give you an example of a similar situation

that evokes the same emotions.

At Ramsey, we've got 1,100 team members, and sometimes someone's time here is up.

We've warned them, we've talked to them, we've coached them, we've been through a process of unpleasant conversations, And finally, their last day

is today.

We don't have a long conversation.

It's a minute and a half.

Right.

We've talked about this, and the decision has been made that today's your last day.

All the emotions, all the stuff, and all that, I understand.

But the decision has been made that today's your last day.

The less you say, the better, in other words, in those things.

Yeah, Pamela, I would say this very quickly.

I would have a boundary to protect yourself, but I also wouldn't give him more power than he deserves.

In other words, I'd show up at family events, smile and wave, and don't give him power to exclude you when you did nothing wrong.

I'd consider that.

Now, if it's just crazy, wacky, then get away from it.

Yeah.

Dr.

Henry Clout's book, Boundaries, would help your mind.

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I couldn't believe it when I answered my phone and I was talking to them.

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John's with us in Oregon.

Hey, John, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave, how you doing?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

So I have a question for you.

I'm in college now, and I just, I'm starting my sophomore year.

My siblings, my parents have been, took money from me in high school school as like borrowing it to supplement their income and then just didn't pay it back, and now they're doing it for my siblings.

How much money did you have in high school?

I had,

well, I was making about

$5,000 to $8,000 a year just working part-time and then full-time during the summers.

How much money did they take from you?

About $3,000 total after before I could get my own bank account, and then all my money's in there now.

And you said you're off at school now?

Yeah, I'm in college now, so I have my own bank accounts.

It's all separate.

I'm good.

You're how old?

I'm 19.

Okay.

Wow.

I'm sorry.

And now that's happening to your little brothers and sisters.

Okay.

Financial abuse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

What's wrong with your parents?

That's so weird.

I mean, I think they, I mean, we've had some issues where happen where my mom had an injury injury that's been working through like a, like a legal case or whatever and stuff, and they just, she lost her job.

And so they've just been running on not much.

But like, it's okay if, you know, I get if, you know, they pay you back in something in a month or two or something like that.

But when they spend time.

It's really not okay.

I mean,

grown-ups don't take kids' money.

That's just not okay for any reason.

To borrow or otherwise, that's just wrong.

I mean, there's just something wrong with the family script, isn't there?

Yeah, so I don't.

I don't know, I'm just wondering your advice because I'm okay now, but I just want to know what your thoughts are because they're smart.

They're going to be successful, but when they're trying to get ready to go into college or get their first car, it's like, you know, how are they supposed to do this?

So.

Wow.

That's a tough situation.

I'm sitting here thinking through this because

they can't try to, any ideas that I had, and I had two or three pop in my mind about how they could protect their money, but the problem is they live in their house.

And if they're being abused in that way where they're taking their money, them hiding money from your parents isn't a legitimate solution just because of the tension and all of that and the craziness.

So there's not much they can do.

Have you ever talked to your parents about how this made you feel?

Yeah, and they just justified it because like, you know, it's either we're going to put food on the table and like you're going to eat or like we're going to, you know,

you know, that kind of thing.

That was what I was.

I mean, why don't they work?

Well, they, they work and they make good money.

They just don't, they don't have a budget.

They don't.

I mean, what is good money?

Because food on the table is not good money if you have to take it from a teenager.

Yeah.

They don't have good money.

Yeah.

Well,

I think they make definitely over 100 grand.

That was a couple of years ago.

I heard it.

So these people are just whacked.

They're just whacked.

Okay.

How old are your siblings?

Like 16 and 17 in high school.

So like right around the age to get a car and then,

you know, saving up for getting out of college or going into college.

Are there equally wacky stories that you're not bringing up and we don't have time to cover?

But is there a lot of wackiness besides this issue for them and your parents?

I think just kind of a weirdness around money.

You know,

I was the first one to actually start making money and like have, you know, to get a joint bank account as my first account and then just start making money with summer jobs to save for college.

And I think just as things were tight, it was like, oh, it's right there.

It's still, it's just easy to transfer some over.

Hey, we'll pay you back 500 bucks, this 500 bucks, and when we get paid or whatever.

So like I said, I guess

you've spoken to them about it.

They don't give a rip.

They justify it, which is absolutely ludicrous.

Typically, what some kind of weirdo like this will do.

I mean, you have two options.

One is just make make peace with it and move on with your life.

Two is interfere, and that is to call your siblings up and say, Hey, if you want to open up a bank account over here, I'll help you open up one.

And you can put all your money over here, and I'll help you do that.

You can do that at 19

and

cite a bank.

It's not hiding it, it's just saying, Mom and dad.

And if your parents say anything, well, you stole all my money.

I'm trying to keep you from stealing theirs.

Right.

This is what I'd say.

I just say, you know, you're a freaking thief.

Would they kick your siblings out if this were to happen?

I'm not sure.

I don't think they would, but it would add a lot of tension to any and all family gatherings we have after that.

Yeah, well, they've already done it.

Let me help you with this.

There's a big old elephant with his butt sitting in the middle of your living room already.

Y'all are walking around it.

Yeah.

Acting like it's not there.

He's a big sucker.

The elephant in the room, you know what I'm talking about, right?

That your parents are thieves.

Yeah, there's tension in the room.

You've already addressed it.

It's just that they don't feel it.

That's the only difference.

The rest of everybody else goes, oh, yeah, we got to watch out for them.

It's like the flirty step uncle.

I mean, you got to stay away from Bob, you know.

Oh, my God.

Just like, no, of course we're not.

We talk about Bob and we keep Bob away from you.

No, I mean, come on.

Dave.

Sorry, Bob, but call me out on this, David, if I'm wrong.

There's a bar somewhere real pissed right now.

If I were, I'm trying to put myself in your brother's shoes, 16 and 17.

If my mom and dad did this to me, and I'm trying to be as honest as I can, I legitimately think that if I confronted them, I'm talking about your siblings, and they were still doing it, I think I would have left.

I would have gone to family.

I would have gone somewhere, because I think that's such a breach of trust.

It's just so nuts.

Yeah, it's really the lack of integrity here.

The ethics of this are just scummy.

So, yeah, you know, is that extreme?

Call Call me out if I'm wrong.

I just try and be honest.

The other thing is, I just, I,

you know, I don't know what to do.

Because here's the thing.

You're not going to fix them.

No.

Nothing in this is going to fix them.

That's right.

But denial doesn't fix them either.

I know.

So I don't know.

I like throwing a grenade in the middle of it personally, but that's just because I'm a hillbilly.

So I like throwing a grenade in the middle of everything.

What would you case?

We'll see what'll happen.

What would you have done if that scenario happened to you and you were sitting there?

Well, I mean, in our culture, we all left for a lot of reasons.

It's just like, we're getting out of here.

You're not welcome.

You don't want to be here.

I'm going to do some better somewhere else.

And part of that was just getting the little eaglets out of the nest.

You know, that's okay, too.

But

no 28-year-olds in the basement in our culture.

So, but anyway, the,

yeah, man, I'm sorry.

That's just, God, that's two in a row of these things, whacked family stuff.

We're just going to sell Henry Cloud's book all day.

And it's an old book, but still selling it, you know.

Boundaries.

John, I'll tell you what I'd like for you to do.

I'd like for you to take advice from someone other than us.

Yeah.

Because we're just stirring up trouble here.

And I don't think that's wise either.

So if I were you, I would get with a local pastor there.

And if you're not plugged into a good church, get plugged into a good church and get some

get some good godly counsel from someone that is a pastoral counsel that just says, okay, what should happen here?

I mean, if this was another kind of abuse, it would be against the law and social services would come in.

But this is just financial abuse.

They're just stealing the money.

And they don't need it to eat.

That's absolute hogwash.

If they make $100,000 and they're not choosing food over choosing stealing their teenagers' money, they're not choosing.

That's just bullcrap.

That's a narcissistic bullcrap line.

Whether they're a narcissist, I don't know, but it's a narcissistic line.

It's gaslighting.

So,

yeah.

Wow.

I don't know.

I hesitate to send the 19-year-old in to do battle in this.

So,

but,

you know, you can either do nothing and just, you know, talk to your siblings on the side and say, hey, how do I hide the money?

Or talk to them on the side and just be right up front.

Say, I'm going to help them open a bank account because of what you did to me and you've never paid me back.

And they can't get a car because you keep taking their money.

And then if they're pissed, they're pissed.

I mean, so what?

Worse things could happen than pissing off people like this.

So somebody needs to do something.

But John, I hate to send you into the battle by yourself.

So I'd put some counsel in your corner and let them talk through it with you.

It's just know from us that we're verifying that this is cray cray.

It's nuts.

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Okay, Ken, I got a sidebar because we got two in a row that are tremendous, crazy family

boundary issues.

And

so it's fair to state: personal

finance,

the problem with personal finance is people.

That

the people that we find that are successful in their careers, which you work with all the time, like at front row seat and all of that, and the people that we find simultaneously that are successful in their wealth building

and that are successful in their spiritual walk and so on,

they overcome

the people

and they embrace the people, the good people.

They overcome the bad people and embrace the good people.

Everyone has it.

Some get more than their share,

more of a dose of craziness to start off life, coming from a dysfunctional family.

My family put the fun in dysfunctional.

Yeah, that one, yeah.

You come from that family,

it's a rough start, you know, like that kid there, that was tough.

Yeah.

And

but

what I want to point out to our listener base right now is that unless and until you deal with those things,

not only between your own ears, but you set healthy relational boundaries that do not allow the takers to interfere with your progress, whether they take your joy, take your hope, or take your money.

You don't allow the takers to take advantage of you and to interfere with your progress until you set enough boundaries.

I'm going to love you from a distance, about two miles.

Get your butt out of here because you're just nuts.

You're negative ninny.

Every time I'm around you, all you can do is talk about negative crap, and I need to move in another direction.

