Don’t Let Your Present Circumstances Define Your Future

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 Ken Coleman Show,

is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225.

You jump in, we'll talk.

Adeline is with us in Youngstown, Ohio. Hi, Adeline, how are you? Hi, I'm doing good.
Good, what's up? Thank you. So, I'm a 21-year-old girl.
I'm not planning to go to college anytime here soon, and I recently started getting all my money. My dad would get my money before because, you know, take care of expenses and stuff.

And I thought I knew how to manage money pretty good, but it turns out I don't.

So basically my question is what should I, as a 21-year-old, be doing to build wealth at this point?

I have about $6,000 saved and, yeah.

And you're working?

I have a car.

Yes, I work, um, four days a week, 15 hour a day job. What do you do? Um, I work for my brother is Apple Orchard.
So what do you make?

Yeah, $15 an hour.

It's not steady income. Like in the winter time, I make maybe $1,500 a month.
And then in the busier times a year, I make maybe $2,500 a month. What specifically are you doing for him? I run his market and i sort fruit and yeah do a bunch of random stuff prune trees yeah are you living on your own or with your mom and dad um i'm living

at home with mom and dad yeah okay all right cool so um what's your plan where are you going to be

and where are you headed what's the 31 year old version of you going to be doing

Thank you. Yes.
Okay. All right.
Cool. So what's your plan? Where are you going to be and where are you headed? What's the 31-year-old version of you going to be doing? Hard question to ask at this point.
I would like to either be married, and if I'm not married, be doing something in the medical field. Okay.
All right. Well, I'd start taking some steps towards that, um, and figuring out what that looks like in terms of the medical field part.
I'm not in charge of the marriage part, but the, uh, uh, it's not my department, but, but, uh, yeah, you know, uh, I'd start saying, okay, what do I want to be four years from from now that's on my way to being another thing 10 years from now and what classes do i need to be taking or certifications do i need to get what experience do i need to move because i'm usually you don't go from the apple orchard to the medical field you usually uh go into the medical field it's of entry-level thing. And so maybe you start talking about taking some early steps towards that because your career is part of managing your money, in other words.
Right. That's why we're asking you all about your income.
And then you moving out and having your own place, that's part of managing your money as you go with. As far as managing your money goes, and I'll let Ken speak further to your career, you've got to just make the money that you have behave and go where you want it to go.
And you do that simply by having a plan before the month begins of where every dollar is going to go, and that's called a budget. And there's a budgeting app that we have called Every Dollar, and I will give you the premium version of that to get you started on that.
But basically, you're going to sit down before the month goes, enter your numbers into this app and go, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell this money what to do instead of looking up at the end of every month and going, I have no idea what happened.
And then that will lead you away from debt towards savings, towards investing, towards investing into yourself in some possible education moves. Yeah.
What I would add, Adeline, is the best thing you can do right now to move forward is to get as much knowledge as you can about the potential directions you could choose. The reason people don't move forward and they stay in the apple orchard, if you will, is because they're intimidated.
They're scared. So here's what I want you to do.
I want you to think about, I want you to write down tonight before you go to bed, all the different medical professions that you might be interested in. Everything from a 10-level interest, 201.
Just you can get visually what's out there. So that's a doctor, a surgeon, that's a nurse practitioner.
It might be a nurse. It might be somebody who does radiology scans.
It could be a pediatrician. It could be anything.
So look at that. And so then I want you to begin to identify people in your area who are in those fields.
We call this the proximity principle. Get around those people, take them to lunch, take them to coffee, and be like a student doing a book report on their job.
And what's going to happen is you're going to begin to understand what it takes to get there. That's the education piece and the experience piece.
As Dave said, what is the lowest rung of the ladder to require and look like to move into the medical position that you want? And so hang on the line. I want to give you two things.
I want to give you the get clear assessment. It's about a 20-minute assessment.
It's going to give you real clarity on professional direction. And then I want to give you the book, The Proximity Principle, because this is a deep dive in what I'm describing for you.
But if you do that, you're going to have real clear direction. One other thing I want to tell her, Dave, is for seasonal people, we get this call a lot.
When you're in a seasonal job like this, you need to take that experience and skill set from the apple orchard to another job or two so that there's not this dip in income. There should not be a dip in the wintertime for you.
You should be doing something else in a part-time capacity or two part-time jobs or another seasonal job that is hot during the downtime of the orchard. That's the mindset to keep your income level at the same level or create increase for yourself.
It's very important. And so, Adeline, don't miss that the answer to your how do I manage money question for us was the income side.
There's two sides to the equation, the income side and the outgo side. And immediately both of us honed in on the income side for you.
So managing your career and your income is part of managing your money. And so when you're looking at picking up the extra jobs in the down season, when you're looking at making the first steps into the medical profession, all that's part of managing your money.
In terms of the actual tactical, how do I keep the money that we have and make it behave? Well, that's the budget. So we're going to give you all three things to help you.
The get clear assessment from Ken. He has booked the proximity principle.
And we'll also give you the premium version of the app, EveryDollar, which will help everyone get dialed in on it here. So very good stuff.
Good question. Thanks for joining us.
Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Ken, you Ken, you coming on as a Ramsey personality several years ago and opening up the whole career side of things even further because we had noticed for the years that sometimes when people are looking at money situations, they just need to make more money.
That's exactly right. And we also realize that a lot of career problems cause money problems.

There's no question.

And a lot of career awesomeness can cause money awesomeness.

That's exactly right. You know, it works the other way too.

So all of these things do fit together, folks.

And the number of times that we have a debt-free scream and during their debt-free journey,

they added income part-time and or got promotions and better jobs, almost 90% of them did one of the two or both. Happens all the time because once people start paying attention, they're paying attention.
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Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose.
Amber is in Dallas. Hi, Amber.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.
Hi, what's up? So me and my husband, we're 34 and we're 35. We don't have much of a retirement he's got 13 000 i just started mine last paycheck so i have 400 in there um we have about 49 600 worth of debt and that includes everything except for our mortgage which is 128 left.
Not terrible, but it's at 6.125%.

I'm an RN, so I'm able to work extra,

and I've been working extra since August.

And we've been able to pay off just under $5,000 worth of debt,

which is great.

But I can't do this forever. I miss my kids.
I miss my husband. Um, so that 49,600 that I'm kind of laser focused on to get rid of, and we've dialed back, or I feel like we've dialed back everything that we can as far as financially or, you know, monthly.

I'm just not sure how to get ahead because our goals are obviously to get out of debt,

but I also am really concerned about retirement age, which I know is in roughly 30 years,

but I don't want my daughter to ever have to worry about what's, you know, worry about me

whenever I'm older. I want her to be able to live her life.
The best way to ever have to worry about me whenever I'm older.

I want her to be able to live her life.

The best way to be able to retire with dignity is to get the debt cleared,

so you need to stop putting money in retirement temporarily.

Okay.

And use all that money to help clear this debt.

