Building Wealth Is a Journey – Don’t Rush the Process

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Washaw, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about life and money.
The phone number is 888-825-5225. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.
Thanks for joining us. Daniel is in Kansas City.
Hey, Daniel, how are you? I've been better, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir.
What's up in your world? My wife is about to pass away, and she hid debt from me. Oh, my.
That I didn't know that she had pre-tar getting married five years ago. Wow.

I'm so sorry. So what is her illness? She has cirrhosis of the liver, and it's not working, and she doesn't qualify for a transplant, and then it's starting to affect her other organs.
And she's kind of going into full shutdown. So you've been married five years? Yes, sir.
I'm so sorry. How old is she? She's 44.
Oh, my goodness. How old are you? I'm 52.
Okay. Oh, man.
Okay.

And you opened this with she's hidden debt from you during the five years that you were married. So she ran up debt in her name? She ran up debt in her name pre-tar getting married back when she was in college.
This is the second marriage for both of us. I have one daughter with her, technically a stepdaughter, but I consider her my daughter.

Totally.

And was saving money for her to go to college.

And we were, I thought we were, anyway, debt-free except for our house.

So the debt was rung up before you guys got married. You just didn't know about it? I did not know about it.
And how much debt? Her parents said she ran up $50,000, but I've only received a bill for $15,000. And it's on what kind of debt? Student loan debt.
Federally insured? I don't know. I just received it the other day.
It's actually from a bill collection agency. I don't have it in front of me.
I apologize. Is it only, you might not know this, is it only in her name or did her parents sign for it too? No, it's only in her name okay her parents offered to pay for her to go to school as long as she showed them the grades and evidently she took the money was in school for a hot minute and i didn't know this because she's hidden a bunch of stuff from me and uh used the money to go Okay.
And went to Europe and blew the money. All right.
Well, let's talk through a couple of possibilities from a tactical standpoint. I'm sorry, Daniel.
I know your heart's broken in about three different places, the deception, the loss, the illness, everything that's going on here that's just overwhelming. And all of that's just a tragedy.
I'm so sorry. Student loan debt that is federally insured is forgiven when someone passes away.
Okay. So if this is a federal student loan debt,'s no issue when she passes away you will or her parents for that matter can send them a copy of the death certificate and the student loan just evaporates it's that simple and don't pay it okay that that's probably what we're dealing with okay let's go another route in case that's not it let's pretend this is uh private student loan debt that she borrowed it from the university rather than through fafsa and all that right um and that is not i'm sorry i believe she did because her parents income was too high for her to get fafsa well this is student it could because still there's no there's not an income limit on getting a federally insured student loan oh okay okay so i'm thinking this is a federally insured student loan if it's not let's discuss that so the do you own anything jointly with her and both of your names on it the only thing with both our names on it is one car okay her credit her credit from her previous marriage was she's had two bankruptcies that she never told me about because I had money issues in my first marriage and got that all paid off.
And I got your book, The Total Money Makeover, and followed that to get out of debt. There's a mountain of deception here.
Okay. All right, let's pretend that this is not federally insured.
I would would have you con if it's not a federally insured student loan that is forgiven upon death then i would have you contact an attorney there in kansas city on probate law in kansas in most states when someone passes away what they own stands good for what they owe, and nothing else does. Just because you're married to her in most states does not mean you're liable for her debts that have her name on it.
And so the car is hers, a portion of it, and if the car has any value above what is owed, that might be sold and paid towards this debt. But other than that, you don't have anything that is, she doesn't own anything, it doesn't sound like.
No, sir, she does not. Okay, so let's pretend that she were single and she had a car and that was all.
And she owed more on the car than it was worth. And you pass away with credit card debt and student loan debt.
There's no assets to pay the debts. Those creditors get nothing when that person passes away with nothing.
Your kids aren't responsible. Your parents aren't responsible.
And in most states, your husband is not responsible unless, especially in a situation like this where the debt occurred prior to the marriage. Yeah, absolutely.
So I'm not an attorney in Kansas. I'm not an attorney, but I'm not an attorney in Kansas for sure.
So I'd want you to check that out. You won't have to bother and do that if you can discover that these student loans are federally insured.
And I'm giving you a high probability they are. If they're federally insured, it's no issue at all.
You got no issue. You're not liable, period.
No one's liable. No one pays anything.
If someone becomes permanently disabled or passes away with a federally insured student loan it's forgiven it's gone okay so you're okay other than your broken heart okay and your broken heart from losing your wife and uh to liver cirrhosis cirrhosis the liver and your broken heart from all the deception that's gone on. And both are legitimate pain, brother.

I'm sorry you're facing all this.

He's got to get in counseling and deal with that because he's got a lot going on.

He's got the loss.

But then it's tough to lose someone that you're angry at

or frustrated at for something that's gone on, right?

And so I would definitely.

Obviously, she had a pattern of this in her life.

And now it's coming to a tragic conclusion. So tough.
Wow. Ouch.
Ouch. This is the Ramsey show.
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Or if you're on YouTube or podcast, just click the link there in the old notes. Rachel's with us.
Rachel is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Rachel.
How are you? I'm doing well, thanks. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

I have a question, and it is, can I reasonably consider homeownership in my future at my salary point?

I make about $42,000 a year before taxes. I work full-time in ministry.