And so learning to set those boundaries is very painful.

But the sooner you set them, the faster your progress begins.

And you will not overcome those things unless you put some fences up.

You cannot.

they are bigger hurdles than any mathematical 401k question you can ever ask me.

Any stupid Bitcoin idea you've got.

Whatever it is you're trying to do with money is not going to work until you learn to deal with the people in your life.

And that includes some of you that are dating right now and you don't need to marry that one.

That one's going to be a long life.

They're fun right now, but you know in your heart of hearts that one's going to be rough.

You're going to spend spend your whole life dealing with nutty,

and you're going to wake up every morning with nutty and go to bed every night with nutty.

And that just

crud, man.

That's a long free.

Don't marry that one.

I'm sorry, but that's the truth.

I mean, one of the reasons that I've been able to accomplish the things I've been able to accomplish is my wife's sanity and strength.

She adds to value to the whole process every day.

She does not cost me emotion, hardly ever.

She does not cost me

ridiculous scenarios that I have to deal with while I'm trying to get my freaking work done.

And it's one of the things that, and one of the reasons she's got a good life is the same thing, is I do that for her.

Add value to her in those areas.

I've watched you and Stacey do this for 20 years, 25 years we've known each other.

Same exact thing.

You just can't overcome it.

This personal relational roadblocks.

if you don't take

a bulldozer and build some fences, some boundaries, it's just impossible.

I'm glad you said to everybody, and I hope you heard Dave.

He said, it's going to be painful.

But here's what successful people do that Dave's talking about.

They choose their pain.

So it's going to be painful.

Both of these phone calls illustrate that there was pain in making the right decision, but there was also more pain in not making the right decision.

So choose your pain.

And I think that's what successful people do.

They go, this is not a win-win from an emotional standpoint.

But when we take the emotion out of it and acknowledge that this is going to be dirty and nasty and ugly because of somebody else, them being unhealthy, then it makes that painful decision a little easier to make.

Choose your pain here is the lesson I'm taking from what you said.

And I agree with you.

I mean, it's proactively, somebody's going to be pissed.

So proactively decide who.

Yeah, right.

Piss off the right people.

That's right.

You know, like you're mad because I'm doing this with my kids well i i choose you're mad over my kids dysfunction and being in counseling when they're 30.

so i'm doing this with my kids screw it you know you're okay you'll make it or you won't make it i i'll choose who will be mad and like some of you send in hate mail or you post stupid butt stuff in the comments thing it's like

it's not relevant I've already chose who I'm on, who I want.

If you're who's mad, I chose the right one.

You know, that's perfect.

And so versus the people that come around want help, need help, and we can help them and get our arms around them and give them some information and some inspiration and they move forward.

That's who I want to spend my energy on in the business here and in what we do.

But the same thing's true with your family.

You're going to choose, okay, who's going to be mad?

My children or my parents?

Because grandmother is a

travel agent for guilt trips.

And so, mom, we're not going to be able to spend Thanksgiving there this year.

Having a duck fit, as we call it.

I'm not sure exactly what a ditch.

That's what a duck sounds like when they're having a fit, actually.

I'd rather have a peaceful Thanksgiving at the cost of making the family upset than

making them happy and being miserable.

Cousin Eddie's doing heroin.

Cousin Eddie's not invited to Thanksgiving.

Cousin Eddie's pissed.

Oh, well, Cousin Eddie's pissed.

The heroin addict cousin is pissed.

I can deal with that.

I can deal with that.

I just set a boundary.

You're not coming.

You're not blowing up my sewer.

Looks like Christmas vacation, whatever it is, right?

But, you know, if you got cousin Eddie and you have to piss off somebody, cousin Eddie's not having access to my children.

Okay.

That was funny in the movie.

It is not funny in real life.

Okay.

And so you got to decide these things ahead of time.

And the problem is it is painful because it's oftentimes people who you wish

would be cheering for you.

Sure.

friends, family, whatever they are, but they're not.

And it's like, okay, second grade teacher that said, I'm never going to mount anything, you don't get a vote.

Actually, that happened, you know.

And, you know, third-grade teacher who said, you could be anything you want to be, oh, you get a vote.

Yeah.

And actually

had her here at the building a while back and honored her because we love teachers that don't mail it in.

And so, you know, it's just cally, folks.

So, but it's a,

what I'm trying to point out is I don't think people realize how heavy the correlation is between your ability to manage relationships and set boundaries with relationships and whether or not you actually end up with any money.

That's right.

Very few people build wealth until they learn to say no to the right people, until they learn to piss off the right people.

Your brother who's managed your money for 40 years and did a bad job.

Oh, well, you're pissed.

I can deal with that.

Your sister who got a real estate license three weeks ago.

No, you're not selling my house.

You don't even know how to spell house.

We're not doing it.

Somebody else is selling my million-dollar house, not a newbie.

Well, I'm your sister.

I know.

This is why we're not doing this.

One of the other reasons we're not doing this.

Well, I'm going to be mad.

Well, good.

You're going to be mad.

But I'm going to not screw up a million-dollar transaction because you don't know what the flip you're doing.

This is stupid.

But this is the kind of stuff you have to deal with all through your life, right?

That's right.

And if you don't deal with this stuff, you end up with a horrible life and no money and and no pattern of success anywhere in any part of your life.

That's right.

So these things are inextricably tied to each other.

They're woven together.

So it's why this stupid stuff ends up on this show.

It starts to sound like Jerry Springer sometimes.

This is the Ramsey Show.

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Andrew is in Tennessee.

Hey, Andrew, how are you?

Doing pretty good.

How are you doing?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

I was calling to try to get some advice from you.

I'm thinking about going back to college to get my architectural degree.

And

it's a little late in life.

I mean, I'm 40 years old.

But I was going to see what your thoughts on it were

going back to school that late in life,

if it's a wise decision or not.

Why?

Because it's expensive.

No, no, why would you go be an architect?

What are you doing now, and what's your dream?

Well, before what I did, before what I do now, I was in the drafting and design business for 20 years almost.

Designing what?

What were you designing?

Houses or commercial or what?

Millwork and steel buildings,

you know, different things like that.

So what would the architecture?

Here's the simpler question.

What would this architecture degree allow you to do that you cannot do now, and how much would you make versus what you make now?

Well, what I make now, it would just add on to what I make.

We own rental property,

and that's what I've done for the last couple of years.

It makes pretty good money.

So what would you make?

So how much more would you make?

Let's fast forward and assume you have the degree right now.

How much more would it allow you to make annually because of the architecture degree?

Probably $150,000.

I mean, $100,000, $150,000.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Something's wrong.

So you're currently managing an entire portfolio of real estate, and that's what you live off of.

Is that what you said?

Yeah.

And how much is all this real estate worth?

We bring in about half a million a year.

Yeah, and how much is all this real estate worth?

we've had offers of like four million for it a couple of times.

So it's an it?

It's a like one apartment or something or what?

No, it's a mobile home park.

There's

54 homes.

Okay, so you own and manage 54 mobile homes.

You make a half million on them, and the value is about 4 million.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

That's what I'm trying to do.

We don't bring home half of the home.

This has nothing to do with architecture whatsoever.

So if you quit managing this, how does it get managed?

I'm not going to quit.

I won't quit managing.

You can't do two full-time jobs.

The idea of a full-time job is to go to the bottom.

No, no, no.

No, we would still own it.

I would just hire someone in.

That's what I asked.

Okay.

So you bring a manager in so that you could go be an architect.

Yeah.

Okay.

And now what do you want to build?

What do you want to build as an architect?

What do you want to draw?

Hotels and houses.

Okay.

And hotels that be helpful, houses, you don't need an architectural degree to draw houses?

I'm living in a house that's millions of dollars in value.

It was drawn by a guy who just needed an architectural degree.

But it has to be stamped by an architect.

Not houses.

In the state of Tennessee?

In the state of Tennessee.

I just built built one, honey.

Oh, I thought you had to have an architect actually stamp off on the drawings to

the house, man.

What do you pay yourself?

I want to get to the cost.

So you said this is so expensive, and should I spend the money?

Let's go to what you pay yourself.

What do you pay yourself?

Me and my wife together make about $100,000 a year.

Okay.

And what is the, I'm looking at the costs of

in-state schools in Tennessee.

Nobody cares where you got your architect degree from.

Tennessee State, you know, you're looking at an average of $8,300 per year.

That's not a whole lot of money.

University of Tennessee, average tuition is $13.

Now, that doesn't include all the fees.

But as you're looking at this, how much money are you thinking you got to spend to get this degree?

The school

I've currently enrolled in and done a summer semester at Academy of Art in

California.

It's the only online architecture school.

What's it setting you back per year?

What's the cost?

It's going to be $150,000 by the time I do all five years.

That's not including interest.

I think it's too much money.

You don't need to spend that for that.

It's not a good value exchange.

You get a four-year degree in architecture from the state of Tennessee at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for $13,000 a year.

That's for the whole year?

For the year.

Yeah.

Not for a semester.

That's for the year.

For the year.

So this is not a good value exchange.

You're getting ripped.

Okay, so two things.

Two things.

One is: yes, yes, I want you to go get in the business of drawing things for other people.

It's a passion that's inside your stomach.

I love that.

Okay.

I want you to go do that.

The two questions we have that we want you to solve for after you get off of here is: one, what is the least expensive and fastest way I can get this, get what I need to go do that.

And then question number two is, do you really need an architectural stamp to do what you want to do?

Well, if I'm going to draw like hotels or if you're going to draw a commercial, if you're going to draw a large commercial, you're going to need an architectural stamp.

I can tell you that.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

But you're also competing with huge architectural firms for that same job.

Right.

Well, see, in my area that I live in, there's actually not many architects in this area.

There's like three.

But here's what I'd want to know.

Then there's not many hotels being built.

Right.

There's some evidence there.

There's what?