That's a temporary thing because I want you to clear the debt fast

so you can get back to having breathing again a normal life.

What's your household income?

While I'm working extra, we bring home about $8,500 to $8,800.

It kind of depends.

I'm R&D.

It's, you know, funny hour shift differential.

What's your husband do?

Huh?

What's your husband?

He's in like an investigator HR position. He doesn't have a degree or anything, but he makes 73K a year.
But he also has to pay 12,000 a year in child support. So whatever that is.
So 73,000 minus minus $12,000 is what we make.

Okay.

And so you're making about the same.

You're making about $70,000 or so.

Well, when I'm working just normal and I'm not working extra,

I bring home about $4,000 a month.

Yeah, I'm not talking about bringing home. I'm talking about your total household income is probably about $150,000

to get home with $8,500.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
Around $80,000. What's the $50,000 in debt on? I have a $5,600 personal loan.
That's at 13.95%. That was like a loan to pay off an ugly credit card from my 20s.
What else? And that behavior is fixed. Like, I'm not going to run up any debt.
In fact, I've used credit cards to repair my credit. What else? We have a $20,000 car that has 13.95% interest, $12,000 left on my car that has 8%.
And then I have about $7,000 in school loans, and it has varying,

but they're all around 4%. Okay.

And then our home, of course, 128.

Your old's credit is bad, and you got screwed when you bought that $20,000 car.

Yeah.

Yeah, at that time, I had not repaired my credit.

Doesn't matter.

You got screwed. You have a high interest rate rate and half of your debt is one car yeah that's true isn't it yeah sell it i don't know if we can he has a about a 30 minute commute monday through friday week and i doesn't require a 30 it doesn't require a twenty thousand dollar car to do a 30 minute commute requires a five thousand dollar car okay if you had rid of that 14 interest rate 13 85 on a car you couldn't afford and shouldn't have bought and it's half of your debt you and you quit putting money into retirement you're going going to see these numbers start to flip for you, kiddo.
It's going to start to work. And he's not looking at this with you.
You're doing it by yourself, right? Oh, no, no, no. We are both very involved.
I think we both just lack that kind of deep financial literacy. Good, good.
Okay. Yeah, if you sell the car and you stop the other uh retirement temporarily and you get detailed on your every dollar budget and both of you are looking at that every dollar budget and beating the snot out of it i'm making every we're not going out to eat we're not going on vacation don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there's your second job and does he need a second job probably you're working one and temporarily let's get this stuff knocked out and let's see how fast i can pay off thirty thousand dollars or twenty five thousand dollars worth of debt making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year really fast yeah i don't know if he could get a second job.
He doesn't get home home till 6 p.m most days and on the weekends he has his son and he's special needs um all right but i but that's the beauty and the blessing of the career i chose is i'm able to yeah amber i want to make sure you're grasping the numbers that dave is giving you okay if you remove the car payment plus the actual debt on the car, just what you guys have paid off since August, it's roughly four months you've paid off $5,000. You've got to listen to what Dave said and put real pen to paper right now.
Sit down right now before you do anything else today and run those numbers. If we sold the car and we bought a $5,000 car, what is that monthly raise we just got to put towards debt? I don't think those numbers have clicked for you, and that's okay.
I would run those numbers in a real budget. I think you're going to be shocked how quickly you're going to pay that debt off, and then you're back to retirement.
Here's what's interesting is you're tired, and you find all these reasons things can't happen because you don't see how you're going to get there. That's exactly.

Once you see how you're going to get there, you're going to be energized and there'll be no stopping you.

That's called hope.

Power of hope.

It's very powerful.

And sometimes hope is literally the result of a mathematical equation, what Ken's telling you.

And so let's do that.

Hang on.

I'm going to put you and your husband through Financial Peace University and put you into EveryDollar and get you guys going because you guys need to sit down. It sounds like you're like 80% of the way there.
You're both on board, which is excellent. Really glad to hear that.
He's carrying this with you. That's amazing.
That's very good. You're willing're willing to work extra that's amazing you've identified that i want to get rid of the debt that's amazing so you you've got all the parts there all i'm doing is helping you polish the rough edges off of what you're looking at and i think that's going to cause the ball to roll and then the hope's going to kick in and weird stuff starts happening when you start

seeing away then you just push your foot dry down on that accelerator and you bust it you bust it we're going to make it we're going to make it we're going to make it we're going to do this we're going to do this get it get it get it rob is with us in tampa florida hey rob what's up Dave, how are you? Hi, Ken. How are you?

Go ahead. How can we help?

That's the purpose of my call.

I'm calling.

I want to know. I know what I want to achieve.
I just don't know how to achieve it. If I can give you a real quick background.
I'm 67. I'm divorced.
I'm retired. I have an IRA.
I'm totally debt-free. I have an IRA with about $985,000 in it.
And I have a brokerage account with about $115,000 in it.

I have one son, my sole beneficiary, and what I'm trying to achieve, like I said, I'm in good health. I think I have 20 years left in me, possibly more, if God's willing.
I want to know how I can move some money now upon my death, my son isn't hit with the mandatory, required mandatory distribution. Well, they're not technically RMDs, but under the Secure Act that Biden passed, he'll have 10 years to empty a traditional IRA.
So he's going to empty 100 grand a year and be taxed on it the way you're sitting today. The way to avoid that is to begin to move some of it towards Roth.
And so as you make a pile of money, move a chunk to Roth and write a check. Because Roth is required to be distributed over the same 10 years, but you can't leave it in there in an inherited IRA, but there's zero tax on it because you will have already paid the tax.
So develop like a 10 year plan to move 900 K plus whatever the growth is towards Roth a little bit at a time to where when you leave him with nothing but Roth instead of traditional, he's not going to have any problems with taxes at all because there's not any taxes. I did that, started that on that process myself

about 10 years ago, and I have zero traditional anything. It's all Roth.
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So Derek is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Derek, what's up? Hey, how are you? Better than I deserve.
How can we help? Yeah, I just need help. I feel like I'm drowning in debt right now.
Okay. Tell me about it.
So I have a around 10 000 in um a personal loan because i recently consolidated my credit cards um i had i was in a abuse relationship um and after i got out i found out that they probably racked up close to six or seven thousand000 in credit card debt in my name without me knowing about it. And you paid that off? After contacting the banks and all that, they said there's nothing they could do about it.
Well, of course there's something they can do about it. Wait a minute.
Let me stop. Let me stop.
Let's find out where we are today. Because you believe those lying, thieving bankers, did you borrow money to pay off debt that was not yours because it was done with identity theft? Basically, yeah.
Not basically, honey. That's what you did.
You went and borrowed $10,000 and paid off debt that this criminal, fraudulently using your name, opened

up without your permission, and you paid that debt off?

Yes.

Crap.

I paid $2,000 of it off.

No, I'm talking about the $10,000 you borrowed.

That's what you used it for.

You paid off the credit cards with it.