I love what I do, and my question is, can I retire well someday and have home ownership as part of my future? How old are you? 35. Okay.
All right. Cool.
I think that it's possible. I think that right now you make 42,000, but I can't imagine that your salary will never go up.
So I think that there's an opportunity there, But it is going to depend on the decisions you make today. So my first question would be, do you have debt? Tell me a little bit more about your snapshot here.
Okay. So I do have a little bit of debt.
I have about 7,000. I'm working on paying it off.
According to my figures, I'll probably be debt-free by June or July. I've off about $12,000 to date so far this year.
Good for you. Very good.
Okay. And so after that, you're just walking the baby steps through, which anybody can do.
The speed in which this happens is going to be directly reflected by your salary. So I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter.
And there's something to that. And then the other part of this is, okay, are we choosing an affordable place to live? You're in Cleveland, Ohio.
I mean, what's it cost for you to buy something for, are you single? I am single, yes. And I don't live quite in Cleveland.
I live in a small town. I've seen quite a few houses recently for between $80,000 and $120,000.
It would be kind of what I was looking at. That's very doable on your income.
Yeah. And what I would do is we've got a really great home mortgage calculator.
It's like, how much home can I afford? And so if I were in your shoes, I'd be trying to put real numbers to these question marks. And I'd say, okay, first things first.
Yeah. How long is it going to take me to pay off the $7,000? Then how long is it going to take me to save three to six months of expenses? Then, and a lot of those equations, if I were you, Rachel, I would reverse engineer them and say, okay, for three to six months of expenses, let's say I need $10,000.
If I do the math on what I'm making now, it's going to take me X amount of time. And then you get to decide, is that timeframe okay with me? Because if it's not okay with me, what do I need to do to make that go faster? And even though you're in ministry, I got to believe that you've got time on your hands to add to your income by doing a side hustle, right? I do have a second job.
I work about 12 to 14 hours a week in a second job. Okay.
Okay. Hey, what is your ministry? What do you do? I work in a children's ministry.
We are basically a discipleship program for kids. Good.
Very good. That's about as worthy a thing as I can think a human can do.
Way to go. Proud of you.
Thank you. So here's the thing.
The probability that 15 years from today, you're 50 years old and you're doing this exact same thing, making this exact same income, is zero. There's no chance.
Okay? You will either be making some more. You might still be there doing this, but you'll be making some more.
But even the probability of that, just saying, okay, I'm going to be making 52,000 15 years from now, doing the same thing. And I'm a 50 year old single lady doing children's ministry at that point.
That's fairly low. I mean, you're pretty much mother Teresa.
If you're doing that, okay, you just got the one thing and you stuck with it all the way through. Right.
And that's not a bad thing. Mother Teresa's obviously had a good gig, right? Um, so, uh, you know, that that's fine if you go that direction, but it's just not the normal path for a typical person in America.
And so what oftentimes happens is that you find other ways to serve children and you scale it and your income goes up and your expertise and your experience becomes more valuable in the marketplace, it might involve a move. It might involve some kind of life change in your situation.
I don't know. But typically what happens is that people progress through their life, right? And that includes their income.
And sometimes it means some stair-stepping on their careers and those types of things. So I think that's really your future.
I just don't know how to describe it exactly, but I think we can all agree the probability of you being 50 and making exactly the same money doing exactly the same thing is very low. And even if I do, there's a slight increase every year.
I don't know that much. Yeah, but I'm just saying, even that's a slight increase.
It's not 42. So the average household income is 78,000 in America.
That's household, and that includes a whole lot of dinks, double income, no kids. Okay, so that's calculated into that.
So your income is slightly below the average today, and that's not a sin. There's nothing wrong with that.
And that doesn't mean you can't do the stuff we just talked about. But you just kind of keep that, that's my deal.
And then you're in ministry, and the stuff that we teach is biblical principles of finance, which is stay out of debt, save money, live on a written plan. Those are all from the Bible.
Live on less than you make. Those are all from the Bible.
And if you do that and start investing a portion of your income into a good Roth IRA, you could have a serious amount of money at retirement and not have a substantial change in income. That's right.
If you stayed this track exact. Yeah.
You're just committing to a more modest lifestyle at the end of the day. And there's nothing wrong with that.
That's your value that you get to choose. Yeah, don't call me.
You can't call me and say I was forced to buy a new car. Right.
You can't call me and say I was so tired and fatigued from ministry that I took a year off and went to Europe. You can't call me and do that.
That's not. no, you don't have these options.
You don't have the money to do that. So you're in a steady thing and you're going to be a steady person that, but I like your $80,000, $100,000 house idea.
It fits the numbers you're giving me. You're not, you're not being a princess in this, a negative princess in this discussion.
So I don't hear that coming from you, but don't have those options yeah you're driving a used camry for the foreseeable future exactly exactly and that's not a bad thing it's not a bad thing i think that those are the choices that we make when we decide you know where our passions are going to take us in life career wise so godliness with contentment is great gain rodney is in atlanta georgia hi rod. Welcome to the Ramsey show.
Hello, Mr. Dave.
I'm actually, I'm in South Carolina. Okay.
That works too. How can I help? Yeah.
Yeah. Yes.
Uh, I'm, um, I just got a question, uh, a few, a couple of questions. Uh, I'm in pretty good shape financially.
I have managed to save, uh, in cash and sitting at a bank, $142,000.

Way to go.

And I have zero consumer debt, no loans, not anything. But my mortgage, I owe $165,000 on my mortgage, which I'm going to be able to, if I have another good 2025, I'll be able to pay that off next year.
So my question is, do I put anything down on my house now?

Because I've been thinking about just writing a check for $100,000

and putting it straight towards the principal and only owe the $65,000 on it

and then just pay it off about this time next year.

What's your interest rate on the mortgage?

3.7. Okay, that's what you're making on that 100k when you do it you're saving 3.7 on 100k okay about how much okay 3.7 on 100,000 okay yeah because you just paid you're not going to be charged 3.7 on that 100,000 because you paid it off and might pay more than that.
I don't know what your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses is,

but that's all you need.

Everything above that ought to be dumping towards that mortgage.

We're on baby step six and wide open.

Way to go, Rodney!