There's evidence that there's only three.

I'd find out why there's only three.

In other words, does the market can it?

There's

not enough economic activity to support more than that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm in Pigeon Forge.

Yeah.

So there's plenty of economic.

The point is, is that people obviously are not using Pigeon Forge architects to build this stuff.

They're using architects out of Nashville and out of Knoxville and out of Atlanta and Chicago and whatever else depending on which company is coming in to build the thing.

Right.

Okay.

So, you know, what you've got to do is get into figure out exactly, A, what is needed to do what you want to do.

And I'm questioning whether you need an architectural stamp if you really want to go that far.

If it's necessary.

If it is necessary, if the answer is yes, then figure out the least expensive way to do it.

And if you're in Pigeon Pigeon Forge, honey,

go down to Knoxville and knock this thing out.

I mean, you're an hour away.

Just commute your little butt down there and get a four-year degree.

And take it all in three years.

You're like a grown-up and stuff.

You're not trying to play beer pong.

You're just getting the degree.

Okay?

So just go knock it out as fast as you possibly can.

And

find out if they have any kind of adult learning for the architectural school.

But the University of Tennessee's Architectural School has got a great reputation, by the way, just as a side note.

And I've used two or three architects on projects that graduated from there, and they all were excellent in their knowledge base.

So if you do need it, that's the way to do it.

Online for $150,000 versus $50,000.

And

no,

no, not doing that.

Yeah, especially given that you told Dave and I as we questioned what your process was, that you were going to continue to, you were going to hire someone to manage the trailer park.

So in this case, now I can do a similar version of this and still manage to do school.

You don't need an online school in California to the tune of 30 grand.

Go ahead and put your manager in now and haul your little butt down to Knoxville.

That'll work.

Yeah.

But I got to mention this to our to our greater audience.

There's four qualifying questions that I wrote about from Paycheck to Purpose.

When you're looking to get qualified, here's four questions you have to answer.

And it comes up with a very simple, doable plan.

It's not intimidating.

First question is, what do I need to learn?

This is, is there a degree that I must have to do the thing I want to do?

If not,

there's certificate programs, there's boot camps.

So first question is, what do I need to learn?

Second question is, what do I need to do?

What experience will I need to get to eventually do the thing I want to do?

That tells me where on the ladder I need to enter.

Third question is,

how much is it going to cost?

Get the best options, get all the options.

The fourth question is, based on cost and what I got to learn and do, what's my expectation?

How long will it take to get where I want to go?

Those four questions, when you answer, give you a clear path that is not scary to do.

And that'll keep you from spending $250,000 on a master's degree in social work to make $38,000.

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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.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of Front Row Seat, a runaway hit on the Ramsey Networks.

He's my co-host today.

Vincent's in Ohio.

Idaho.

What did I say?

Idaho.

Hey, Vincent, what's up?

Hey, how we doing, guys?

Hopefully your Monday is treating you well.

It is, sir.

How can we help?

The question I have is I just recently joined the Air Nashvard, and with that, I get a $50,000 bonus.

So my question is,

I'm thinking of investing it, right?

I don't want to blow it on a nice new car, you know, like a lot of people do.

I want to invest it and make my money work for me.

What would you guys recommend me doing with it?

Well, thank you, sir, for serving your country.

I appreciate it.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Okay.

How old are you?

I am 22, and I just recently graduated from the university.

Okay.

All right.

And are you going to be full-time guard or is this just your...

No, I'll just be part-time.

And they have a $50,000 sign-on now.

Yeah, isn't that crazy?

That's pretty incredible.

That's awesomeness.

I know it is.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, cool.

so what's your career gonna be

um so my career it's kind of like a smaller one it's called industrial organizational psychology basically what I want to do is apply like statistics and stats to be able to go into like businesses and be able to improve them right okay you just graduated school you got the job

no I don't have a job yet since I'll be going out to like basic training and everything so right now I'm just kind of in like la-la land.

I'll ship out in like a week or two.

And then when I come back, I have to get a master's degree first.

Well, I don't know if I have to, but.

Okay.

Okay, so if you come back and you get a job and you're sustainable, you won't need this $50,000 to live, is my point.

Yeah, exactly.

No, I'm not banking on the 50K.

That's all.

I was just trying to verify we don't need it to eat.

Okay.

And

you have any debt?

Zero debt.

Cool.

Good for you.

What are you driving?

I have in like a 2007 camera.

It's treating me well, decent mileage, no complaints.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to put 10 with that and upgrade your car.

I appreciate you not complaining, but your car sucks.

Okay.

So let's have a look at that.

Well, I mean, I do want to, I mean,

I think I'll put a little bit towards my car, but I think I want, like, this is my idea, and obviously you're the expert.

I want to put most of it into like an investment, right?

Like a neutral funds.

I would love for you to do that, okay?

But I want you to create a sustainable lifestyle so you keep your freaking hands off of it.

And And if you're driving to 2007 and it blows a gasket three weeks after you do your investment, you're going to start cashing out the investment into a stupid bad car deal.

Yeah, I mean, I also.

That's what I'm trying to keep you from doing, okay?

So

if I were you, I would invest 40 and I'd put 10 into a car if I woke up in your shoes.

And I'd put it into good growth stock mutual funds, sit down with a Smart Vestor Pro in your area.

You can find those at Ramsey Solutions.

They have the heart of a teacher, and you will begin your financial investing education by sitting with a pro

that can teach you about mutual funds, how they work, what the track records are.

And they love the good ones, and we only let the good ones into our program.

We don't endorse the bad ones, okay?

But they love sitting with a young person because they know the power of compound interest.

And they know that 40.

You said you're 22?

Yeah, 22.

Yeah, so when you're 29, that's 80.

When you're 36, it's 160.

When you are 43, it's 320 if you don't touch it.

Yeah, and even until I retire, right?

Yeah, it's going to be millions of dollars at retirement if you just keep doing the formula I was just doing.

Now, that's the trick.

Now, you may want to use some of it someday to buy a house.

You may want to use some of it someday.

That's okay.

But let's learn.

Let's start the learning process because you have the seeds of greatness in you because you're you're willing to ask at 22 years old about doing something smart instead of going and buying a brand new F-150,

which you can't buy away F-150 for 150 grand.

I'm sorry, my bad.

But anyway, buying a stupid car.

Yeah.

I would just add, Vincent, I would also do the homework on Do you need the master's degree?

Because you were unsure.

That's okay.

But let's figure out, do we actually need a master's degree to do the work that you want to do?

If the answer is yes, how soon do we need it?

Are there rungs on the ladder to that ultimate role that I can climb without the master's degree?

Think this thing through.

Don't assume that I got to go get it now when you may not need to get it now.

And also, do your homework on where I can get it from the absolute cheapest because I sing this note all the time.

Nobody who is your future customer is going to ask you where you got your master's degree.

So make a smart decision there as well.

Let me help you.

There, most of the time, not even asking if you got a master's degree.

Right, that's right.

Only thing, we got 1,100 people working here.

The only thing we're concerned about is: can you do the job?

If the master's degree is an indication that you know something, that's good,

but sometimes it's an indication you know nothing, so

you just weren't smart enough to stop going to school.

So,

you know, we need to get into why you need this and what it is and how it applies.

And industrial organizational management, it does not require a master's degree to be successful.

It It might to get in the door with certain Fortune 500s, but to do the actual job, the knowledge base is not needed.

It's like an MBA, a master's in business.

It's a great degree.

There's nothing wrong with it, but you can do the job of business, running a business, understanding business, building business acumen without an MBA.

I don't have one, and I run a $300 million company.

So it's very possible.

It can be done.

You've got to have a couple of brain cells to rub together, and then you'll figure it out.

But

this idea that somehow degrees are your deliverance is Ken's point.

We've got to get away from as a society teaching people that the answer to everything is go get another degree.

Because that's $1.7 trillion in student loan debt with people that spent $250,000 to get a degree in left-handed puppestry and now they're puppetry and now they're a barista.

And they are figuring out, trying to figure out how student loan debt forgiveness works and it doesn't work.

So it's a problem

when people just go get degrees that they don't need,

especially if you're borrowing money to do it.

It makes it even worse.

So it's a big issue.

The documentary that was award-winning that we did a few years ago, you can now watch it free on YouTube.

It's called Borrowed Future.

It gets into in detail

what is needed.

And we're not against a four-year degree.

We don't hate colleges and universities.

I hate what they charge because of some of the stupid butt stuff they build on campus.

I hate that.

But,

you know, what I hate, what gets, what I don't want is people believing lies that lead them down a trail.

And the lie is you have to have a degree to do this and you don't.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

And the question is, is a degree the only way

or is it the best way?

That's a two-part question.

If the answer is no to either one, folks, listen, there's some great news here.

A lot less money and a lot less time to get qualified.

But you've been sold this bill of goods that the degree is always the grade A best option.

Well, simply, if my life is bad, the interest go back to college.

That's right.

Like, that's going to solve it.

That's going to make your life worse.

Yeah.

No.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable.

Yeah.

And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance.

We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance.

And I'm like, I can't even imagine.

Or even if it was opposite, right?

If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care?

How do I, how do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing?

Like, and it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level.

Like when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills

in the next week.

Yeah, in the middle of all that grief.

Like it's just, it is, it's terrible.

And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive.

Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance.

And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there.

Like, there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens.

And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies.

It doesn't cost much.

You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud, and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place.

The cost of stinking pizza.

There really is.

So that is one thing to do to say, I love you to your family.

So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance.

To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282.

That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com.

Kanoa is with us in Phoenix.

Hi, Kanoa.

How are you?

Doing good, Dave.

How about yourself?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Hey, so me and my wife are currently on baby step 3B, and we're trying to see what our next step should be.

So right now we're able to save about $40,000 a year, give or take.

And we're trying to decide, should we save for two years and then buy with 20% down to avoid PMI at a 15-year fixed?