Yeah, I paid off the credit cards, and then... Is there any debt outstanding that the criminal did that you haven't paid yet no dad come it son you got screwed twice um basically you don't owe that money my fiance you didn't owe that money when someone fraudulently if i take your name and go open up a credit card in your name, you don't owe the money.
That's called a criminal act. It's fraud.
That's what identity theft is. I had the credit cards.
I followed your show. I thought you said they opened up the card in your name without your permission.
Yeah, basically what happened was I had them as the emergency fund, never used them. That's different than opening up a card.
They took your card that you opened up and used it without your permission. That's different.
You understand? Yeah. If you hand Ken Coleman your card and say, go use it, you're liable for that.
If Ken Coleman goes and opens up a card in your name without your permission, fraudulently signing your signature, that's identity theft. You're not liable for that you understand the difference yes so you handed the fiancee your card and they went bonkers with your card so i didn't even give them the card that was that's the biggest thing is um honey they used a card that was open in your name that's the point right yeah okay all right.
Okay. All right.
So you owe $10,000 and what do you make, hon? So right now I make 45 and then in five months I'll be making 55. What do you do? So I am a child abuse investigator for the state.
That's an irony. Okay.
Yeah. And then I have around 7,000 student loans, but I'm in the government program right now, where if I work for the state long enough, they fully pay those off.
No, you need to pay them off. It's only $7,000.
It takes 10 years to do this. So $17,000 makes you debt-free, hon.
Is that right? Yeah. Oh, Lord.
Go get six extra jobs and be debt-free by, like, spring.

You're not working by 40 hours.

So I work around.

So what my job now is it's a lot of on-call.

And so most days I'm home around 9, 10 o'clock just because of the nature of the job.

So you're working 50 hours a week for, you're working 50, 60 hours a week for 55 grand.

Yeah.

No, you're not.

You're on call.

When you're on call, you can drive Uber.

So when our on call works, if we have to initiate a report, we have to immediately drop everything, drive to initiate that report. And there's a lot of times I'm spending 12 hours in a hospital on my on-call days with a kid waiting for a reliever social worker to come and refill it.
And the upside is... All right, so what you've got to do is you've got to increase your income.
You only need $17,000. This should not be overwhelming.
Sell something. It's not that much money.
You've got to have... I bet you've got two grand worth of stuff you could sell.
Easy. You could work on the weekends.
You're on call days, whatever those are. You're not working seven days a week.
So this is a season where you've got to come up with... You clean doable, but you're not a victim.
Okay. You handed her the card.
You knew this was going on. The only thing you're a victim of is being engaged to an idiot.
And you're not the first one that's ever happened to. So, um, you know, roll up your sleeves, hon, get on a detailed tight budget and get as many extra hours as you can, as much extra income.
Don't go out to eat. Don't talk about vacations.
Talk to your supervisor about, I'm not working 80 hours. You're going to have to have some kind of a different plan here because 80 hours for 55 grand don't cut it the

work you're doing is very important work and it's very good work you're taking care of kids who have been messed up thank you for doing that you got a good heart but also you cannot sit and be a victim of 17 000 bucks man i mean seriously let me help you with this two thousand dollars a month and you are done in eight months. That's all you need.
And you make 55. So it's, this is very doable.
You should be done with this in six months and then have zero debt. But this debt represents all this pain in your life.
And so it's like feels bigger than it is. Mathematically, it's tiny.
Emotionally, it's huge. And that's why you're, you know, you act like it's some kind of big monster.
It's 17 grand. And, you know, no, I'm not staying in student loan debt for 10 freaking years for $7,000 worth of forgiveness that probably isn't going to actually come because you're probably not going to cross every T and dot every I.
A high percentage of people that run that game don't end up with the forgiveness at the end. So you don't want to get in that game.
You want to get in the game of I'm going to knock this out, put it all in the rearview mirror, move forward in health and with enthusiasm. Yeah, I can feel the stupid tax.
We've all done stupid, every one of us. And that's what you're feeling.
You is a breakup. She took your card, and so you've created this narrative.
The way you led the call is that you have been victimized, and in all reality, you haven't. And I think Dave is absolutely right.
The more you can quickly go, I've got to get a victory, and if I were you, I would go sell something today. If I could sell it for $500 or if I could sell five things for $1,000, get a quick win and put $1,000 down on this debt.
You need something to get those shoulders back a little bit. And there's nothing wrong with you.
You aren't drowning in this. This is all a mindset because of what's happened to you and the way it happened.
Learn from it, but get a quick victory. Like, happen to this.
Don't let life happen to you anymore. So, quick lesson, folks.
You need to have Xander Insurance's identity theft in place. I do, because they will take over an account that is actually identity theft.
His wasn't. But actually, as identity theft, they'll take it over and they'll deal with the banks.
The banks will lie to you and tell you you're responsible

for identity theft. You're not.
When someone else misuses your name, that is criminal fraud.

And you are not liable for a debt when a thief uses your name to open up an account.

Don't let some banker tell you that. That's bull crap.
And you need somebody in your corner with

identity theft protection like Zander Insurance. And that's why we've endorsed them for, God, a decade plus since this identity theft thing became a thing.
All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah.
I think so. Because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.
So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.
So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union.
So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Yes.
Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.
You know, that's why we're partnering with them, because've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service and the deals that they're offering.
The Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account.
And I'm not kidding. It took less than five minutes.
It was so user friendly. The step-by-step approach was unbelievable.
And then the next day, my phone rings and it says fair wins on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.
And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I so, so appreciate that.
So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but Fairwinds, again, they make it so easy. Plus anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app.
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in general, and so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe.
You guys, it's incredible. Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live, So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.

That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. If you live like no one else, later you can live and give like no one else.
Oh, this is the season for giving. Generosity, man.
We love talking about generosity. We love encouraging generosity.
And one of your favorite shows we do of the year is the annual giving show around Christmas time. And we're going to be doing that.
So we want to hear stories from you about a time that you were able to bless someone or a time that someone blessed you with generosity. You know, the good stories that make your eyes leak and inspire the rest of us to want to be more generous and be better human beings and all that.
Yeah, we're going to do an entire show of generosity. It's called The Giving Show that we do.
Go to RamseySolutions.com slash ask, put giving in the subject line and tell us a little bit about your story we'll make you

one of the stories we use that day and that's coming up december the 18th so you need to get this in you just got a couple days ramsey solutions.com slash ask put giving in the subject line philip is in houston hi philip welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you for taking my call Sure. What's up?