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All right. Today's question comes from Alex in Florida.
He says, I'm 42, married with no kids, and my wife and I are retired. We clear almost $10,000 a month from our pensions.
We own brand new vehicles that should last us eight years or so. We own a waterfront home, but we are tired of the heat, hurricanes, and insurance prices.
I bet you are. If we buy our dream home for $1 million in cash, we will have over $400,000 in the bank.
We have no bills other than our normal expenses, so we save on average $7,000 a month. I never dreamed I would be contemplating paying a million cash for anything.
I've been penny pinching and saving for so long that it feels weird to spend. Is this a stupid idea? Let's see.
You're 42 married with no kids. You've got this pension.
I would love to know what his current investing rate is if he's continuing to invest any of this money he doesn't mention any of that he'd still have 400 000 in the bank let's just pretend that that's it a lump sum is going to double every seven years so when he's 52 it'll be 800 uh and plus so almost a million by that i'd probably do it dave would you do it i'd pay cash for it yeah there's no reason not to my only concern with the money to do it what else you're going to do with it take out a mortgage and put the money in an investment no well the only other option would be to invest it well only other option would be to buy something less expensive in cash in my mind that would be the only other option I don't see a need to I don't either I it. Yeah.
Pay cash for it. No, you're not stupid.
It is an emotional thing to you've been sitting on money to let that money go into a house, but it's not like you're spending it. If this goes sideways, what are you going to sell the house for a profit later? I mean, here's the thing.
He's probably most of that money probably wasn't just sitting in an account somewhere i mean he's selling the waterfront house to get it apparently so that's exactly what you should do you take the equity maybe adds a little cash to it and purchase this house outright yes absolutely and let's see here we own a waterfront home doesn't say if it's paid for but but you know, I'm, yeah, I'm with you. I'm guessing based on this, we're going to sell that.
And that's some of the million dollars. But anyway, the answer to your question is yes.
Yes. Pay cash, pay cash, pay cash, pay cash, pay cash now.
And then take your $10,000 a month. And I'm with Jade.
You ought to be investing some of it. And your 400,000 doesn't need to be in the bank that's a good point it needs to be in in some good investments so get with a smart investor pro at RamseySolutions.com find someone that we're endorsing in your area that you get comfortable with that has the heart of a teacher start learning about good investments the bank is not on the list of good investments John's in Boiseaho hey john what's up hi thanks for taking my call sure how can i help uh so my wife and i just pay off our house um and my first instinct was to go ahead and ramp up our retirement contributions and try to max those out as much as possible.
Absolutely. But then I'm looking back at what we currently have in our retirement accounts, and we got about $623,000 sitting in traditional.
And I'm wondering, based on our ages, we're 36 and 38, if it would make more sense, instead of maxing out new Roth contributions, if we should instead maybe try to focus on converting some of those additional or traditional retirement contributions to Roth. You ought to do both.
You ought to max them out and then start working on converting it to Roth. But I'm not going to choose between the two.
I'm going to max out first, and then I'm going to get to the above that. I'm going to get to it.
What's your income? About $205,000 household income. Okay, and you've got no payments, and you live in Boise, Idaho no house payment or anything.
Correct. So you're not going to be able to do that $600,000 in one fell swoop anyway.
You don't have the money. Right.
Well, I mean, we also have some, like, home upgrades and wife's vehicle needs to be upgraded. Okay.
So I'm kind of looking at the extra money beyond maxing out retirement. you know, a lot of that's going to go that direction.

That's fine, but that's not a forever thing.

And once the homemaker upgrade's done, the car upgrade's done,

then you can start to peck away at it.

And five years from today, you're going to be making more than $205,000.

Agreed?

Agreed.

Yeah.

So just, you know, you're 30.

So take a seven-year plan, and let's get that $600,000 moved by the time you're 40.

Right.

While maxing out, while upgrading the cars, while doing all of this other. You got room.
Right. And then the balance of that traditional at 623 now is going to continue to grow.
So it's just going to be more taxed as that time goes on. But that doesn't change it.
I'm still going to do it. Because here's the thing.
You've got got that under the umbrella if you stop putting money under the umbrella in order to flip that out i i think that's a bad move i want you to get i want you to get it all over into roth all mines over into roth i moved it all over but i paid cash for it above and beyond maxing out everything and above and beyond being completely debt-free and above and beyond upgrading cars and fixing the house and so you know but but you're not gonna do it quickly unless your income doubles but you're you will be able to do it over a five to you know a 10-year period seven-year period whatever i mean you're not going to be 45 asking this question i can tell you that mathematically okay so and And so you'll be fine. You're going to get there.
But yes, I think that is a good strategy to move traditional to a Roth. At what point, okay, I'm trying to think through this.
I'm thinking of a good question here. So if you're listening to the show and you say, oh man, Dave, I've contributed to a traditional 401k most of my working life.
I've got a lot over there. At what point do you go, this is too much to move? And or, what's a fair percentage to have in traditional versus Roth? Maybe that's the better question.
In game, I don't want you to have any in it right but if

you're if you've been doing that it's okay I mean but I wouldn't be I wouldn't be continuing traditional I'd move everything to Roth today all on fresh contributions and in game I want you to move it all out into Roth over a period of time and here's why let's let's fast forward this 33 year old to 65.

Sure.

Okay.

He's not going to cash all of this out suddenly at retirement anyway. That's right.
And very likely this guy, making a quarter million dollars a year at 33 years old, is going to have a bunch of other non-retirement investments like Dave. Right.
Okay. I got a bunch of non-retirement investments called real estate and other things, right? Mutual funds that aren't in a retirement plan.
So the chances of me actually touching, I'm 64, of ever touching my retirement accounts, it's close to zero. Yeah.
I will never touch them. so now what are we doing well now we're looking at 72 and a half rmds required minimum distributions i don't have those because it's roth yeah uh inherited iras they are taxable if they're traditional that's right if they're roth they're not ding so rachel Rachel Cruz and her brother and sister will be getting someday all of our Roth products yeah no taxes and guess what let's say I live 25 years from today that's 64 to 90s right put that put what's in there right now all tax, all dropped into their name, tax-free.
Talk about changing a family tree. My mind is exploding.
The numbers are astrophreakonomical. Oh, yeah, they are.
I mean, it's cray-cray how big those numbers are. And that's where this kid's going.
Yeah. Because he's going to have other investments by the time he gets there.
And if he gets all of this into Roth, he's got the inheritance benefit,

the no RMD benefit,

because you're really probably not going to use that money to live on.

That's very good.

This is the blueprint.

Yeah, I mean, because this guy's not looking at a $2 million net worth here.

This guy's looking at a $12 million net worth.

Yeah, he's going to be very wealthy.

If he stays on this track, because the numbers we're giving him with

compound interest is magical people. This is beautiful, man.
You are a bright guy.

John, you have, you got to run these numbers out. It'll blow your freaking mind.