Or should we just keep renting for the next seven years and then just pay for a house outright in cash?

What's your household income?

About $150,000, give or take.

What do y'all do?

I'm in sales and she's in social media marketing.

Okay.

So your seven years assumed your household income would be staying at $150,000.

Yes.

Which is not true.

Because obviously your income is going to go up during seven years.

Agreed?

I would hope so, yeah.

I would hope so too.

Otherwise we got other problems, yeah.

So

we're probably looking at five years.

So

how old are you guys?

I am 24.

She is 22.

Okay.

So when she's 27 years old, you pay cash for a house, and when you're 29 years old, you pay cash for a house.

Or in two years, we put 20%

down.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

That's what we're laying out here.

So the answer is neither one of these are horrible options.

None of these are in the stupid column.

None of these are in the, I'm going to yell at you, don't do something stupid, please, please, please column.

Okay.

Very smart choices that you proposed in both cases.

And the answer is whichever one you would like to do.

That's the answer, because they're both smart.

Now,

and I will tell you this.

I am bound by a this is the only answer on the Ramsey show that I give that is not what I would do,

okay?

Because I do not borrow money ever for anything ever

again,

period, no matter what.

So I would have, personally, Sharon Ramsey, Dave Ramsey, we'd have one option,

and that's the five-year plan.

And we'd turn it into a four-year plan because we'd work like maniacs because we'd be so pissed we didn't have a house, But all that, right?

I mean, we would just go crazy.

But that's what we do and what we have done throughout our lives since we went broke and decided that the borrower is really slave to the lender.

And we really don't borrow money anymore.

Now, so I don't have a choice.

But that's a decision that I made based on

my understanding of scripture and the pain that we went through when we borrowed money.

It is the one thing on this show, again, that

I don't tell people they have to do.

Other than that, I never borrow money for a car.

I'll just yell at you.

Don't borrow money for a car.

It's stupid.

Ride a bicycle before you borrow money for a car.

It's just dumb.

You want to be middle class?

Get a car payment.

You'll be middle class the rest of your stupid life.

Okay, just don't do that.

You know, there's some stuff like that that I'm just going to hold you to and hold me to and hold everybody to just because it falls in the smart column.

The other one's in the dumb column.

Now, buying a house, and you outlined the exact Ramsey way, 20% down if you can do it, is preferable because you avoid private mortgage insurance and a 15-year fix where the payment is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay.

You just recanted back to me exactly what we teach.

So it's obvious you've been studying it and you knew that that was the answer I would give you.

So that's perfect.

If you do that, you are obviously borrowing money, which I can't do, but I still don't yell at people for doing that.

I don't think it's dumb.

Is the other way better?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think never borrowing money again is better.

That's why I chose to do it.

But I'm not going to yell at you for being dumb and doing that because it's what we teach and what we've taught here for years.

It's the only time the debt comes up, the only time the debt comes up on this show in 30 years that we've said it's okay.

And with these very strict guidelines to where you turn around and get the house paid off as fast as possible.

Yeah, I put myself back into their shoes.

And if I had it to do all over again, and we were smart with our first home, we didn't buy something that was too expensive.

We went pretty modest.

But if I had it to do all over again and I could get the entire payment in five years, I'd absolutely rent.

Especially when you're in your early 20s.

Yeah, freedom that early in life, financially, emotionally, to have no house payment, I would definitely take that choice.

Keep in mind, folks, the social pressure to do otherwise is everyone.

It would be massive.

Everyone's get house, get house.

Oh, you're renting.

Oh, like you're going to hell if you're a renter.

You know, it's like it's a salvation issue.

Oh, my God.

It's just the, it's, oh, you're horrible.

You're dumb.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

And these are all broke people making these noises.

Yeah.

Doug's in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Hi, Doug.

What's up?

Hello there, Dave and Ken.

How are you guys doing today?

Great, man.

How can we help?

That's great.

I have a question regarding life insurance.

I have a term life insurance policy through the VGLI.

It's a $50,000 payment or a $50,000 benefit, and I pay $300 annual on it.

I also have

Veterans Group Life Insurance.

Oh, okay.

Didn't recognize the initials.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks.

That's okay.

I also have a whole life policy.

Now, I'm going to be 60 this year, and my mom got this policy for me when I was five years old.

And she's been paying on it.

And then I eventually took it over.

And I've been paying on it ever since.

It has a death benefit of $11,350.

It's like a family pet.

Yeah, exactly.

No kidding.

It's got $7,000 in total assets, okay?

With a taxable gain of about $3,300.

No.

I doubt that.

Okay.

Who told you that?

I called

New York Life.

I called them and asked them what the taxable gain was.

Out of $7,000 total assets, it's got $3,300 taxable gains.

Which means you guys have only put $4,000 in this in your entire life.

Basically, yes.

I pay $129 a year for that policy, and it has $10,000 death benefit.

Okay.

All right.

So if you take out $7,000,

if you die, they're going to give your beneficiary a $11,000 check.

They're going to keep the $7,000.

Correct.

So you have $4,000 worth of insurance.

So my question is.

So you have $4,000 worth of insurance.

No, no, no, no, no.

The actual debt benefit is $11,000.

I know, honey, but there's seven in there that's your money.

They're going to keep that.

So they're only giving you,

they're going to give you your $7,000 and $4,000 for $11,000.

$7,000 and $4,000 is $11,000.

Correct.

Okay.

So my question is, I have about $20,000 in debt, credit card and a personal loan.

Trucks paid for.

Now, that doesn't include my mortgage.

Should I cash this out

and pay off some of my debts?

Yes, for God's sakes, yes.

Okay.

That's what I was thinking also.

So I just I just wanted to hear what you thought about it.

You have a savings account of $7,000 that when you die, they keep it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Somehow that doesn't work for me.

Okay.

It's pretty it's that it is that simple.

And so it it's that's how bad this product is.

And New York Life talked this family into keeping this for 40

years.

Like it's a family pet.

And

not only did his sweet little mama buy it and get screwed by New York Life, but on top of that, she handed

this piece of crap product, this turd wrapped in a box, to her son and said, I pass this to my son.

As if it was the family Bible or something.

It's unbelievable.

The emotions tied to this crap.

Yes, cash it in, honey, as fast as you possibly can and run from that company as far as you can run.

A company that would do that.

Oh, my God.

But this is why they have tall buildings and you live in small houses.

You think about it.

In the old days, what were the skylines in the average city?

The average skyline was banks and life insurance companies.

That was where all the money was.

And who gave them that money?

Santa Claus?

No.

Your mama, your daddy, your grandma, when she bought you that policy.

$11,000 at a time.

We screwed America.

Do you know that seven out of 10 Americans die without a will?

That just

kind of fits because

78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

So people suck with money.

So

that just kind of solves that, right?

I mean, it kind of fits, but it just blows your mind to think that 7 out of 10 Americans die and let the state decide what happens to their kids.

If you have minor children and you both die and you don't have a will, the

children's services decides.

That's a dumb butt idea.

Do you not love your kids?

I mean, you don't even need money to need a will.

If you're 18, you need a will.

Get your will.

Howard Hughes died with $2.5 billion

in 1976.

Almost 10 years later, they settled his estate.

Didn't have a will.

600 people put in a claim.

He had cousins he didn't know he had, apparently.

He had people that he loved that he didn't know he loved.

Who knew?

They came out of the woodwork, right?

No will.

So everybody lined up like it was a lot of ticket.

22 people ended up getting some of the money almost 10 years later.

You know who got most of the money?

De lawyers.

De lawyers, Yeah.

You know what the lawyers is, yeah, right?

You know, that's who got the.

So you need a will.

So August is create a will month.

Who knew?

Who cares?

You need a will.

You need a will.

And so here's what I want you to do.

Take five minutes, take a quick quiz at ramseysolutions.com slash will quiz.

It's free.

Click the link in the description if you're listening, and we can help you figure out exactly what type of will.

If you can do a quick, easy one, like with mama bear legal forms, or if you've got a complicated estate and you need a lawyer, we'll walk you through that.

But either way, you need a will.

The people you love will hate you if you die and make them untangle your mess.

They will want to dig you up and kill you again if you die without a will.

I mean, it's such a dadgum disaster.

Don't do this.

Jonathan's in Miami.

Hi, Jonathan.

How are you?

How are you doing?

Good.

How can we help?

I'm doing well.

Yeah, so just a question.

My fiancé and I were both in our 30s and we're coming up finally in our career and we're both about $700,000 in debt together.

And we're wondering, you know, after about, say, a year of saving and paying our loans

and 14 years of training or realow to kind of start living our life finally like by getting a house and whatnot.

Wow.

So what in the world do you do for a living?

We're both positions, actually.

I was opening.

Okay.

So tell me this household income is huge.

Yes,

it will be huge.

What is it now?

Right now, oh no.

Right now, we're both in between our training and are actually starting our positions.

Oh, okay.

So you're just coming out of residency?

We're coming out of fellowship, yes.

Out of fellowship.

Okay.

So

when will you get the big boy job

um we won't start till next month okay when you start what will the two of you be making special year

um five uh both combined about 900 okay all right

um pre-tax obviously okay jonathan i

so you guys you've been in school your whole life

I don't know anything else but a test.

And now you're going to make a million dollars a year as a return on that investment.

Congratulations.

That's amazing.

I'm I'm so proud of you.

Thank you so much.

And you're the kind of doctor I want, one that actually knows what the flip they're doing.

Thank you.

That's pretty incredible.

So

you're not going to like my answer, but I will explain it to you, okay, as if

the patient had a prognosis and we needed to give him a treatment plan, okay?

This patient, you and your wife, are a couple of things I know about you just based on your story.

I'm 100%

sure both of you are very bright.

Dumb people can't do what you all have done.

Okay, the other thing I know about you that you maybe have not admitted to yourselves, but I'm sure of, is that you know how to delay pleasure for a greater good.