So my question is, I am debating if I should buy a house. I currently own a mobile home that was given to me for my family, and I have it on family land.
After my divorce, I kind of had to restart over. And after a long battle, I was finally awarded sole custody of my kids.
So my kids are with me full time. But I live in a mobile home right now, but it's fully paid for.
It's mine. But I feel kind of a little bit of shame of it because I make good money.
What do you make? I make about $86,000 a year. Okay.
And the land that it's on is not yours it's my parents parents land they have multiple properties okay and someone gave you the mobile home yes my parents they oh they did so they had a mobile home sitting on their land and they said hey while you're going through hard time move into it yes they gave it to me and gave me the title for it and everything but they did not give you the title for the land not for the land just a mobile home right okay all right um how old are you i am 35 okay all right hey you've been through hell and you you needed a soft spot to land on you found a soft spot to land that's not a bad landing spot that doesn't mean we want to stay there but it's not it's a nice thing that you're landed there okay and and i spent the lessons i i don't really pay anything i pay here is the the light bill again it's a soft landing spot that's kind of nice however it does not take you where you want to be 10 years from now 10 years from now you don you don't want to be owning an ancient, rotting down mobile home on someone else's land. So this doesn't project well into the future, even though it's a very nice gift into the present.
Does that make sense? Yes. So we can be very grateful to mom and dad.
I'm grateful to them. I think what they do is very nice.
But it is not your 10-year plan, okay? Okay. You want to buy something that goes up in value and you own the dirt.
Yeah. That's your long-term plan.
There's no reason to be ashamed. There's nothing to be ashamed about.
We can feel that on you, and you don't need to feel that way. You've been through a fight.
Yeah. So throw your shoulders back here and figure out what do we got to do to move forward.
But your kids don't care about the mobile home. No, I'm not ashamed of it.
It's a nice thing. But, again, it's not your long-term plan, not because of shame, but just because of math.
And so I spent the last year kind of just maxing out my 401k, maxing out my Roth IRA.

I was able to save about $22,000 in my savings account.

The only bet I have is just a truck that I owe about $15,000 on.

Write a check and pay it off today.

Okay.

Now save up a good emergency fund, a three to six months of expenses,

and then stop your 401k temporarily and start saving up for a good,

strong down payment on a house that's going to go up in value. Okay.
All right. Now, how much land does your mom and dad have total? I would say about 15.
The one I'm on right now is two acres, but they have two acres in different properties here and there. They own a property management company.
Is this property that you're on adjacent to their home? No, it's a standalone property. Yes.
Okay. All right.
Well, um, I mean, just talk to them about if they're in property management, they know that this is not going up in value and that you don't own the dirt. And so mom and dad, I'm going to start saving for a down payment on a home, which means I'm going to be selling off the mobile home or giving it back to you.
One of the two, what's it worth? Do you think? I don't know. I'd say about 4,000.
It's not a lot. Let's give it back to them.
Let's give it back to them when you get ready to leave. Cause they were renting it out before, weren't they? Yes.
Yeah. That you don't mess up their rental property by dragging that thing off.
So just, just when you get ready to leave, just say, Hey, I'm going to save up money and I'm going to go buy a house, but thank you so much for letting me land here on your rental property for a little bit. And I'm going to give you the title of this back when I leave.
Okay. But thank you all so much.
And just be very grateful because you should be, it was a very nice thing they did. Yeah.
But it's not your long-term plan. It can be both things.
It can be a nice thing and not the long-term plan, and no shame is in either thing. Is that okay? Yes.
I appreciate that. You're a good guy, man.
You're making good money. You fought for your kids.
You landed in it. You got good family that helped you land in a soft spot.
That's nice, man. There's a lot of good in this story, Phillip.
Thank you. I've been blessed.
I've listened. But you have been in the middle of a dadgum tragedy.
You know, you did. It's good.
And he saved up $22,000. And he's giving himself a huge raise today.
And pumping money in 401K, so he's paying attention. That's right.
And now he's going to get a massive raise when he pays the truck off today. Exactly.
Oh, I forgot about that little detail. We want that.
It's a big deal. And Dave, we've got a lot of new people all the time joining in.
I think this would be a good refresher here of why we tell people, if they're not familiar with the baby steps or they've just joined us in his situation, it's going to change his life if he actually gets in order and does them the right way. That's why we're telling him to cut it today.
Cut the payment today. Write a check.
Get rid of the truck. Well, I mean, all that money that you're wasting on that truck payment goes to build up savings really fast.
And this guy's a natural-born saver. Partly because he's been through hell and he's real careful, right? But, I mean, it just accentuated his nature is what it did.
And so just lean into that and go, okay, now I don't have a truck payment. Now I don't have a mobile home payment because my dad gave it to me i'm living here all i got is utilities and i'm making 85k i gotta feed some kids and other than that let's go to town baby boom boom boom boom as fast as he saved 22 he's gonna save 52 that's right and that's where he gets the house yeah that's the magic of the baby steps right big time and and listen there is nothing sn is nothing snobbish about a couple of guys in Tennessee telling you not to do mobile homes, okay?

It's nothing about that at all.

It's not a class warfare thing.

It's a simple math thing.

They go down in value.

When you put your money in things that go down in value, it makes you poorer. Why is this hard? So a mobile home is like a car you sleep in.
It goes down in value. And so you don't go buy a $55,000 mobile home and then look up 10 years later and it's worth $10,000 and wonder why you're broke people.
Don't do that. Buy something that goes up in value.
You're better off to rent. At least you're not losing while you're paying payments.
When you pay payments on a mobile home, you're paying the payment and you're losing the value. It's like when you're paying payments on a car and it's going down in value.
So, you know, I got a friend that's in the mobile home business. Dude, would you quit trashing mobile homes? I was like, oh, trash mobile home.
It's not a personal thing, dude. It's simple.
When you start making one that goes up in value, I'll advertise for you. But until then, we're not going to talk about it.
We're going to, I'm going to tell people to put money. It people put money it goes uh you know my grandpa said i'll put money i was bragging about my car when i was in college and he's like what's that and i said well it's kind of like an investment he goes honey my investments go up you know well duh right and that's the thing so you really want to have investments like your personal residence going up in value.
And the problem with a stinking mobile home is they set it on a piece of dirt, and the piece of dirt goes up in value faster than the mobile home goes down, so it gives you the illusion you made money. You didn't.
The dirt just saved you from your stupidity. So don't buy mobile homes.

Now, he didn't buy one.

Mamanetti gave him a whole $4,000 one.

This is not a, you know, this is not, they didn't give him the Taj Mahal of mobile homes for sure.

But that's the deal, guys.

It's real simple.

That's why we tell people to do that.

Go buy things that go up in value.

This is what rich people do.

That's how they became rich people. And that's how they get rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show.
We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. relationships phones at 888-825-5225.
Ken Coleman, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, host of the Ken Coleman Show here on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today.
You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.
The phone number is 888-825-5225.

The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

James is with us in San Diego.

Hi, James.

What's up?

Hi, Ramsey.

This is a pleasure to be here.

I really, really love what you do for people.

Well, thank you.

I'm super nervous right now.

We haven't lost a patient.