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Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
Stacey is in Spokane. Hi, Stacey.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.
Thank you very much for having me on. Sure.
What's up in your world? Yeah, so I would like to just get an idea of how to deal with our situation. My husband is up in age.
He is actually 72 going on 73. He has been working all his life and I am only 49.
I have health issues that prevent me from being able to work a full-time regular job. And so currently what happened was recently last year, um, we were living on a friend's property, taking care of the father, uh, the, the, the, the father of the son that lives there.
And, um, we were doing really well. My husband was working.
We were doing just fine financially. Unfortunately, we didn't have a home there.
And we were told that the owners of the property, which is multiple family members, were having a dispute. And so we were having to get out of that situation due to the circumstances.
and when we saw what was happening after COVID and everybody losing their homes and losing rentals because people were selling their rentals like crazy, we also had pets, which was restricted us from getting into a rental. So we decided to go ahead and purchase a home, knowing that technically the economy wasn't great for doing that.
My husband makes about with social security included because he gets his retirement social security as well as his income. That is about $90,000 a year.
We purchased a home last October at the price of $423,000. Good Lord.
And unfortunately, the interest rate was at 6%. Um, I like like 6.2.
And so right now, currently I still owe a school loan debt, uh, of about 20,000. I was hospitalized this last summer and now owe $10,000 for a one night stay.
And then also my daughter, there's no schools in our area that are safe for her to attend, unfortunately. And so we had to send her to a boarding school.
What does that mean when you say there's no school? What does that mean? In Spokane, Washington, the schools are not safe to attend? I was born in Spokane. Tell me what that, what does that mean? So actually, we are actually in northern Idaho, but like right next to Spokane.
And so in rural Idaho, the schools are not safe to attend. Right.
I'm not buying that they've been pushing the um whole uh gay thing you know okay safe is one thing i don't agree with what they're pushing is another thing that's a different yeah that's very different okay so i don't i don't have a problem with that okay now so um what's... What's the question? Why don't you sell the house?

Yeah.

You bought a house you can't afford.

Right.

Sell it.

Right.

And then go with it.

Well, move to something you can afford.

Okay.

You bought a house you can't afford.

Yeah.

And to your point, you're in a rural area that's far less expensive than anything that'd be close to a city so there should be options right there are options actually unfortunately the areas out here are really it's it's gone up just from the one day there's not a situation there's not a situation where there are no options except sit there and be bankrupt bull. Okay? You keep pulling the plug on.
Everything seems to be forced upon you, and you don't have any choices. You don't have any choices.
You got choices. You didn't have to send your kid to boarding school.
You could have up, sold the house, moved to a school system you agreed with in a $200,000 house and had no issues. Okay.
You weren't forced into any of this know but the language you use is as if you're a victim of your own choices you're not a victim change it yeah sell a stupid house it's a freaking house it's a bad decision and you bought it and then you justified it as if there was no other choices of course there was other choices there's always other choices we have pets well there's lots of choices with pets and i'm not going to bankrupt my family for pets i love my dog it's one of my favorite people but i'm not going to bankrupt my family for my pet yeah i i also want to challenge the fact and she said she wasn't working i know she said health issues but i always filter at this point whenever we get calls where someone is struggling to work whether it's because of a disability or health i always tell this story i bought two recliners on wayfair they didn't work and i sent them back and all of the customer service was done via text and i realized there's somebody on the other end doing this whole thing on their computer at home via text. There are jobs out there that you don't have to have contact, that you can be on your own timeline.
So I even want to challenge the fact that you're not working. I bet there's something that you can do.
So there's a lot in this conversation that needs to be accounted for. Yeah, we've got to get on top of this and in front of it rather than behind it.
Everything's not chasing you, kid. You got to start chasing life instead of it chasing you.
So sell the house, move into a house half the price, get the kid back out of boarding school, homeschool them. If you're not working, homeschool your kid.
You can control the woke agenda that way. And, you know, there's a lot of options here.
There's a lot of options. But you guys just keep reaching over and doing crap you can't afford, and then you're shocked that you're broke.
Yeah, and in this situation, you really need to have some foresight when you've got a 72-year-old husband and you're 50. You've got to start thinking through what the future holds and how you're preparing for that because it's going to hit you like a ton of bricks.
Now, Sharon is slightly older than me, and she's planned for me to die first. So I'm not sure what that means exactly.
I need to sleep with one eye open, possibly. All of our estate plan is predicated on me predeceasing her.
I'm a little worried about this. Of course, she is in much better shape than me, but other than that, you know, come on.
I mean, yeah, you're right, and I'm not 20 years or whatever it is, 15 years older. So there you go.
All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Connor is in Pensacola. Hi, Connor.
What's up? Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir.
How can we help? So I made some bad financial decisions right when I turned 18. I thought credit meant I was rich.
Me too. You're the only one, Connor.
Yeah. So I decided to, I was going to start my own lawn care company.
It worked all out, but I ended up taking out a loan for a I did that. Um, I ended up selling the landscape company, not for much.
I mean, it was just, it was 1300 bucks. Um, I ended up moving to Florida from Minnesota.
Um, and I'm just trying to figure out how to get out of this loan as I have no reason for a truck anymore. And I owe about $31,000 on it.
It's worth about... I owe about

$31,000. It's worth about yeah it's i owe about 31 000

it's worth about 26 what do you make i've gone down i make 2400 a month what do you do

uh i just got a job doing logistics sales

for 30 000 a year it's 40 000 so i mean it's really 2800 a month um but i mean there's

Thank you. for $30,000 a year? It's $40,000.
So, I mean, it's really $2,800 a month. But, I mean, there's potential for commission after 26 weeks of training.
I'm 21 years old. Okay, and you're working 40 hours doing that? I'm working about 50 hours a week, but I'm on a base salary of $40,000 a year.
After 26 weeks of training, I'm eligible for uncapped commission, but there's really no guarantee that you'll make commission. That's how hard you work.
Yeah. All right.
So you're 21. You're in a place where you just moved to.
You don't know anybody. You need six more jobs.
Take it to 80 hours a week. You need $5,000 to write a check and cover the difference so you can sell the truck right correct yeah i want you to go get five thousand dollars ready set go then you're going to have to figure out a way to get something in cash that you can drive around and yeah get you a five thousand dollar car so we really need we really need ten thousand dollars yeah that was kind of my plan is to just kind of get rid of this loan and just buy a car cash you can do it man but you're going to be living on beans and rice and you're going to increase your income and there's no eating out there's no happy hour and i hope you got a there's no weekend trips with the buds you're a broke dude with a truck you can't afford and the way to get out of that is go to bare bones and attack it with a vengeance.

Yeah.

And get you a roommate.