You can suffer long periods of time for an excellent result if you believe the result is there.

You have that emotional maturity, that spiritual ability that most people who can't make it to Friday,

you made it till 30.

Work and work and work and work for tomorrow.

Work and work and work and work for tomorrow.

Work and work and work and work for tomorrow.

That's delaying pleasure.

You following me here?

You have that muscle built beautifully.

And I'm going to try to beg you to use that muscle just at least one more time.

900,000 minus 600,000 is 300,000.

I'm going to ask you to live on 300,000 your first year and be debt-free before you buy a house.

And before you buy a new beamer or two, by the way.

No cars whatsoever.

Well,

there's a thing called duck.

We have observed in my world a thing we call docitis.

Docitis is you've been holding your breath through grad school, through med school, through residency, through fellowship.

And when you finally get the big job, you exhale, and it looks like consumer purchases at the wazoo.

That's what it looks like.

And that's docitis.

You've been holding your breath so long to ring the bell to get the prize that when you finally get it, you do stupid on steroids for about two years.

And it takes people in my world about 10 years to clean up the mess you made for you, even though you make really good money so i'm trying to get you to tap in you you have this in this unbelievable ability not only are you smart but you have the ability to delay pleasure that's an emotional maturity factor and you've got the ability to do that and if you will clear this debt before you start living your life like buying a house and get that whine out of your voice like you had you were whining like a four-year-old when you can i now get a house please daddy get that out of your voice and go go finish this like a man and finish the mess you made, clean it up, and then you're going to be so stinking rich and be able to own any house and any car you want to own.

You make a million dollars a year with no payments and no debt of any kind.

You're going to have so much money and such a great life.

And that's what you've been promising yourself while you went through all these sacrifices.

And I'm asking you to do it for one more year.

Live like you're in residence, you're in fellowship for one more year and use all of this fabulous income, clear the debt in one year.

did i make a sale

it makes total sense yeah okay it's not easy i don't it's not easy because you're you've been you've been waiting all this time yeah

it's been waiting to get here and now you're finally here and this goober on the podcast is telling you not to do this right i don't blame you i mean it's a it's a normal human emotion but dude You guys are,

both of you, you're a power couple.

How stressful is this work going to be on a scale of one to ten?

What you know about it?

Your work.

Your work.

It'll probably be

seven to eight, maybe.

Okay, now I want you to think about the added stress if you do whatever most doctors do and they live high on the hog coming out of college and all this and grad school and the whole nine house medicine.

And just imagine the stress of the job plus the stress of the debt if you make no headway.

Just seriously sit with that over the next three days.

Do some research.

Read stories about doctors that are just overwhelmed by debt.

Get a picture of what Dave and I are talking about because we've seen it.

Peace.

And imagine having peace and no stress over money.

You got a stressful enough of a job.

Hey, 900K, how much sign-in bonus are you getting?

My sign-on is about 20, not much.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Just a big income.

So they don't necessarily.

I'm just curious, which specialization?

I'm i'm gastro and what about her

and she's pulmonology so i'm pretty sure she's the smarter one out of the two of us i i think both of you i think both of you are gonna be okay dude yeah i'm so proud of y'all well done y'all are amazing absolutely amazing yeah if you'll just slow down a half a notch and do this right it's gonna relieve stress anxiety you're gonna be working with be able to work on the work rather than work on the checkbook

The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YReFi.

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Today's question comes from Andrew in Michigan.

I own a small business which has grown to 10 employees, plus my wife and myself.

One of our growing pains has been our manager who has been with us for two years.

At times he shines and is excellent and proactive.

Other times he does random things like borrowing small amounts from the tips, hiding small checking errors, and lying about dumb mistakes.

We've had numerous conversations about these lapses in judgment.

Should we fire him or give him one more chance?

You know, again, I don't have enough details here to say why I would give him one more chance.

It feels like we've had numerous conversations, and so numerous at this point, we've not seen any behavior change.

And what's tough is that this is somebody who carries a lot of water, sounds like he shines in a lot of areas, but in an area that is a legitimate red flag where you've talked to him multiple times and it's not changing, yeah, I don't think one more chance is necessary unless you have not communicated that this is in fact now the last chance.

We don't have this conversation ever again.

This is a tough decision emotionally at times, but you have to separate the emotion from maybe maybe your fears of what would happen if this person, a high performer, leaves.

But ultimately, you got to do what is right, and you've felt like this is a problem.

You're right.

This is a character issue, and it will turn into something bigger if you don't get rid of it.

Yeah.

I mean, we coach a lot of restaurant folks in our small business program, Ontario Leadership, and I'm not a restaurant person, but my understanding is most restaurants

with what you're talking about here, at the end of the day, the tips are

some people either put them in a pool or they are, you know, each server keeps their own tips for the night.

But if they put them in a pool and split them up among the servers and the bus boys or whatever, and then the manager is taking money out of that,

he's stealing money from your other employees.

That's not something you need to give grace to.

There's not a single person that works in that restaurant that thinks this guy's awesome.

He's stealing from them, and they know it.

The servers are a lot of things, but they carry heavy trays and they know where their tips went.

I can tell you that.

They work their butts off.

Their feet hurt.

Their back hurts when they go home.

They want to know where their tips went.

And my manager took my tips.

What do you do?

You can't really go back and go, well, my manager took my tips.

Who are you going to confront?

Yeah.

Let me tell you, everyone in the place is going to cheer when you fire this guy.

He's stealing their tips.

It's not real hard for me to figure out.

So

I'm not quite as easygoing as Ken is on this.

You don't have to be mean to him or anything, but when someone has steals from the tips, hides small checking errors,

is that code for embezzlement?

What does hide small checking errors mean, really?

Okay?

Like, he doesn't know how to do this stuff and lying about dumb mistakes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you have serious integrity issues with this individual and you've got him in leadership.

And so

you've had enough conversations.

I've had enough just reading this.

He's gone.

I'd fire him right now.

I mean, I'd be nice about it, but we give people warnings around here and we will talk to them, help them change behaviors and do things.

There's a couple of things we don't, okay?

Right.

You know, one of them is you steal.

I don't really need to renovate.

I mean, I don't need to spend time time rehabbing a thief.

That's one I need to work on because I got to look over my shoulder all the time and I'm giving them my money to work here.

So, no, you're done.

You know, I just, I just, well, I thought I would put it back later.

You know, what?

Yeah, you're just gone.

Okay.

And the other one was, you know, we find, you know, somebody accidentally left a bag of cocaine.

No, no, we don't have a second discussion about that.

You're just, you know, to start with, there's a bag of cocaine and then there's accidental.

Oh, Oh my God, these two things don't go together.

You're gone.

I mean, this is not,

we don't have a big, we don't need a drug test.

We already got the drug.

It's okay.

You're gone.

And so it's just,

no, I mean, that, you know, so we, but that stuff doesn't happen here because of how stringent we are on hiring.

But that's the type of stuff that we would have a zero tolerance on.

And because I don't need to discuss you if you, if you don't have integrity.

Now, if you're just not good at your job or you got a bad attitude or you're nasty to somebody, I can talk to you about that, give you a chance to change your ways.

You know, we can coach you along and coach you up and give you a chance to stay.

The problem is, and you pointed this out, is when you have 10 people,

you are at the stage

where we call it the second stage of business.

The first stage is treadmill operator, and the next stage is Pathfinder.

And so when you are at the Pathfinder stage,

It's like herding cats.

You got 10 people, they're running in 10 different directions.

Everything's not aligned.

There's a lot of chaos.

It can be that all of them are working hard.

I had 10 people one time.

I remember.

I mean, it's like everybody's working hard, but they're running in 10 different directions.

There's not a lot of alignment, not a lot of good strong cultural values in place and that kind of thing.

And you do have this sense of if I fire a key person and I have 10 people, the whole place is going to shut down.

Well, let me help you.

Andrew in Michigan.

The whole place is not going to shut down.

Instead, they're going to cheer for Andrew in Michigan.

They're going to go, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, because the guy that stole our tips, Andrew got rid of them.

Andrew is the man.

I would charge the gates of hell with a water pistol for Andrew because he had my back.

The guy that stole my tips, he fired him.

That's what's going to happen.

You're not going to cave.

You're not going to fall in.

You're going to be stronger.

And the longer you do this, the more sure footed you'll be in your decision-making on these things.

And you'll make fewer and fewer mistakes on who I keep and who I give this to.

But don't keep somebody because you think this place isn't going to run because of them.

Dude, he was never the secret sauce in the first place.

You are the secret sauce.

That's why you have a successful concern.

But now you have to have a backbone and be a leader and fire a thief.

Yeah, you've enabled it by just using the language borrowing.

I thought that was interesting.

He's borrowing tips.

Here's what we know.

If he's borrowing or stealing from his coworkers, it's only a matter of time before he borrows or steals from you.

If he hasn't already, 100% chance.

So that's the thing, yeah.

100% chance his wife doesn't trust him.

All right.

Peyton is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Hey, Peyton, what's up?

Hi, how's it going?

Better than I deserve.

How can I help?

So I kind of have a little bit of a math problem for you.

So just a little bit of background about me.

I'm a chemical engineer.

So like I'm trying to figure out the best way that this makes sense to do.

So I currently have gone from a job that was paying me $80,000 a year to a job that's paying me $104 a year

plus commission.

So I can get up to 40 to 60 grand of commission at the end of the year if I perform well on this job.

And so my problem is that I'm working on your debt snowball methods.

I'm in baby step number two.

I cut down my employment.

I'm a little short on time.

Go straight to your question, honey.

Yeah, so this straight to the question point is that I'm going from a company that had a company car to not a car that you can get into this program.

But the problem is, is that the car to be qualified for the program

has to be a new car to four years in age, under 50,000 miles, and has to be a hybrid to qualify for the program.

I'll pass.

But they'll reimburse you.