You'll be okay. What's up?'s not this call isn't for me um i have a i have a buddy that's very financially literate and they've made some very poor financial decisions over the last few years um and i guess to start with um i guess where to begin is they have right now currently $37,837 of debt.
Their minimum monthly payments for those debts is $1,743. Their gross monthly income approximately is around $100K a year, plus or minus a couple thousand.
They have a mortgage. Right they're behind one month on their mortgage it's so they're currently at fifteen hundred dollars a month to the highest that's what they're behind normally it's 1250 um with all their with all their uh basic household bills they're looking at around i think four thousand dollars a month or forty five hundred dollars a month um so my thing for them is they have two kids they've recently had over the last two years and they find a struggle to be motivated to go to their job well they go to work but they allow overtime and he could work more than he is now but I guess the problem with them is they're just kind of stuck in this hole.
They're about negative $700 a month. So do you have any advice for them? I know right now they're doing 8% on their 401ks cause the company matches eight.
Um, I'm just trying to help them out if they, if any way I can, I figured you'd be the first person to call, but I recommended maybe you're very sweet. I don't know if you can help them because I don't think they're going to do it.
No, I agree. I know.
I agree. So I'm going to give you just a, I'm going to burn a few calories and try to help you help them because you're a good guy, but I think you're probably wasting your dadgum time.
I understand. And it's worth it for me to try.
Well, I mean, yeah, a little bit, but it's not worth it for you to care more than they do about their own life. So that's a boundary you need to set.
You need to walk and give us a little drive-by. If they pick up a couple of pieces of information and run with it, then you can help them a little more.
But if they sit back and go, well, you know, I just don't feel like working. I'm sorry.
That one right there just kills me. Okay.
I'm broke. I have two little kids.
I can't make my bills. but I really don't want to working i'm sorry that one right there just kills me okay i'm broke i have two little kids i can't make my bills but i really don't want i don't want to miss yellowstone on the dadgum television i got to be home you know i mean come on yeah get up off your butt it's it's 12 hour shift so i kind of understand oh you're killing me here i know i know call the wambulance all right so here.
All right, here's the deal. Stop the 401ks, get on a written budget, stay out of the restaurant, take all the overtime you can, and sell the expensive car that's in these numbers somewhere.
Yeah, so they have two car loans. One is at $7,000, the other is at $15,000.
Ta-da. Yeah.
Almost like I've done this before, yeah. Sell the expensive car, car stop the 401ks get on a detailed budget pick up all the overtime you can pick up there's nothing wrong with any numbers here oh and before you start paying any extra on your debt buy food pay the light bill and pay the stinking house payment how in the world you're not paying your house payment of 1500 when you make a hundred thousand a year these people are mentally lazy too yeah it's it's tough to hear because i we're me and my uh wife are pretty uh we're comfortable and it's hard to hear and they make more and they make honestly more than us yeah so i mean we live in san diego their house is not their problem but dude you don't get behind on your house payment when you make 100k and you have two little babies yeah this is just are they doing drugs no you sure no drugs 100 i mean this sounds like there's addiction in the house maybe it's three it's 360 a month for cigarettes that's's an addiction for sure.
No, but I mean, really, because they're smoking weed. I don't want to work much, and I didn't pay my house payment.
You sure they're not smoking weed? Well, the wife has. Okay.
All right. I thought so.
All right. Yeah.
Because THC is called an ambition killer, okay? Yeah. Just completely destroys ambition.
They don't smoke weed. There are no ambitious pot no ambitious potheads okay yeah there are no potheads with extreme work ethic they don't exist so this is the problem all right this so yeah i would just say a minute but we got there you're very nice james you're a sweet guy the best thing you could do is a come to jesus meeting with this dude i just think it's a dude man i'm for to grow up.
Throw the cigarettes in the pot in the dadgum ditch. You and your wife start acting like grownups.
You got babies you're responsible for. Come on, man.
Adult up. Man up.
You're making excuses for him. I hear it.
Yeah, well, he likes them. He thinks they're sweet.
They're probably sweet. A lot of potheads are.
But it's just, yeah lee you gotta be kidding me this is just uh i know this this call went sideways when he said have this much illogical stuff going on without getting down there i've done this too long right he doesn't want to go in here's the deal larry burkett used to say financial problems including when dave Ramsey went bankrupt because he was stupid, the guy I'm talking about right here, financial problems are not the problem, they're the symptom. What are they the symptom of? In my case, it was arrogance and the need to look cool and drive a car I couldn't afford and buy crap I couldn't afford with money I didn't have and build a big real estate portfolio.
And I got rich quick instead of get rich slow because I'm smarter than everybody else. And I was a stupid little snot nose and I got the tar knocked out of me because I was an idiot.
And that, but it was the problems were not the problem. They were the symptom.
These people's symptoms are not their problem. They're the symptom of what's going on in their house, the dysfunction in the household.
And that's what you're facing. So another example of that is we've sadly, with 30 years or 40 years now of working with people with financial problems, we end up spending a lot, and you do with careers too, end up spending a lot of time with people that are recovering from addictions.
And so we're not addiction counselors. We don't know anything about it, technically speaking.
We've only got 30 years of dealing with addicts because 100% of addicts have financial problems. 100%.
You're addicted to porn? 100% of the time you're going to end up in our office with your stupid house in foreclosure if you don't break that you're addicted to gambling oh that one will get you there real fast because that's like money stupid right it goes straight to the heart of the thing you're you know you're doing drugs you're doing cocaine you're doing alcohol you're a hundred percent of these people and i was with a buddy of mine the other day he's been dry for two years he. He's doing mountains of cocaine.
He's been off at two years. I'm real proud of him.
I said, why'd you quit? He goes, realize there's no old cocaine addicts. There you go.
Wow. Yeah.
But the addiction is the problem. The symptom ends up being the financial issue.
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Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Ben is with us in Dayton, Ohio.
Hi, Ben. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Thank you, Dave. Glad to be here.
Good to have you, sir. What's up? Yeah, so I have a question regarding life insurance.
So I'm

looking at a policy through Xander at 10 times my income, and the last variable my wife and I need

to nail down is the duration of the term life insurance. Now, I've taken FPU before.
No, you

normally recommend 15 to 20 years, but my question is if that's right for our situation. So I have

other context to give there, but I'll let you go ahead and ask. Well, why would you think it's not?

Thank you. to 20 years.
But my question is if that's right for our situation. So I have other context to give there, but I'll let you go ahead and ask.
Well, why would you think it's not? What is the

context? Yeah. So basically over the next 10 or so years, my wife and I intend to have more kids.

So there's a lot of life coming at us in the next 10 years. And I've heard you mention on the show

before that, again, life comes in stages. It's not all at once.
And you want your insurance to

Thank you. kids.
So there's a lot of life coming at us in the next 10 years. And I've heard you mention on the show before that, again, life comes in stages.
It's not all at once. And you want your insurance to reflect that.
So my thought is, does it make more sense if we keep having kids over the next 10 years to get a policy that's 10 years and then at the end of that, get one that's 20? Because if I get a policy now that's 20 years, our child that's on the way, she'll be out of the house hopefully at that point.

But if we have kids in 10 years, I would need to take out another one.

So does it make more sense to take a shorter policy and then take out a 20 or maybe 25-year policy at the end of that,

rather than just taking out a 20-year policy now that I know I will probably end up changing in 10 years. Does that make sense? So your first baby's on the way.