Oh, there we go. Ding, ding.
This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show.
where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. We're going to talk to real millionaires and ask them how they did it.
We started doing this theme hour several years ago because I kept hearing all the mythology in the marketplace, the lies that are out there about where wealth really comes from. People don't seem to know where wealth really comes from.
So let me help you with this. A millionaire is a million dollar or greater net worth.
There is only one definition of a millionaire. It is a math process.
It's not up to you. It has nothing to do with your feelings.
It doesn't care what your feelings are. Okay.
What your assets are minus your liabilities is your net worth, what you own minus what you owe. Not a salary.
That is your net worth. It has nothing to do with your income.
And your net worth determines if you're a millionaire. When you have a $1 million or greater net worth, whatever you own minus whatever you owe.
And there's no qualification on that. This is an accounting term.
And just because you're on TikTok doesn't mean you get to change it. This is a definition.
And so someone that makes $1 million might or might not be a million a millionaire that is not the definition of a millionaire when people say net worth millionaire that's redundant because 100 of real millionaires are no millionaires based on their net worth you don't need to put an adjective in front of an adjective. It makes you look stupid.
So it's just a millionaire. That's all it is.
So we're going to talk to people that really have that net worth and ask them where they got it. And that's what we do here.
The phone number is 888-825-5225. We're starting with Charlie and Stacey in Midland, Texas.
What's you guys' net worth?

Dave, we think it's about 10.8. Hey, way to go, guys.
Okay, give me a little breakdown by mix on that. How much of that is like investments or retirement, real estate, and so on? We both have an IRA and they total about 2.5.
Got two, two houses 1.4 and then got 6.7 in investment account high yield savings account and land. Way to go.
Good for you. How old are you two? 61.
61 or 51? 61.

61. 61.

Good.

Okay.

How much of this 10.8 million did you inherit? Oh, wow. About 250,000 three years ago when my mom passed.
After you were already millionaires? You bet, yeah. Okay, cool.
And I haven't spent a dime of that inheritance. Okay.
And obviously that's not what caused you to become a millionaire because you already were. Now income, your lowest income since you've been working and your highest income since you've been working.
I think when I got out of vet school in 1990, I got one of the best jobs in my class, and I made $24,000 health insurance for my family and a car to drive. Stacey, you married a rich man.
$24,000. I love it.
And what's your all's best year of income? year of income oh wow um last couple years half million or so okay so now you own a vet practice obviously i sold it ah i did oh for 34 years yes okay so what portion of the net worth came from that would from that sale? Oh, that was a bunch of that was just realizing equity in the business. But then there was some goodwill on top of that.
But you got to hear what Stacey, she taught when I was in vet school. She can tell you what she taught and coached two sports for when we were going to vet school.
Okay. Yes.
I taught.e. um i coached basketball and track i also taught freshman um high school physical education and my starting pay was fifteen thousand four hundred dollars way to go guys way to go teaching and two teaching and two sports way to go proud of y'all so um what what would you uh can do you think people could still do this today oh it's easier today than it was when we did it dave why way easier there's so many more investment opportunities there's we didn't have 529s for the kids we didn't have college savings accounts.
We didn't have 529s for the kids. We didn't have college savings accounts.
We didn't have health savings accounts. We didn't have 401ks like they do now.
When you think back to the 90s, when I found out about you, when you're the only vet in a small town, you get to go out in the middle of the night, and in the mid-90s, you're the only vet in a small town you get to go out in the middle of the night and

in the mid-90s you had the prime time on am radio about three in the morning i did in midland in midland odessa i remember this that's right yes and that's where i heard about you. That's where I heard about you.

Wow. That's crazy.
It's so much easier, I think, today, because when you think in the 90s, I did not know what a no-load mutual fund was. If you were going to buy stocks, you had to buy a block 100 at a time or something like that.
And now you can buy fractions.

It's got to

be so much easier now than it was for us now the vehicles are a lot cleaner you're right and there was no roth there was no roth back then either no there was not no i agree with you so what do you guys drive uh she drives a subaru yeah and i drive a three-quarter ton aggie maroon gmc pickup truck aggie maroon is that that's a particular color they sell in texas i'm sorry about the volunteers i really am so how important how important is budgeting were you guys budgeters does that play a part in building wealth? Yes. Mm-hmm.
Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yes.
Yes, Jade. We followed the envelope system, and I carried around envelopes, the white envelope, which I penciled on each envelope, you know, where that cash was going to go, whether it was going to the grocery store, gas, the kids' needs.
And the envelopes played a huge part because it just, it really gave a visual. I'm a visual person, and it showed how much money we had, you know, to use.
And when it was gone, it was gone. And starting off with the program, I was a little hesitant.

But once we got started, boy, we stuck with it,

and we just went crazy with it.

We also made our kids listen to the show on our trip when we traveled.

Wow.

First, Charlie stuck with me in the middle of the night,

and then the kids are with the trip.

Hey, I'm proud of you guys.

That's amazing. $10.8 million net worth.
That's where money comes from, boys and girls. I love it.
Way to go, Charlie and Stacey. Hero.
Both of you are heroes. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Listen, I know a lot of you would rather watch paint dry in slow motion than file your taxes. But thankfully, you don't have to dread filing when you've got Ramsey SmartTax.
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Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartTax and see how simple tax beliefs, which everyone does act on their beliefs, it leads you astray. In other words, if you thought one direction was north and that was actually south, you acted on a lie.
You acted on an untruth. And you get what's known as lost.
Right? You didn't, you know, that way's Florida, that way's Maine. Yeah.
And you can't head towards Maine and get to Florida. Well, you can.

It's just the long way around, right?

So you've got to go all the way around the globe.

And the same thing is true with building wealth.

And that's why we started doing this, because there's so many people out there lying, some

of them intentionally and some of them just because they're ignoramuses, about where wealth

actually comes from.