It's not a raise.

The amount of money they're going to give you will not cover the loss in value.

Because you're driving an expensive car into the dirt because you're putting a lot of miles on it.

You're doing sales calls.

Okay.

So

you're going to put so many miles on the car,

you're going to take a $40,000 or a $50,000 car and you're going to make it worth $10,000 every year.

And you cannot absorb that with the amount of money that they're offering you.

That's why they don't do company cars.

They trick you into taking the bike.

It's a pay cut.

It's not a benefit.

Don't take it.

Just drive whatever you want to drive and forget it.

And drive something cheap because you're ruining whatever you drive.

Buying and selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to get the right deal at the right price.

That's That's why we only recommend Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agents.

They're hand-picked pros who know their stuff, listen to your needs, and have your back from the first call all the way to closing day.

To find a Ramsey Trusted Agent near you, visit ramseysolutions.com slash agent.

Ramseysolutions.com slash agent.

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.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of the show that is a runaway hit on Ramsey Networks.

It's called Front Row Seat, where he does long-form interviews with highly successful and famous people to get the success principles from them that help you live a better life.

You'll love it.

Chuck is with us in Pittsburgh.

Hey, Chuck, welcome to the show.

How can we help?

Thanks, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

Hey, I've been following the baby's steps for a decade, and thank you so much.

It's been so good for my family.

It's helped our marriage.

It's just made putting three kids through college

a lot simpler.

Way to go.

I'm proud of it.

My question was.

Thank you.

My question is for Ken.

Ken, what are the baby steps for somebody that's looking to move out of a 32-year career into something that he can do into his twilight?

Get clear is the first step.

Second step is get qualified.

Third step is get connected.

Fourth is get started.

Then we get promoted and ultimately into what we think is the dream job in this new path.

So that's the quick answer.

Do you know what you want to move into or are you trying to figure that out?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Okay.

Well, we've got a tool for you that'll make this a little easier on the phone.

I'm going to give you the book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do.

It's the Get Clear Career Assessment.

And there's three wires that every human has.

Talent is one wire.

That's simply what you're really good at doing.

And you're born with that.

And then through education and experience we hone that ball of clay of talent into sharpened skills or useful things like a bowl or a cup so talent is what we want to start with and that gives us the clues as to where we can go the next two wires one is passion and that just means what work do i love to do i look forward to it when i'm in the middle of it i lose track of time and then the third wire is all about motivation and that's we call it mission in other words what results do I want my work to create?

What do I want to contribute to the world?

So it looks like this in a simple sentence.

If I use what I do best to do what I love to produce results that matter to me, I am, in fact, on purpose and I'm doing meaningful work and the money is going to be the best possible option because of those factors.

So,

you know, I'll put you on the spot.

I'm going to give you that assessment and you take about 18 minutes.

It's going to really read your mail.

It'll make specific suggestions to you.

But I want to boil the world of work work down into four buckets.

People work,

idea work,

process work, and object work.

Object work would be something where I'm working with my hands.

Maybe I'm a carpenter, maybe I'm a plumber.

And so in the world of work, where do you think your greatest talent is knowing what you know about yourself being 56?

What area of work?

People work, idea work, process work, or object work?

Definitely people work.

It's been my whole life.

Okay, great.

So if you allow yourself to wonder, and I know you have, and I'm putting you on the spot, not for you to be locked into this, but if you could go a direction tomorrow and you knew you couldn't fail and we just tried it for 90 days, what would you try tomorrow?

Well, I've got a face for radio, Ken, so I'd have to say

I did some radio years and years, 30 years ago.

at KDK in Pittsburgh, a long time ago,

but couldn't make it into a career, but I kind of miss it, you know?

Okay.

So you would be communicating.

If we take radio out, you would be doing some type of work that's heavy communication and that involves people, correct?

Correct.

And you like the pressure of communicating?

That doesn't freak you out.

You kind of enjoy it.

A little bit of butterfly, but you really enjoy it?

Love the deadlines.

Go on, you know.

Hey, we're starting in 3-2-1.

All right.

So let me ask you this.

What do you make right now?

What have you been doing?

And what do you make?

well i've been in sales for 32 years and

uh been blessed to be in over six you know six digits okay great now this is what's 100 to 150 depending on the market okay so here's what i know about you so you're a very good communicator because you've been very successful in sales and a good salesperson knows how to truly communicate not just talk but read people listen for what's below thee so you've got a lot of experience here now to be very honest with you radio is not an industry where there's a ton of opportunity because of the nature of podcasting and youtube and and the the culture's listening habits there's just not a whole lot of radio opportunity so then you go okay what is it that i love about the radio piece and and it's i like communicating something that i believe will help people is that a fair high-level statement

Yeah,

okay, great.

So as you begin to take the assessment, you get your results, you're going to start to ideate.

And here's three questions that you will answer.

And if you got something to write with, write them down.

If not, go back and listen to this.

Three very simple questions that'll bring you an idea or two or five.

Who are the people I most want to help?

What problem or desire do they have?

And then what solutions, plural,

to the problem or desire that I just outlined do I most get excited about?

What you're going to find, if you wrestle with that day in and day out, your mind and heart will start to come together and you'll begin to throw things out.

And so you are going to communicate.

It's people work.

We know it's people, people, people.

There might be a little bit of idea work involved here.

And so if you can begin to figure out who are those people I want to help at this stage of my life and what problem or desire is jumping out at me and then how does the marketplace address that with my skill set?

And so that's the exercise for you in the days ahead.

But the assessment that we're going to give you is going to give you a very detailed report.

I want you to read read it, and I want you to then answer those three questions.

And what you're going to find is you'll see multiple opportunities that you never saw before.

But you've got to be able to understand what it is that I'm looking for.

And I want you to pan back further than just the two things,

sales and radio.

Yes.

Okay.

Those were very nuanced.

possible uses of everything Ken's talking about.

And there's a lot of different ways to do what you're doing.

And I'll just,

you know, I'll give you an example of that.

I was being interviewed the other day by a trade publication in the broadcast world, and they said, How has Ramsey prospered and survived

satellite radio, the internet coming on with podcasts?

Now used to be streaming in the old days, and

now with the advent of the power of YouTube as our shows.

And what I said was, and what I want you to think this way is, we are platform agnostic.

We don't care where,

what medium or media this message goes out on.

If it goes out on Instagram or TikTok or anything, we don't care.

It's fine.

We're fine with any of it.

Okay.

But

if I said instead, I'm a talk radio guy.

I'm not doing podcast.

And I'm not going to be on YouTube.

That's for Chats Chasing Lasers.

And Tic Tac's owned by the communists.

I'm not doing that.

If I said that, which I'm kind of tempted to at times, okay, if I said that and I held myself to being only a talk radio guy, I would have 8 million listeners a week instead of 40.

So that would be stupid, narrow-minded of me to focus on one thing.

Instead, I'm saying, how many different ways

in a huge buffet can we apply the delivery of this message?

In your case, their message is your talent.

How can I put myself out there?

How many different ways can I put myself out there?

Be platform agnostic.

Hang on, we're going to send you a copy of both books.

One that has the clear path, that's paycheck the purpose, and the assessment as well.

We've all done dumb things with money.

I've done them with zeros on the end.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with money is not having a plan for it.

You got to have a plan.

You got to be intentional and you need to get a budget.

You have to tell your money where to go so you're not wondering where it went.

Our budgeting app, Every Dollar, helps you do just that.

It's the easiest and fastest way to make a monthly plan for every dollar you've got coming in and going out.

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Buying or selling a home these days with all the drama is a big deal.

And the clickbait headlines, all the garbage that's out there on social media, and all the broke friends that have an opinion about you buying a house.

Let me help you with the drama.

How you cut through drama?

Facts.

When drama or trauma is occurring, facts are your friends.

Facts will talk you off the ledge.

Facts will take you and put you in a cold shower and get you over a buying fever.

Facts will tell you, this is what I need to do, and this is a smart thing to do.

Facts are facts.

And you need some facts in the middle of all this.

So what we've done is we've built out a full website called the U.S.

Housing Market Trends.

And you can jump on there any day and see what exactly is happening with the real estate world.

And like, for instance, the 15-year fixed rate is still steady at 5.95, just under 6%.

That's a fact.

Hadn't moved in a while, by the way.

That is also a fact.

The median house price is still $441,000 in America today.

It has gone up a little bit every month.

The inventory right now is

1,082,520 homes on on the market today.

And that's the highest inventory rate since 2019.

However, demand is higher than it has been, and so that is why house prices have not dropped.

High interest rates, high inventory would normally mean you'd see house prices come down.

It has not happened because demand is higher than inventory.

When demand is higher than supply, economics tells us prices go up.

When more people want a beanie baby than there are beanie babies, the price of beanie babies go up.

That's how it works, works, okay?

Some of you are old enough to get the reference, some of you weren't born yet, but there we go.

So, anyway, that's the thing.

Go to ramseysolutions.com/slash market, and we'll catch you up today.

Andrew's with us in New York.

Hi, Andrew.

Welcome to the show.

How can we help?

Hi, Dave and Ken.

It's really cool to talk to you guys.

I've been a big fan for years.

Well, thank you.

What's up?

So, I have a situation that I've been discussing with my dad and my sister, and I thought it might be something you'd have some suggestions on.

My dad set up a

college savings account, 529 accounts, for my twins who were born in 2010.

These were his first grandchildren, and he was working at the time, so he was able to fund the accounts for a few years.

They've grown to a total of about $100,000, half of which he estimates he contributed.

Wow.

He stopped working shortly after that and was was unable to start additional accounts later when I had additional children and my sister had a child.

He hadn't really thought about them since,

but now a question of fairness has arisen, at least between my sister and me.

He only recently learned from an elder care attorney that accounts like this can be shared or split among other children, and he's now wondering if he should draw from his limited retirement savings to start an account for my sister's child or portion off some of the savings from the twins accounts.

