The Borrower Is Slave to the Lender 100% of the Time

Speaker 1 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

Speaker 1 build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman.
Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 He's the number one best-selling author and host of the Ken Coleman Show as well. Shauna is with us.
Shauna is in Chicago. Hi, Shauna.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 2 Thank you. I appreciate you and your staff and what work you did to get to give me some direction.
I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 We'll try.

Speaker 1 How can we help?

Speaker 2 Well, I need some help finding a job. I'm 72, married, no access to any finances.
That was taken away from me four and a half years ago.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 I don't know. I used to handle,

Speaker 2 he has a business out of the home. I worked for him for 27 years, no pay, no.

Speaker 2 putting into my social security so

Speaker 2 I was

Speaker 2 anyway so all of a sudden, I don't know, change of life, what the heck happened, but he took my name off everything,

Speaker 5 deleted our

Speaker 2 life insurance policies. So I have no idea what we have.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 1 Why are you going along with that?

Speaker 2 What are my options?

Speaker 2 I'm off all the time.

Speaker 1 That sounds abusive to me, does it not to you?

Speaker 4 Well, for sure.

Speaker 2 From what I find out, it's financial abuse,

Speaker 2 which is illegal. And I have a call in today, it kind of escalated, and I have a call into legal aid because I obviously I have no money for an attorney.
But

Speaker 2 yeah, it's

Speaker 2 I know he is up to his eyeballs and he did this two other times, took the responsibility away from me and made such a mess that I cleaned it up for him two times. Well,

Speaker 4 yeah,

Speaker 2 he lives downstairs and I live up here. And

Speaker 1 married.

Speaker 6 52 years.

Speaker 2 So I

Speaker 2 anyway,

Speaker 2 I'm looking for some side hustle, something I can do from home. I have a lot of health issues, which creates a lot of medical bills, which

Speaker 2 you know, I'm having trouble keeping up with. I owe my daughter $2,300.

Speaker 7 She's,

Speaker 2 I don't even get money for groceries. i think the last time i went to the grocery store was a month ago she gives me food that she feeds her family and

Speaker 1 anyway it's it's

Speaker 1 you don't need a side hustle you need to see a lawyer today that's right well that's i know and a lawyer will take a lawyer will take your case on the idea that they're going to get money that the two of you have community property i don't care if his name's on it your name's on it it's illinois and half of what is owned in a 52-year marriage is yours whether it has a name on it or not And an attorney can explain that to this.

Speaker 1 Your husband's out of control, honey. This is weird.

Speaker 2 I know. And the problem is, is that

Speaker 2 if I go, why I haven't gone to a lawyer is I'm afraid we're going to lose our house. He has not paid income taxes in three years.

Speaker 1 Do you think not dealing with this is going to keep that from happening? No.

Speaker 1 Of course it's going to happen anyway. And the only difference is you're not going to see it coming.

Speaker 2 I'm going to lose my house. I'm going to lose.

Speaker 1 You already have, probably.

Speaker 1 But we don't know. I mean, we don't know.
You don't know. All you're worrying about is the troll that lives in the basement.

Speaker 1 I know. And you're scared of him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm afraid that he's going to, I'm going to lose my house.

Speaker 1 Maybe you missed the point.

Speaker 1 You could be 10 payments behind right now. and not know it, and you're knowing it doesn't keep you from losing it.

Speaker 2 The house is paid off.

Speaker 2 I took care of that back when it was.

Speaker 1 It was.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was paid off. Yeah, we don't know if it is now.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Well, I guess you're right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you need to find out what the flip's going on. Not knowing is not a strategy.

Speaker 2 I do a little snooping in his

Speaker 1 worst out of the home. Get a lawyer and hit him between the eyes.
That's right. You're being abused.

Speaker 1 Quit dancing with this. Go smack it.

Speaker 2 I still need to find a job.

Speaker 9 Okay, so let me ask you this. What did you do to clean it up before? You said you cleaned it up.
That implies to me that you might have been working.

Speaker 1 Is that correct? You had some income.

Speaker 9 Never? I worked.

Speaker 2 Yes. I worked for a non-profit, and all of my check went into the business account.
I know I've been terribly...

Speaker 9 Okay, so what did you do for the non-profit?

Speaker 2 I was an admin.

Speaker 9 What I would be looking for today. Okay, but Dave's right.
Don't miss what we're saying. Your first agenda item is a lawyer.

Speaker 9 And if it's only legal aid, you get a bulldog who wants to make a name for themselves and get some media on this story. Because this guy is an absolute psycho from a lifetime movie.

Speaker 9 That's what I think your husband is. I'm not going to mince words on that.
So you need to play that up. But listen to me.