Here's one. All wealthy people get their wealth by being crooks that's just completely asinine here let me give you an example okay that guy was a veterinarian okay if he was a crooked veterinarian overcharged people would take their animals somewhere else yeah his business would be out if he stole from his customers they take their business somewhere else instead he grew a large business by not being a crook by being an honest guy sold the business later and became very wealthy as a result of doing that so crooks actually do not prosper well.
Well, crook, you can prosper as a crook, but it's not sustainable. It's not a long-term strategy.
And so what we find is most wealth building is long-term. Now, you can become wealthy for a hot minute being a crook, but we don't find the typical millionaire to be a crook.
As a matter of fact, we find the percentage of crooks among them to be lower than the general population percentage of crooks. And so because one of the issues is integrity.
It seems to be correlated with building wealth. Do you also feel that people have sort of a negative framework or an improper framework about millionaires because A, they're thinking of celebrity status.
They're thinking of people who have 200 million and all the, they're not thinking of the everyday person that might have two or 3 million or eight or 10 million, right? Well, they've gotten the confused between the difference in a billionaire and a millionaire. A billionaire has a jet, right? A millionaire does not.
A billionaire has seven cars. A millionaire is driving a, what do you call it, an Aggie Maroon pickup truck.
Okay? Right. And, you know, a billionaire has five houses.
A millionaire has one medium-sized home. Yeah.
You may not know the person that's sitting next to you generally won't know it that's right okay and the methodology to build a billion dollar net worth is different than the methodology to build a 10 million dollar net worth substantially different that's right okay and neither one involves being a crook but i think people get confused and i think they get a negative view on wealth because some of the uber rich are just weird humans they're just i won't name any names well they're just wacko they're wacko yeah i mean they're not they're not who you want to be that's right yes but that veterinarian i want to be him yeah if you're a young person you could want to be that guy he's a man of character a woman of character she taught phys ed at the high school while he was going through vet school. Shut up.
He made $24,000 a year when he started. Shut up.
You do want to be that couple. They're people of character, of substance.
But you don't, these wackos that are on TV and stuff. And here's the thing.
Here's the interesting thing. I'm not going to be a wealthy because I'm not going to be a celebrity.
Well, only 1. of millionaires in the United States are celebrities wow sports figures music people actors and so on and a lot of them are just weird yeah not all of them some of them are normal people that just play a get fiddle but uh but but a lot of them are just weird I mean and I know some of them that are weird.
I mean, they're weird. And so, you know, that's not normal either.
But what is normal is the guy we just talked to. And that should give you people great hope.
If you're sitting there going, well, all the hope is gone in America. No, it's not.
It's not gone. Don't let people steal your hope with bad information.
That's what this is about.

Matt is with us in Kansas City.

Matt, what's your net worth?

My net worth is approximately $1.5 million.

Good for you.

Give me a little breakdown by category.

All right. We have $60,000 that we keep in cash in the bank just for an emergency fund.

Got it.

We've got about $100,000 in 5 nines for our children. Good for you.
We've got about half a million dollars in American funds. I've got we've paid our home off.
It's worth about four hundred thousand. And then there's a bunch of other things that kind of break up.
We've got a 401k. that's my wife's that's $155,000.
And then there's a bunch of other things that kind of break up. We've got a 401k

that's my wife's that's $155,000. She's vested in a pension.
I'm vested in a pension.

She has a retirement plan that's worth about $203,000 if she were to cash it out.

I've got a deferred comp through my work that's got about $70,000 or $80,000 in it. Gotcha.
Matt, how old are you? I'm 45 years old. Cool.
And how much of this $1.5 million did you inherit? We inherited zero. Zero.
And what was your worst year of working income and your best year of working income? Well, I would say when my wife and I first got married was probably the worst and it was probably around 60,000 combined. Okay.
What do y'all, what should have been your best year? Um, probably this last year was right around 200,000. Cool.
What do y'all do for a living? I'm a state trooper and my wife is a business analyst for a large global company that does pet food. Got it.
Got it. Okay, cool.
And what do you got? Have you got a four-year degree? I do. Yes, I have a four-year degree from at the time was just from a state college and I taught high school for three years before I changed careers.
What was your degree in? I have a teaching degree in secondary education.

Gotcha. Okay.
What was your GPA? My GPA was about a 3.75. Good for you.
Well done. Okay, cool.
Very good. What do y'all drive? My wife drives a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, a four-door Jeep.
I drive a 2001 Jeep Wrangler, and I newly acquired a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to replace one that I'd gotten rid of. And we also own a brand new 2024 Toyota C&M minivan for the kids.
And I've also got a 2018 Ford F-150 that my 16-year-old's going to be driving. When did you...
Your 16-year-old has a better car than you have? He does. I just want him to be in the safest thing he could be in.
Yeah, you see some stuff out there on the road, I'm afraid. Yeah, I've seen a few things.
When did you get serious about building wealth? Because you're 45 years old, somebody is listening. They're maybe 40 or 43 and they're going, gosh, how did this guy do it? When did you get serious? We were very fortunate.
My uncle Doug gave my wife and I a copy of the total money makeover. This was probably, I want to say about 15 years ago.
And my wife, my wife is on the financial side of things and she just ate it up. It was really quick for her.
Everything worked for her. We did envelopes, we did peanut butter and jelly.
We did all of those, those things that were talked about in the book. And a 15-year horizon from the time you learned the

plan till the day that you're calling in today, basically. Absolutely.
And when we started,

we had car payments on two cars and a house payment, and maybe a little bit of credit card

debt, maybe just a few thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. So you're Baby Steps Millionaires.

I mean, this is pure. You did Ramsey all the way through.
Absolutely, yes. Wow.
Very cool. I'm proud of you guys.
Yeah, we're currently using one of your investors in the Kansas City area, and he's been really good to us. You know, no complaints from us at all.
Wow. Proud of you, man.
Very, very well done. Congratulations, sir.
And thank you for being out there protecting the people of Kansas on the highways and byways, brother. Very cool.
$1.5 million net worth in 15 years from being broke. Wow.
That's a good question you asked there. Well, I wanted to paint the picture because people think that this takes 40 years and 50 years to do.
Our average in our millionaire study that we did is 17 years. This took 15.
And he's above a million. Good.
This is The Ramsey Show. 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 they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience, and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values.
And they've done a really, really good job with customer service, and the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account.
And I'm not kidding. It took less than five minutes.
It was so user-friendly. The step-by-step approach was unbelievable.
And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.
And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I so, so appreciate that.
So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but Fairwinds, again, they make it so easy. Plus anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app, and you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs.
Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general, and so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe.
You guys, it's incredible. Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live.
So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.
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Pre-order today. It's a Baby Steps Millionaire's Theme Hour.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. We're talking to real millionaires.
What you own minus what you owe is your net worth. Assets minus liabilities.
When that reaches $1 million or greater, by definition, you are a millionaire. Well, Dave, a million dollars is just not enough anymore.
Well, we're not discussing that today. Dave, no one should have that kind of money.
This is not a moral construct for you socialists to discuss. It's a math thing.
It's a facts thing. So if you have a million dollars.
It's simple we want to talk to you i don't care where you got it if you stole it that's fine call us and tell us okay if you won the lottery call us and tell us if you whatever i'd love that story to come through if somebody stole it yeah we'll put you right here on the radio and see if we can't get you convicted of your crime but yeah but i mean really i mean we've i've talked to a lot of winners yeah i talked to people that did the game stop thing and that got a million dollars out of it you know i mean when you do it that way bitcoin guys i've talked to them they got a million dollars i've talked to people that did it ways i don't recommend and that the data tells us are not normative yeah don't normally work but, but I'll talk to you. I don't care.
I want to hear. I want everyone in America to hear where wealth really comes from.
So you call 888-825-5225. Diane is in Sacramento.
Diane, what's your net worth? 1.2 million. Good for you.
And give me a little breakdown by category, please.