Correct.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And you're a good dad because you're thinking about how to make sure your kids and your

wife are taken care of.

Way to go, Ben.

Good man.

That's the goal.

Well done, sir.

Well done.

So you're not going to mess up.

You're doing fine.

You can do your plan or you can do whatever. The only thing I'm positive of is you're a bit of a nerd and that's a wonderful thing.
I am too, by the way. That's how I recognize it.
And so you're overthinking this. It's not going to unfold the way you've got it in your head.
So the variable is not the number of kids. The variable is your income.
So 10 times your income today is going to be different than 10 times your income five years from now or 12 times your income 10 years from now. And so that's what I ended up doing, and you've heard this apparently, but I'll repeat it for everybody else out there because the way you reflected this back, I know you heard this.
I did 15-year policies, and then every so often i bought an ever another five years later about another 15 year and then those would fall off at the appropriate time as the liability for the children go down so the goal is when the life insurance runs out for you to be debt free and have a large enough nest egg that if you die financially, your wife doesn't care. Okay.
So you got a million dollars in mutual funds and you have no debt and the kids are grown and gone. Those are the three things, right? So they're out of college.
They're not on mom's payroll in any way if you're gone. And so that's going to work out, you know, and, and here's the thing, as long as you keep your health, you could do your plan or you can do, you know, three different versions of 15 year policies, which is kind of what I ended up doing.
And then I ended up adding one cause we were building a big building and sharing goes, I don't want to finish that building with my money. I want to finish it with your life insurance

money if you die during the building. So I had to buy one for her just because that's what she wanted.
It was SWI. Sharon wants it.
It had nothing to do with financial planning. It was like a Christmas present.
And so, but you're going to end up, that's what I mean, stuff. I had it all nerd figured out and nothing ever works out the way I've got it figured out when I look back on it 15, 20 years later.
So if you do it your way, you're going to be fine. You're covering your family for 10 to 12 times your income.
If you pass away with one or two babies in the house, your wife will have plenty of money to live off of the principle or live off the growth of the principle without touching the principle and have replaced your income and she'll be okay. And, you know, and that's not going to, you know, if you got a three-year-old and a one-year-old, she's probably not going to just sit there and do nothing and play that out for 17 years exactly that way.
Usually doesn't happen. Her life will change after you're gone too.
So that there's all these things that happen that are, that are hard to quantify the variables. But the good news is if you've got a good long policy, 10, 15, 20, that's fine.
I wouldn't fool with thirties. I don't think they're worth it, but I did fifteens, a series of fifteens is what I did.
And each time I reassessed as my income went up, I needed more insurance. I just bought another policy.
And then as we got out the back end of the story and we didn't need insurance, they start falling off in five-year increments because I'd bought them in about five-year increments. So that's an okay way to do it.
What you're talking about similar. And what you really end up looking at is the difference in premium between a 15 and a 20.
It's not much difference. And you don't save a lot.
And it's not a lot of difference between a 10 and a 15 usually. Because, I mean, you're young and the whole stinking thing is just the cost of a pizza.
So if you're young and healthy, if you're not obese and you don't smoke and you're in your 20s, this stuff just doesn't cost anything. And, but those, I mean, smoking and obesity will run it up.
But if you smoke, it's just double. Let me tell you what it is.
It's double. And so, you know, that's the thing.
But, you know, you guys did the similar stuff, you and Stacey. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, but we followed the income. This was the key lesson.
The variable is not the kids, it's the income. And so as my income increased, I stayed right on top of that and kept changing based on what you've always taught.
This was before we, I even worked for you. So that's the variable.
It keeps it simple. As your income goes up, then look at the policy.
Add a little bit more. And you don't have to cancel the old one and get a new one.
That's correct. Just add a smaller one on top of it.
And that way you've got them phased

in and phased out. And that's an easy way to do it.
And Xander can help. Xander Insurance can help

you with all that. And they do a wonderful job.
They shop among a bazillion different companies.

They get you the best price. Guys, when you're buying insurance of any kind, particularly life

insurance and P&C homeowners and car, always go with an independent broker that will shop among a bunch of different companies and get you the best deal you don't want one that has a listen if they have a football player on their advertisement they're more expensive so let me help you okay my homes and peyton manning okay two of them state farms it's super expensive right somebody's got to pay for all those dadgum football commercials and it's you boys and girls so you state farm people that's who's paying for it so so you're telling me jake is not the friend that we think i'm telling'm telling you that if I see another State Farm commercial, like back to back to back to back to back every break until I'm about to throw up. That's true.
Oh, my God, you can't even watch football for these people. Right.
I wish they'd just get back on the field and play so we didn't have any commercials. I agree.
Oh, man. That painting versus painting, that one drives me nuts.
Peyton versus painting. It's too much.
Well, it's a walking dad joke. I get it.
And I am a walking dad joke. And I like it.
I don't want to be reminded of my weaknesses. I don't know my homes personally, but I know Peyton and he's a wonderful guy.
And he does have a great sense of humor in general. By the way, I want to point this out because we have a lot of people that, again, brand new coming to our audience is growing.
insurance xander is so good at what they do it is such a pain-free process from start to finish from the time you call them to the nurse coming out and taking your blood to the paperwork i get to tell you it is it i think a lot of people think oh what do i gotta do you just say the nurse taking my blood was pain-free i heard you say that i did it is they come right to your house. It's simple.
Paperwork is easy. I just, I want people to know it is such a easy process.
It is. Comparatively to the other stuff in life that you have to take care of.
And it doesn't get more important. But you, you know, like for instance, on PNC, if you go to one of the ELPs and you shop it on your, on your homeowners and your car, you're going to save like $800 probably on average annually over what you're paying on car and homeowners.
And that's simply not because they have like the cheapest insurance. It's because in your situation, they're going to look at five or six different companies or eight different companies.
They're going to find the one company in your situation that is the best deal. That's right.
And that's what you want. When you're an insurance agent and you only sell for one company in the business, we call that a captive agent.
So a nationwide agent, that's the guy that wrecks everything, right? Isn't that the commercial? Is that nationwide? I can't even remember now. No, that's all states.
See, it didn't work. The ad didn't work because it's not even memorable.
Okay. Yeah.
The guy's memorable, nationwide i can't even remember now no that's all state see it didn't work

the ad didn't work because it's not even memorable okay yeah the guy's memorable but i don't yeah yeah so and and yeah that's the only reason i watch those is because that's kind of fun to watch him destroy everything something yeah over and over and over and over over and over and over and over. So shop, shop.
Don't work with the captives. Shop among a bunch of different, get an insurance broker.
That's a different thing. This is the Ramsey show.
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Today's question comes from Vanessa in Indiana. I'm a 21-year-old who will graduate college in the spring with my bachelor's degree.
How am I supposed to go about getting an entry-level job when they all want full-time experience? I had part-time jobs while in school, but they don't really relate to my career path. Well, I appreciate the question, Vanessa.
I've answered this question thousands of times. the answer is it's not entry level