I know that it's his money to do with as he pleases, and I'd want my nephew to receive something as well.

So how much does your dad have in retirement?

I don't know exactly how much he has, but he has enough that he's

$300,000, $5 million.

What's he got in there?

No, I think something like $300,000 or $400,000.

Okay, cool.

And

is your mom gone?

They are separated.

They're separate.

Divorced.

Divorced.

Okay, all right.

And he has now retired.

How old is he?

He's 77.

Okay.

What's he seeing an

elder care attorney about?

He was looking into protecting the house in case something happened to him and he needed to go into

care or something.

Okay.

That's a waste of money, by the way.

Okay.

I can help you with that.

We could use that money to fund the

kids' college.

Okay.

So I'm not against some elder care situations, but

here's the situation.

There's only two kinds of nursing homes.

Ones you pay for are ones you go into when you're on welfare.

Welfare is Medicaid.

It's for poor people.

Your dad's not poor people.

Okay.

Okay.

He needs to quit trying to hide assets using an elder care attorney so he can go on welfare.

You don't want him, and he doesn't want to be in a welfare Medicaid nursing home.

Not if I got 300 grand in the bank.

That ain't where I'm staying.

Okay?

Okay.

You know, if I got 300 grand in the bank, I don't want to live in subsidized housing.

Okay?

Okay.

You catching on my drift here?

That's where this guy's leading him, and he doesn't need to be leading him this way.

It's a bad plan.

His house is not protected, it's protected only if he goes on welfare.

And so

don't try to design a life so that you can go on welfare after working your whole life and you got 300K.

That does enter, it's a sidebar, but it's not because that leaves you then in a situation so that these kids, how old is your

sister's kid?

He's seven.

Okay.

So he's got time for money to grow, and my twins are 50.

So your dad's 300K is invested?

Yes.

And

here's what I would do if I were your dad.

Okay.

I'm 64, 65 almost.

Okay.

Here's what I would do if I were him.

If he doesn't live until these kids go to college, 10 years.

Okay.

If he lives to 87, we'll do something different.

But if he doesn't live, leave enough specifically in the will for the three kids, yours and, oh, there's only two kids.

Your one kid didn't get money and your sister's one kid didn't get money, right?

I have two additional kids.

Okay, so leave enough in the will for your two that were not the twins that have zero, the sister's kid, who doesn't have anything that has zero, to play catch up and leave the twins out of that portion of the will.

So make it right upon death.

And then split up whatever's left between you and your sister, okay?

But he can make it right upon death.

In the meantime, he's got 300K growing, and it'll be 600K if he leaves it alone in seven more years, and it's in good mutual funds.

Okay, so it'll be plenty of money to send these kids to school.

That's if he dies before they go to school.

How old are your two that we're talking about?

That don't have money?

That don't have money.

13 and 7.

13?

Yes, 13 and 7.

Okay, so seven years if he doesn't die.

If he dies, anytime in the next seven years, the 13-year-old gets made whole, and the seven-year-old gets made whole.

The twins are obviously older than 13, and then your sister's seven-year-old gets made whole upon death.

That's what I would do if I were him in my will.

Then, if he doesn't die, when they get ready to go to college, I'm just going to write checks.

Okay.

Simple.

I don't have to fund a 529.

I'll just write checks out of my wealth until I equal and do a little math and you figure out, you know, what is equal at that point.

But we've got at least five years, four years, five years before yours is in school and, you know, up to 10 before the other two are in school.

And then he's going to be writing some checks out of his then half million or whatever.

And, you know, if he puts in some similar amount plus growth,

because he got the growth.

Okay.

If he gives you 25K today

instead of 10 years from now, he's going to get all the growth on the 25.

So he could, let's call that 50, okay?

So he could put in 50 for a future kid and it'd be the same as 25 was back then.

You follow me?

Yes, yes.

So just have his financial planner, not his elder lawyer, do the calculation and just run that out and go, okay, if I'm alive,

I'm going to take care of the 13-year-old to this equation because that equals 25K

back then.

Okay.

And how old are the twins, by the way?

They're 15.

Okay.

All right.

So, and then they get nothing.

They've already got theirs in either scenario.

Unless he wants to leave the overage above college to the kids and not to you and your sister.

But otherwise, the twins don't get any more.

They've already gotten theirs.

And so just lay it all out like that, and that'll be fine.

Ken, I'm glad you had input on that.

Well, I was going to say, Dave, you had several holes there that I was going to fill, and and then you just tied it all up there at the end, so I don't have anything to add.

Sorry about that.

It's way too easy to put off making a will.

And believe me, I've heard every excuse in the book.

But not having the time is one excuse we can kick to the curb right now.

Because these days, most folks can make a legally binding will on their laptop between loads of laundry.

If you're wondering if you can make your will online or if you need a lawyer, we have a quiz to help you figure that out in less than five minutes.

Just go to ramseysolutions.com/slash wills quiz.

Ramseysolutions.com/slash wills quiz.

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

Hey guys, how are you?

Good, how are you?

Better than I deserved.

Wonderful.

Welcome.

Where do you guys live?

Buffalo, New York.

Oh, cool.

Welcome to Nashville.

Thank you.

And how much debt have you two paid off?

About $70,000.

Awesome.

And how long did that take you?

Just over five years.

Good for you.

And your range of income during that time?

$100,000 to $150,000.

Okay.

All right.

And what kind of debt was the 70?

Well, to borrow your phrase, the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as our status symbol of choice.

Got a paid-for hour, baby.

I love it.

Congratulations.

Well done.

Very well done.

What do y'all do for a living?

So Rosalie was an interior design and now has the hardest of jobs, a stay-at-home mom.

And I'm in financial analysis and side business as a financial coach.

And a special thank you to your team, an unbelievably talented team of Ramsey coaches you have.

oh well thank you thank you we appreciate you being here very cool how's it feel guys to have the house paid off feels really good amazing

I bet that's amazing so what a goal and five years you so you you got everything else paid off and then you work just the slow plan work four five and six like you're supposed to yep yep and paid off the house gradually how old are you i'm 36 44 and a paid four house what's the house worth about we bought it for about 200 it's worth about 300 now all right very cool good for you guys.

And how much have you guys built up in your nest eggs and your retirement and so forth?

We'd rather not say, but in the last five years since we worked the plan between investing more and the market growth, it's over doubled in that five years.

All right.

Well, very good.

Good.

So it smells like maybe your baby steps millionaires already.

I'm proud of you.

I'm just going to go with that.

I'm going to pretend like I know that.

The way to go, y'all.

I'm proud of you.

Thank you.

At 36 and 44 years old.

So give us your perspective on why after getting out of debt and walking through through the baby steps, you went, all right, yeah, let's go ahead and let's keep on going, let's keep being disciplined, and let's pay the house off.

Why, for somebody who's wondering, what's the reason for that?

What is your why?

Yeah, so we entered marriage completely debt-free.

We had debt before marriage, but we entered it debt-free.

But, you know, I stumbled across the Ramsey show back in 2020 and started watching YouTube highlights and watching the show.

And so, Dave, I'm a...

Start driving Rosalie crazy.

Probably, yes.

I have an accounting degree and a CPA license.

So of course when it comes to personal finance, before finding your show, I knew almost nothing.

So my parents did teach me to live on less than you make.

So I followed that and married well because Rosalie lived on less than she made also.

But quickly from watching your show, I realized there were a lot of blind spots and a lot of things we're missing.

We were not saving 15% for retirement.

We were tracking our expenses instead of budgeting, and there's a huge difference between those two.

We had James, our son, and our daughter, Lillian, was on the way.

We didn't have a will.

We didn't have life insurance.

So there were just a lot of blind spots we were missing.

So we had a good foundation, but Finding Your Show developed an actual process that we could follow.

Yeah.

And when you check all those boxes, the weird thing is the result is peace.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you can just relax.

House is paid for.

We've got retirement.

Got a will.

We've got

life insurance.

We're rocking.

You've got the system down.

You get in the groove, and there's a chance that

you can just breathe in.

And it really is financial peace two words that don't go together like airline service it's like yeah pretty cool guys I'm so proud of y'all thank you what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is well so it's it's working together it's communicating it's the budget it's being intentional all of those things are are very very critical I know for us with having kids that's our main motivation is our kids our generational wealth setting them up for life yeah

that's our huge driver so I mean for us with kids, that's what we've got.

That's your why.

Yeah, it's your why.

It's your driver.

Yeah.

You got to have that.

Because the other stuff is too weird to do if you don't have a real reason.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we decided to attack steps five and six, obviously doing step four, too, but five and six aggressively to get them both done.

So we front-loaded their 529 accounts.

So before they even got into kindergarten, they're all set with their 529s that what grows should cover at least a public university, and then they can decide from there if they're going to work or get scholarships for anything beyond that.

But they'll get that by not taking on any college debt.

So that was our goal: that we can get them to have no debt other than a mortgage for their entire lives.

That this is going to be their last recollection of debt is being on the debt-free stage here.

So you guys have been married how long?

Almost eight years this October.

Okay, and you started on the house five years ago.

So it sounds like you started very early in the marriage on this whole thing.

Yeah, we bought the house right as we got married.

So it was a total of under eight years that we paid the house off.

It was five years since we got very serious on the Ramsey plan.

Yeah.

So Rosalie, when you first met Michael or when he first started talking about all this stuff, did he drive you crazy with it?

I'm used to it because this is kind of his background.

He's into finances, and

this is his passion.

And

this is kind of his wheelhouse.

So, this wasn't anything new for me.

And I wasn't surprised when he found you and brought all this up and wanted to, you know, go on this plan and attack it.

I was right with him because, like I said, the kids and everything, I know I drive him crazy because, with being in a tier design backroom, I'm always looking at stuff around the house, so that drives him crazy.

So we always have to communicate about

things that I might want to do to the house or

what's going on.

Communication is big.