Well, pretty simple.

About $300,000 in home equity and $900,000 in IRAs and an active 401K.

Good.

Good for you.

How old are you?

69.

69.

Very good.

How much of this $1.2 did you inherit?

Not a penny.

Zero.

What's your best year of working income and your worst year of working income?

Working income, probably about 95.

And my worst year was when I was just 18 and started working about 4,000.

Gotcha.

Okay.

A long time ago.

I hear you.

What was your career?

My career has always been in the insurance industry. Good for you.
Okay, good. And do you have a four-year degree? No, I do not.
No. Okay, good.
Very cool. All right.
Do you think people could still do this today? Absolutely. Why? I think it's, I think they need someone I wanted to give them guidance and encouragement.
I don't know. One of the things I'm proudest of are my girls because they're both doing it.
They started hearing this from me at a very young age. When they were in positions at jobs with 401ks, they both started contributing.
Yeah. and i'm excited to see um one of my girls just showed me her 401k balance the other day and she's just in her mid-30s and i was i was so proud of her yeah very good yeah she's gonna beat mom they are they both will yeah they will.
I did not start investing until I was 40 at the strong encouragement of a co-worker.

And this was in about the mid-90s before we knew an awful lot about 401ks and certainly before the Roth IRAs.

But I started investing a very tiny amount because my friend Bruce would not let up on me until I did. And you never made over 100K? Never in my life.
Wow, I'm proud of you. What do you drive? I have a 2015 little Subaru that's my commuter car and a 2018 Ram half-ton pickup because I'm a mountain girl.
I like it. I do not live in the city of Sacramento.
I like it. Good for you.
We head to the mountains on the weekends. I like it.
Oh, no. I live in the mountains.
Oh, okay. All right.
You sound intentional. You've been intentional about putting money aside, intentional about teaching your kids the same way of life.
How much has a budget played into this? Because we know that that's a big part of this, right? Being intentional with your money. Absolutely.
I started when I first learned the Excel product back in the mid-90s. That was when I created a budget for myself.
And that developed into a document that I now project out a year ahead of my monthly expenses and my allocations and when things are coming up. So, you know, it contemplates savings.
It contemplates money going into my 401k, you know, vehicle registrations, all the little details of life. And I make sure that I pay myself first.
I started maxing out my 401k in my very early 50s with some home equity rather than putting all of the equity into my next home purchase. I reserved $100,000.
So in the last 20 years, what do you do for fun? Enjoy my home. I've always enjoyed living in the mountains.
It's always felt like a vacation destination for me. It is.
So for me, my fun is coming to my home. It's working in my yard.
And that's my fun. I do like to camp, but I don't do much of it anymore.
But my fun is pretty simple. I don't require elaborate vacations.
I like coming home and sitting on my house and looking at my living room window to all the beautiful trees that surround me. It's lovely.
Life is good. Good for you.
I'm proud of you. Very, very well done, Diane.

Excellent.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Megan in Raleigh, North Carolina, what is your net worth?

Hi, Dave.

It is $1.9 million.

Yeah.

Very good.

Give me a little breakdown by category, please.

In Roth IRAs, $351,000.

401Ks, $276,000.

Our non-retirement investment and savings, $351,000. 401Ks, $276,000.
Our non-retirement investment and savings, $260,000. And then our real estate portfolio, $1.062 million.
Good for you. Way to go.
How old are you? 35. Wow.
Get it. I love it, love it, love it.
How much of this did you inherit? My husband inherited $50,000 when he was a junior in college when his dad passed. Okay.
Did that money cause you to become a millionaire? Absolutely not. Okay.
All right. And what's your all's best year working income and worst year working income? um our worst, we made about $77,000 and our best year, $220,000.
Good for you. What do y'all do? What's your careers? My husband is a major in the Army and I work in healthcare IT.
Got it. Okay.
You got a four-year degree? We actually, between the two of us, have four graduate wow you collect them okay we do um so three were employee employer sponsored and one was fully cash flowed wow i was going to ask about that wow okay so what's the fanciest of the four degrees um we have a phd in the bunch no no they're all um master's degrees okay all right but my my fanciest one i would say it sounds cool is cyber security management and policy ah yeah that's big good for you you're right in the hot seat right now and your gpa uh when you were doing that particular degree 4.0 nice i got a I got a feeling, yeah. Yeah, all right.
Good for you. Well done, well done.
Can people do this today? Yes. Well, crap, you're only 35.
Of course they can do it today. All right.
Well, I want to know, how long have you made $220,000? One year. I just want to clarify.
I always hear the voice of the naysayers in my mind. And so I like to debunk it.
Uh, and when did you get started on this journey? Cause 35 is really young. And I mean, you're one point, I mean, two, $2 million really is where you're at.
So when did you start this? Um, well, I first got plugged into the Ramsey show back in 2019. Um, we had bought a house.
We didn't have any other debt. So we were fortunate in that even before I met my husband, we were both very financially savvy and knew not to spend more than you made.
But I got pregnant with my daughter. And instead of getting in that nesting phase of setting up the baby's room and everything, I got into the financial security mode.
Love that. And there was just a particular lifestyle I envisioned for our family, and I wanted to be able to have the financial means to do it.
So avoiding debt and six years of being intentional about what comes after paying off and avoiding debt. Yeah, way to go, kiddo.
Proud of you. Well done.

Wow.

$2 million net worth at 35 years old.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

She wins.

Yeah.