if it's requiring a bunch of experience. So it just can't be.
So what you do is you recalibrate and you go, I'm trying to get on rung of the ladder two, three, or four, and I need to drop down to the lowest rung on the ladder. And so if it is by definition, a entry level job, then they're not going to require a bunch of experience.
And what happens most of the time is people have their eyes on something a little bit bigger and they go for that and they actually are requiring experience. So how did someone get into that job? Look lower.
I can promise you there is, in fact, entry-level jobs where you do not require any experience. So this is all about reality and patience would be the two words so that you see the right things.
And I appreciate that you'll want to get something a little higher up the ladder. We all do.
And Ken, I think it matters. That's how that works.
I think it matters more. I'm thinking about from an employer position when we're hiring um it matters more if if her degree is in a technical field then all they want to know is she can accomplish the technical task that's correct if it is in a broader soft skill field let's say okay, and she wanted to go to work in PR.
That's not a technical, tactical thing. There's soft skills involved there.
I would be more concerned with experience there than I would someone as a developer. That's a technical skill.
That's exactly right. Okay, so if you got a certification as a developer, we might put on the job offering, but we prefer experience, but we're not going to require that as harshly as we would in something where soft skills are involved.
Does that make sense? It's exactly right, yeah. So it depends on the field.
It depends on the field. So let's take that example.
Let's say that you've got a degree in accounting or PR or something and you're going for something and whatever it is. And they're saying, OK, you don't have any experience even in classes or in summer work.
You've not interned. You've not done this.
It's not the sky is falling. Then you simply go, OK, great.
So I need to go get that. And so I might need to go get two part-time jobs or a part-time job.
And I've got to get some intern experience. And I get that basic level experience.
And so now all of a sudden I have checked that box. And the other thing that comes into play is that's just something an employer sometimes will put on there as almost a screen.
Yes. And would they necessarily never hire someone with zero experience? That's not true.
They would in certain circumstances. That's right.
Because all they're trying to figure is, can you do the job? Yes. And so the proximity principle could help that.
It can. And I think you also, yeah.
And so the proximity principle is where I've got people that are in that industry who I've spent some time with, and now they're going to open up some doors. But I want to go back to what you just said, and that's gumption.
I think you're absolutely right. Here's what I would say to someone coming around out of college.
If they say, you need experience in communications or you need experience with problem solving, you know what I would do? Instead of saying like this young lady said, and I'm not knocking her uh my part-time jobs didn't have that experience you know i would do i would look back into my high school and college experience and i would say you know what um i was in charge of the yearbook my senior year at a large public high school and uh as the student editor i had to solve problems all the time i'm not saying you're going to get the job because of that answer, but there's the gumption point. They're looking for, do you want this? Are you hungry? And can you say, realistically, I solve problems? You have some point, poise.
Right. But if you say, I solve problems by doing this, we had deadlines.
But if you look down and go, well, kick sand. Right.
I don't know. I apparently don't have any.
Yeah. Well, you just managed to get a four-year degree that was like you pushed through something there you go there's just more transferable experience than people realize when you're sitting in these job interviews they want to see that you can think on your feet that you've got some gumption to say i believe i can do this job that's what they're looking for yep because they Because they're going to train you.
You're making a sale, baby.

And you're the product.

Yeah.

Damon is with us in Des Moines, Iowa.

Hi, Damon.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, how are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

I just had a question.

My employer has offered me to buy into 10% of our company.

I'm an electrician with a small company just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. I'm on baby step two now.
My wife and I, we both make about $110,000 together. Let's see.
I just didn't know if I should continue the baby steps, which, uh, like I said, I'm on baby step two, or if I should direct my focus on to trying to get, um, it's 10% for a hundred thousand dollars is what is how I would get that 10%. And I wasn't for sure if I should put my focus

towards getting some ownership into the company to where I can...

No, you should look at your boss and say,

thank you for your kind and generous offer,

but I'm in the middle of getting out of debt right now,

and so my wife and I have to focus on that.

I'm so sorry I can't do it.

And let me tell you why, okay?

$100,000 for 10% of that company is, you said it's a small company, and yet you just valued it at a million dollars. Yes, and I don't, like I said, I don't have all the numbers on the company.
I don't either. How many employees does it have? We have 10 employees.
I know this year, he had told me that we're on track to do 1.4 million. And last year, we did 1.7 million.
How old are you? I'm a wife and I are 25. Do you want to work for him for the next 10, 15 years?

Yes, sir, I do.

I actually used to live in the city.

I've worked with companies that have 300, 400 employees,

and I really enjoy the rural life.

So here's the deal.

That opportunity will come back around.

If it is a good opportunity, I'm not sure it is,

but it will come back around later.

Number one, I think it'll come back around later.

Number one, I think it's overpriced. Number two, let me teach you something about small business purchases, okay? What you are purchasing there is called a minority interest, meaning you do not have at least 51%, meaning you don't have control.
You follow me? Yes, sir. Okay.
And so you have absolutely zero power with your stock zero so boss man can decide to run this thing in the ditch and suddenly your 10 is worth nothing and there's not a stinking thing you can do about it so you do not buy minority interests in small businesses period and number And number one, for any price, if he wants to give it to you, fine, as a bonus, that's okay. But no, we're not going to give him $100,000, and you have zero control over anything in the company.
Your vote means nothing because he holds all the cards. You follow me? He can go deeply in debt.
He can develop a cocaine problem. He can do whatever, and then squat you can do about it.
And your $100,000 is going to become worth zero if any of those bad things happen. And sometimes those bad things happen.
Not all the time, but sometimes they do. So don't do minority interests in small businesses, period.
And I think this one's overpriced and Damon, you're in debt. So just be kind and generous to him and say, thank you for your kind offer.
I'm honored to be working here. I'm going to continue to work and plow the field like I'm supposed to.
And we'll revisit this discussion later when I just buy the whole thing from you or something. But for right now, I'm getting out of debt and my wife and I are going to have to focus on that.
That's what you should do, sir. This is the Ramsey Show.
I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you.
Join me and Dr. John Deloney for a night that will challenge the way you think about this stuff and possibly change how you live forever.
Starting April 21st, we'll be in Louisville, then on to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Kansas City. Grab your tickets at RamseySolutions.com slash tour before they're gone.
Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.
It's a free call at triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five folks. 100% of the people that do anything successful do it as an act of intentionality.
Success is not an accident. It's not random.
It's not a lightning strike, and it's not a DNA issue. He's a born leader.
No, he's not. I've been to the hospital.
They always say, it's a boy. It's a girl.
They never say, it's a leader. Leaders are developed.