So I wasn't surprised.

And now you can.

Now you can do whatever you want to.

Well, don't tell him that.

Well,

maybe I need to.

I don't know.

What does live and give like no one else?

look like for you guys going forward.

Have you began to dream and discuss what that could look like?

100%.

Honestly, on the car ride over down here, we were definitely talking about how we can now give and how we can be more generous with our giving and to our church and things like that.

That's definitely been a conversation more and more and more now that we don't have the mortgage hanging over our head.

Yeah, what's the big nice thing you're going to do for yourselves?

I don't know.

We don't have an answer to that one.

I think you don't.

You have to live like no one else.

Later, you can live like no one else.

I don't know if if we have an answer to that one.

We're still trying to get our cars through two more winters, and they're 13 and 11.

I think you need some cars.

Time to get some cars.

Don't have any house payment, don't have any debt.

Now you can breathe a little, y'all.

I mean, it's good to do that.

And that won't be wasteful, and that won't be irresponsible or anything else.

And so it's actually why you did all of this, that and those two beautiful kiddos.

So very, very cool.

All right, bring them up.

Let's meet them and names and ages.

Come on up, kiddos.

Do we have time for a quick story?

Sure.

So it's very appropriate, Ken, that you're on the show today.

So I called you five years ago debating whether I should take financial coach master training as our daughter was on the way.

And I asked you, I said, is this a good thing to do?

And you kept saying, ask your wife.

And I said, well, I already done that.

I'm calling the expert.

But right before we got off the call, you gave me two words.

You said, do something.

And those two words were huge.

And they're huge for everybody in finances, in faith, in fitness, whatever it might be.

And then on the way here, we stopped at a rest stop in Kentucky, and I saw a U.S.

Army veteran on his jacket.

And I said to him, Thank you for your service.

And these are the true heroes.

And his response was, you're worth it.

And so I just wanted to combine those two thoughts today.

Do something because you're worth it and because your family's worth it.

So combine those two thoughts for all your listeners today.

I think that's a really important message to hear.

Amen.

Cool.

Thanks for joining us.

Very cool.

That's good stuff.

All right, kiddos, names and ages again.

James is six and Lillian is four.

All right, guys.

You look like you've been practicing a debt-free scream.

I think you're ready.

All right.

Michael and Rosalie, James and Lillian, $70,000 paid off in five years.

House and everything.

Making 1 to 150.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one.

Where's a debt-free?

Those kids are completely changed.

Their lives are changed before they were born and they didn't even know it.

Pretty incredible.

This is what happens when you change your family tree.

And at 36 and 44, you put yourself in a position of baby steps millionaire.

You've got your house paid off, everything, and you're making $100 and a half.

And you can do anything you want to then the rest of your life.

You've got the thumb of society off of your neck.

You don't have Citibank.

anywhere in your vocabulary.

Oh, God, that's good to be rid of, you know.

You don't have American excess anywhere in your vocabulary.

That's good to be rid of.

Wow, way to go, guys.

What great, what a great power couple.

Excellent.

Our scripture of the day, Job 22, 21, submit to God and be at peace with him.

In this way,

prosperity will come to you.

In other words, that is prosperity.

Peace.

The peace that passes understanding.

Winston Churchill said, for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

Yeah.

And another famous English leader, Margaret Thatcher, said, socialism is fine until you run out of other people's money.

Yeah, agreed.

Yeah, that's the problem.

Math thing.

That's a math thing.

Reggie's in Cleveland, Ohio.

Hey, Reggie, what's up?

Hey, Dave.

It's kind of a pleasure talking to you guys.

You too.

How can we help?

I actually

came across your course about 13 years ago in high school, and I was lucky enough to take it.

And I've been an avid

listener ever since.

Oh, thank you.

It's been quite life-changing.

Thank you.

Of course.

So kind of my dilemma is,

I own two bakeries and I co-own one of them.

And one of them had to close briefly here due to a lack of employees.

And the other one is quite successful.

And in 2027, we're forecasting a million plus.

So my question is,

given my full-time employment and other businesses I have on the side,

Is it a smart idea to try to pump a little more money into that other bakery just to make some rudimentary upgrades, changes, you know, new stuff,

just to kind of try to revive that and gain back the trust in the community?

So, a couple of questions here before we dive in.

Is the one that's struggling that you had to temporarily shut down, is that the one you co-own or the one that you're the sole owner?

Sole owner.

Okay.

And you said to us that the problem you identified was not getting able to get employees.

And so then you presented another solution.

So

what is the big problem?

Well, the problem is

the lack.

It's an underdeveloped area, and it's being developed as we speak in terms of about a thousand houses within four square miles.

So it took me about eight months to really check.

Underdeveloped, you mean it was a bad neighborhood that's coming back?

Rural.

Oh, it's rural.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

No, you're not.

I just didn't understand.

It's my fault.

Okay.

All right.

So

it's way out of town, but town has come to it.

Correct.

It's kind of the city is creeping out there to it.

Correct.

And can you hold on long enough for the city to get there?

Well,

that's my concern because I would be paying like I'm paying now currently out of my

career salary, you know, to keep everything open and getting the rent paid and stuff to that effect.

All right.

So you said you're temporary.

So you temporarily shut it down.

My question then is, can you keep it shut down until the market gets to the point that it needs to?

In other words, can you ramp it back up at a later date?

I can't.

I really have a bad feeling about borrowing money.

I'm 100%.

I wasn't asking.

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

That wasn't a part of the scenario.

He just said, if you don't reopen it, what are your costs and can you maintain those easier than you can maintain feeding it?

Yeah.

I would not be able to long-term.

So

what is the profit on the million dollars back home at the other bakery, on the million dollars on it, what's your net profit?

So on the million dollars that we're forecasting in next year, profit will be about $250.

Okay, which is split two ways.

And you have a full-time job on top of this.

That is correct.

And you make what it's your full-time job?

So I am a typesetter as a trendist, and this is my last year.

So right now, I'm sitting at about 70.

And you'll go to what after you finish?

It'll go what?

It'll go to about 95.

Okay.

And that's without any overtime or anything.

And does your wife work outside the home, sir?

I am not married.

You're not married?

Okay, that's easy.

Okay.

All right.

So let's just reverse engineer the other bakery that you singularly own.

The point is, you got to the party early and there's no people.

That's what you told me, right?

You built out on the edge of a growth ring and you thought it was going to happen faster or that the current people there were going to be able to support you and they're not able to.

There's not enough population currently to support the business, I think you said.

Well, there is, but the problem is, is it's not going to be supported staff-wise.

I mean, I have people that pop up here and there, but I think my core demographic of people that I'm waiting on is still up and coming.

As workers, not as customers.

Well,

if you had it fully staffed, would it be profitable?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so staffing is your problem, not renovation.

Correct.

I'm saying.

So no, I'm not going to spend money renovating it until I get it staffed.

Why wouldn't you just spend all of your effort staffing it or close it?

One of the two.

Correct.

Yes, sir.

It is

between the population that's growing and the actual

bathing problem itself, it does cost an arm and a leg to do that.

I mean, I've sustained it short term, but the only problem is

to really be in the green.

One population would need to increase the customer base.

It would be...

You've talked yourself into closing it.

Every sentence you've said has told me that.

And I think that's obvious.

There's not a simple solution to your staffing problem.

But you're done.

Every sentence you bring up is negative about closing it.

You've lost hope that it's going to work.

So it's done.

You need to close it.

Yeah.

Okay.

And you know more about it than I do.

But

you don't even realize it, but you're telegraphing everything, and every sentence you're using is all about how it can't be done.

It can't be done.

I was too early.

There's this problem, that problem.

And you've given up hope that the problems can be solved in time before you go broke doing it.

And so I wouldn't want the stress.

I just close it.

Have you got a lease?

It is a lease, yes.

How long?

That runs out in January.

Oh, praise God.

Okay.

So you own all the equipment?

Yes, sir.

Debt-free?

Debt-free.

Great.

Put it in the garage.

So all you got is a lease till January and you're out of business.

That's awesomeness.

And next time you get ready to start, now you'll be wiser when you open your next one someday.

You'll know that the staffing as well as the customer base has to be there before you can open it.

And it has to be the location cannot be a risk.

The location has to be a no-brainer.

You took a risk location on a business that is

that location is everything.

Absolutely.

Yeah, anything in food service world, location, location, and location.

I was a little early to the party.

Yeah, you were.

You got there before the people did.

Yeah.

So I'm sorry, man.

So hopefully you haven't lost a lot.

I've learned a lot.

So the rule, and here's what I did, what Ken and I both were doing, listening to you.

We use Henry Cloud's book, and Henry's a friend, but we've been using this book for a long, long time called Necessary Endings.

When you lose hope, with all logic and sound wisdom, that something is going to get better, it needs to end.

And that is a relationship.

it's a job, it's a marriage, it's a business, it's an investment.

When you lose hope that it's going to get better, then it requires a painful and emotional, necessary ending.

Yeah.

And Reggie, in this case, really, really proud of you for doing this debt-free.

I love that you've been working on a trade.

You've been apprenticing.

You're about ready to see tremendous increase financially, you're making money in the other one.

So you learned a lesson here.

This is one of those, our dear friend John Maxwell wrote a book years ago called Failing Forward.

Then he retitled it, Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You

Learn.

And most people say lose.

And in this case, I want to encourage you.

You learned here.

You didn't lose.

You learned something.

You're going to come out of this thing without being in big time financial trouble.

Chalk this up to great experience.

I learned a lot here.

But man, I've set myself up beautifully for the future.

So I applaud you for being debt-free and being really smart here.

Even though you made a mistake here, this is not something to be ashamed of.

Yeah, it was an experiment.

That's right.

Yeah, it's not a failure, it's an experiment.

And the way you learn from experiments is you fail and you form a new hypothesis.

Then you experiment again.

Game on.

Welcome to business.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.