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.
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Your ribs will be sore where your spouse is elbowing you. All of that will happen.
RamseySolutions.com slash tour, the money and relationships tour. You can always look at the live events we're doing all over the place on our homepage and check in.
There's all of us doing stuff all over the place all the time now diane two callers ago 69 never made over 100 000 that is one of the myths one of the lies that are out there that you have to make 500 000 a year 600 000 a year to be a millionaire you don't as a matter of fact we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america we studied 10 167 of them the conclusions of that research and the methodology of that research are the white paper in the back of my best-selling book baby steps millionaires and baby steps millionaires goes through the discussion of where millionaires come from in detail so So if you want to learn about the millionaire subject,

the study is in there,

and also the best-selling book is in front of the study.

One of the things we found in the study

was 33% of millionaires never made over 100 grand.

One-third.

Wow.

That one surprised me.

Yeah.

I was, you know, if you told me not over 200 grand,

okay, I could have gone with that one, but but 33 never made over 100 grand they fall in the category that diane fell in pretty cool richards in kansas city hey richard your net worth uh 3.1 million good for you give me a little breakdown by category uh basically joint account 117 emergency fund 110 uh 401k, which is now a rollover because I am recently retired, 1.167 million. And then we have my wife and I have Roths at 750,000, a donor account at 56, our homes about 425, farmlands 450, and miscellaneous items about 40,000.
Cool. How old are you? I am 57 years old.
Good for you. Well done.
How much of this did you inherit? Well, I did inherit a little bit, and that's part of my story a little bit. I got $200,000 when I was 35 and $200,000 when I was 45.
Wow. Cool.
Good. Very good.
So that did really legitimately boost this. It did.
It did. But the way I look at this is the 401k, my goal is to always get a million over that and did that, but it helps.
But the big thing I find is one thing that I don't always hear you talk about, but you do is people inherit things. And sometimes it's a woohoo moment.
Now we're going to go out and spend money. We're going to go buy that big car or that big boat.

But my wife and I kept away from that.

And so I like the feel that I did it without those things.

Yeah, well, what you did was you got the best use of that,

but you've got 1.1 in your 401K, so you would have been a millionaire anyway.

Yes, absolutely.

But this did legitimately, I mean, the $450 450 000 farm probably had something to do with that uh some of these other cash positions probably had something to do with that but uh your 401k has to be payroll deducted it's not your none of that uh inheritance can go in there legally so i know that didn't where that came from well that and you know my wife wife worked outside the house part time and raised our kids. So we are a one income household.
And then with her, what she brought in is one of those things where you basically had to learn how to do without. And we did in those early years.
And we have two young, successful kids. And I think they've learned from watching us.
And I've got to tell you, when they used to hear your music come on

when we'd be driving down the highway, their heads would hit the ground.

I love it.

What was your career, Richard?

I was in packaging for my career.

All right.

Yep.

All right, very cool.

Good for you, man.

Hey, thanks for the call.

You're a hero, man.

I'm so proud of you.

Excellent, excellent work. Okay.
Baby Step you, man. Hey, thanks for the call.
You're a hero, man. I'm so proud of you.
Excellent. Excellent work.
Okay. Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour.
All right, Jade, we found one that actually inherited some money. Yeah.
And here's the statistics on that, because that's one of the last lies that we want to defeat. Okay.
When we studied the largest, when we did the largest study, airtighttight research an outside research firm looking over our shoulder so that we weren't doing confirmation bias we wanted to get the surprises of the study we wanted to learn where it really really is what are the facts and this study is so airtight that this is these are this data is what's known as the truth so if you disagree with the conclusions of the study you're what's known as the truth. So if you disagree with the conclusions of this study, you're what's known as wrong.
That's what I'm saying, okay? That's right. So 79% of America's millionaires have inherited precisely zero.
That's eight out of ten. So when the wealthy, quality, socialist, communist people are whining and crying and say

we need to restructure society because all wealth is inherited, they are either ignorant or evil

or both. Got it? 5% of millionaires inherited a small amount like five thousand dollars from their grandmother which is not enough mathematically to cause you to become a millionaire and another five percent inherited money after substantial money like a couple hundred grand after they were already million.
So it did not cause them to become millionaires.

So let me help you with this.

79 plus 5% plus 5% is 89.

90% – 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires are not millionaires

because of inherited money. So don't let some left-wing communist professor tell you that in college don't do it i mean i'm just sitting over here thinking even if it was inherited even if somebody did inherit money who cares it's not bad but yeah but don't tell people that's the only way because if you don't have a rich uncle that tells you you don't have a chance that's true i mean but people like me people like you we don't have a chance yeah i never even knew the idea of inheriting money and i never thought of it never occurred to me that was going to happen now it's not to say if you inherited money you did something wrong i mean our last caller got 400 000 it was part of his equation and it didn't cause him to be a bad guy he wasn't a bad guy there's nothing wrong with inheriting money but there is something wrong with telling people that's where wealth comes from as the primary yeah methodology and it's not it is a methodology it's like telling people people get wealthy playing the lottery no they don't well then there's a part of it that if you if you paint that as a negativity in your brain then it's never something

for you to aspire to to say i'd like to leave an inheritance right because now you've told yourself this is an evil horrible thing and so therefore you'll never do it either yeah i'm i'm i'm 100 sure it's the opposite that it is a godly thing because the bible says a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

Yeah. So those eight Ramsey grandbabies, it's going to turn out well for them.
Thank goodness. That's great.
Assuming they have the character to manage it. Now, if you're doing heroin, you don't get any money in the Ramsey estate plan.
That's not how it works. But, you know, you've got to be an upstanding citizen and all that.
But the deal is, because we're not raising trust fund babies snorting cocaine on the back of a yacht doing a reality show. I don't have any need to produce those.
Other people can produce those. I don't want to do that.
But that's not the norm. No.
The norm is good people work their butts off, and they don't ruin their children. That Richard guy, his dad left him $400,000 in two blocks, and it didn't ruin him.

As a matter of fact, it didn't even hardly change anything.

He already had learned to live on nothing.

Two broke kids being successful.

He was talking about that.

And he did a great job, and the money just accentuated his life is all it did.

That's right.

Made him more of who he already was.

Yeah.

So don't let people tell you that wealth is evil or that wealthy people are evil or that it's the

wrong thing to aspire to be successful this war on success in our culture has got to stop we need

to teach people to go win and how to go win that's what this show's about the book is baby steps

millionaires check it out that puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll see you next time.
Hey, you're still here? What are you doing? You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right?

All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store,

or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free.

Yep, you heard me right, for free.

Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the rest of today's show.

Bada bing, bada boom.

All right, I'm getting out of here.

Enjoy. We'll see you on the app.