It's a girl. They never say, it's a leader.
Leaders are developed. It's a series of intentional acts.
You learn the character qualities and processes of leadership if you want to be a leader, a successful one. He was born a great husband.
No, he wasn't. Ask any wife ever.
There's no such thing as a born great husband. They have to be developed.
I'm not sure if you ask many wives, they'll say's no such thing as a born great husband they have to be developed i'm not sure if you ask many wives they'll say there's such thing as a great husband uh yeah hey now yeah there is my wife's got one so there you go self-described i love that because of the humility you know but yeah but the uh so anyway the so the thing is, winning with money is an intentional act.

You have to tell your money what to do because broke people always wonder where it went.

Rich people tell their money what to do, and they have a plan.

Broke people, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday.

I sure hope it all works out.

I sure hope Trump will fix my life because Biden didn't. Trump isn't going to fix your life, honey.
He's going to do a bunch of crap, but fixing your life isn't any of it. I can tell you that.
It's not his job, by the way. It wasn't the guy before him's job, the guy before him's job, the guy before him.
It's your job. So on paper, on purpose, you tell your money what to what to do that's called a budget if you want help doing that the world's best budgeting app is called every dollar it's in the app store for free or the google play store get it and download it put it on your phone and start making your money behave it's an intentional act boys and girls brian is with us in san antonio texas hey brian welcome to the ramsey show hello ramsey team It's a pleasure.
Pleasure, Texas. Hey, Brian, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello, Ramsey team.

It's a pleasure.

Pleasure, sir.

How can we help?

Well, I just wanted y'all's take on making sure I'm not crazy and considering an $80,000 new car, a Tesla Model S.

Cool.

Nice car.

Yes, sir.

All right.

So what do you make? Well, I make $360,000 a year. Cool.
What's your net worth? I've got, uh, without the house included. No, house is part of your net worth.
What's your net worth? Okay. Okay.
About $1.2 million. All right.
You got the cash to pay cash for it? I do. Okay.
Buy it. Okay.
Let me tell you what I, let me tell you the rule of thumb I use on this. Okay.
The reason I ask you those questions, we tell people not to buy a brand new car unless they've got at least a million dollar net worth. Ding.
Checkbox. Okay.
Okay. Because new cars go down in value, including Teslas.
Right't go up they go down and you can't afford a depreciating asset that's brand new when you drive it off the lot that sound blump blump when you go over the curb was 10 000 bucks okay right that's what it is you got to be able to you got to be able to choke that down and you can choke it down new unless you've got a million-dollar net worth. You do.
Okay. Second thing is don't buy depreciating assets.
Things with motors and wheels, in your case, wheels, all added together that equal more than half your annual income. You make 360, we're buying 80.
That's less than half your annual income. I'm assuming the other car, if there is one, is not a $200,000 car, so you're probably okay.
Yes, sir. Okay 80 that's less than half your annual income i'm assuming the other car if there is one is not you know not a 200 000 car so you're probably okay yes sir okay so because you don't want too much of too much as a percentage of your income invested in things that are going down in value again same thing so like i got a friend that made 15 million last year and um he bought a 428 $8 that kind of blows my redneck mind i have my head i have a hard time getting my head around that but it's a very small percentage of his income it's like most people buying a biscuit right and so yeah it's not going to hurt his finances at all even though you know we you know jealous people say stuff like well no one should ever right yeah you that's what jealous people say no one should ever so you got if you made 15 million last year you can afford a 400 000 car it's that simple you made 360 you can afford a 80 000 car you got a million dollar plus net worth you can afford to buy a brand new car that's how i just and you're paying cash you're not going're not going to borrow money.
That's the three things I was looking for. You checked all three boxes.
Yeah. And hey, he's done it the right way.
And so this is, he's, he's had to wait. That's the other thing that when, when, when Dave walks through those.
I'm just glad George and Rachel are on the air with their little Teslas. Yeah.
Cause I would have had to put up with a Tesla stuff. Telling a guy to buy a Tesla, because there's no chance I'm doing that.
But those two, both are Tesla drivers. Batteries.
Even if they came out with a really cool-looking one? They actually are a cool car. I need an app for it that makes a muffler sound.
Right. Because a redneck needs a loud muffler, and that's just all there is to it.
They do that. You know, they have these cars.
Do they really? Yes, absolutely. But I don't think it's enough for you.
No, it's not. I think you want to smell.
I still know I'm sitting on a battery. You like the hint of petrol in the air.
That's it. You want to smell that you're driving.
Actually, I'm trying to help the planet. Well, I mean, the planet gets destroyed by making those batteries more than me driving my raptor i can tell you that oh so you're green is that what i'm that's it man i'm i'm i'm totally okay i'm down with the green right not at all but yeah it's very exciting it's funny i don't care what you say open phones at 888-825-5225 fabian is with us in los angeles hi fabian how are you hi you? Hi, doing good, sir.
I just want to say, first, I'll bet you my future and life. I binge watch your show.
We bought your books, and I'm currently on Baby Step 2, and we appreciate you very much. Well, thank you, sir.
How can we help you today? All right, so I need you to do that thing that you do where you pretend like I'm your son, and if I'm making an overall good career choice, I want to be able to switch careers. I feel like I was in my 20s going on ventures.
What are you doing now? What do you want to switch to? So the last few years I did project management and construction blueprints, and I really like that. I've been doing restaurants for 10 years.
I went back to it because it was a venture with a startup company that went downhill. So now I backtracked.
I went back to what I was good at. So yeah, doing restaurant for 10 plus years and construction blueprints to permit for two years, the past two years.
So you want to go from restaurant management to this construction blueprint stuff? Yes, sir. Okay, so what's the question? Do you think the construction industry is a good career path? Absolutely.
Yes. And then how do I make this switch over? Because I never went to school for it, but I learned how to, like, work with.
Does it require, if I were to hand it to you today, does it require a college degree to do what you want to do? The answer is no. Project managing, reading a blueprint, most people doing it don't have a college degree.
There's a few people who have a construction management degree, but almost none in the business. Sounds like you've already got enough experience to get in the industry.
So the question is, can you get back in it and make the kind of money you need to make? Yeah. And I'll...
Then do it. Yeah.
So my advice is this, keep working in the restaurant business until you land the job doing what you want to do,

and so there's no interruption of income.

This is not scary if we do it methodically and we're patient and we don't stop working.

And that's the advice I would give.

Hey, the guys you used to work at the startup, the construction business startup before,

where are they working?

It was a remote company.

It was, uh, were any of them local?

Yes.

Some, some of the projects were local.

Yeah.

Find out where those guys are working and they may talk, they may talk nice about you

and help you get a job there.

Oh, you mean like, uh, the guys you used to work with in the construction business, find out where are that company was a startup and went down you said now go find those guys and run that to ground and they'll get the door open for you and you can get going yeah but you don't yeah go you need to go do this man absolutely do it you've already done it so you know where to look start looking you got this walk out there on the job site start talking talking to people. Who's hiring? I know how to do this.

I'll help you.

And just walk in there and start reading blueprints and project managing.

You know how to do it.

It can be done.

You already know you don't have to have a degree because you've already done it.

This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time.
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I'm getting out of here. Enjoy.
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