Speaker 9 What you need to do today is you need to be looking at there are national organizations out there that have,

Speaker 9 they are remote administrative positions. Okay.
So it is a executive assistant and it is remote. And if you've done it before, you can do it again.

Speaker 9 Customer service where you're on the phone, large companies, they're looking for people who are willing to get on the phone all day long and answer questions. They give you a script.

Speaker 9 These are things that you can do and you can do it full-time, 40 hours a week. But I would use that experience and try to become an executive assistant that is again remote.

Speaker 9 You don't have to leave the house. These are things you can do now to try to bring some money in.
But my goodness, Dave, this is

Speaker 1 what I'm afraid of is you're looking for a job to make a little money so that you don't have to deal with this. That's a very good point.
But guess what? You got to deal with this.

Speaker 1 And the sooner you decide you're not going to, you've been avoiding it for 52 years.

Speaker 1 You've been walking down this thing. And, you know, for four years,

Speaker 1 you've been living in a completely abusive situation and you've been avoiding dealing with it. My daughter gets me some groceries so I don't have to deal with it.
I'll get a job.

Speaker 1 I can get a little money so I can survive upstairs and the troll in the basement can do what he wants and I don't have to deal with it. But guess what?

Speaker 1 You're still going to have to deal with it. This stuff has a high rate of resurrection, as our friend Les says.
When you keep these things buried, they just pop back up like a dadgum zombie.

Speaker 1 And you have got to deal with this stuff. And so the sooner you come to the conclusion of, I I know I'm scared and I'm afraid of what I'm going to find out,

Speaker 1 the unknown, the devil that I know is sometimes much better than the unknown, but the unknown right now seems to be friendly to you.

Speaker 1 You prefer not to know how bad this situation is. You prefer not to go through the heavy amount of conflict that is probably in your near future.
But you really don't have a choice.

Speaker 1 You're living like a homeless person

Speaker 1 with no money to buy food

Speaker 1 after 52 years of marriage. Now, honey, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 So, you're going to have to get an attorney and you have to deal with this starting right now. And I can't believe your daughter is standing on the sidelines watching this circus

Speaker 1 and hasn't reached and grabbed her dad by the hair and said, You straighten up, you common, and feed my mother. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 First time I got to buy groceries for somebody that's supposed to be taken care of by somebody else, that's what I'm going to grab that somebody else. Hello.

Speaker 1 Hey, Ken.

Speaker 1 Psycho Lifetime movie? Yeah, you know, like. Lifetime movies have psychos? Yeah.
And I think those, I thought that was Hallmark. No, no, lifetime movie.

Speaker 9 Hallmark is all G-rated.

Speaker 1 Life Time. I know, but I mean.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget.

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Vincent's in New York City. Hi, Vincent.
How are you?

Speaker 10 I'm good, Dave. How are you?

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

Speaker 11 So I just graduated, undergraduate in accounting and finance in May, and I have a job lined up full-time for October, and I'm now studying for the CPA, and I'm just kind of second-guessing the whole field, honestly.

Speaker 9 What's causing you to second-guess it?

Speaker 11 I did an internship last summer for a big four accounting firm in the city.

Speaker 11 And although it was great, I made a lot of connections and learned a bunch about audit, which is the particular field I'm in.

Speaker 10 I don't know if the corporate culture is for me.

Speaker 11 I mean, I usually love working with my hands, working outside. And I was looking into getting a degree in engineering management, just one year online.

Speaker 6 I have no

Speaker 7 student debt.

Speaker 6 So I was wondering if that's maybe a good idea, if I like that better.

Speaker 9 Maybe, but before we determine that, I would take this job that's been offered to you because you're trained for it. You know you can actually do it.

Speaker 9 And I would go ahead and let's start putting some money in the bank and stay debt-free and then cash flow if, if, if, if you spend some time, and I'm going to give you a concept called the proximity principle.

Speaker 9 It says, in order to do what I want to do, let's say it's engineering in your case, I got to be around engineers. I got to be in places where engineers are.

Speaker 9 You know, that could be online groups. That could be local groups.
I got to be around engineers. And the whole purpose is I want to verify that this is actually something that I will enjoy doing.

Speaker 9 And the way to do that is coffees, lunches, if they'll let you shadow them for half a day. That's how you assume everything that you can possibly assume about it.

Speaker 9 And I call that clarifying and verifying. And that's just going to allow you to go, okay, I get excited.

Speaker 9 I get the juice when I watch this kind of work or I hear about it. I hear the good, I hear the bad, and I hear the ugly.

Speaker 9 And after that point, if your head and heart are aligned, that means your logic and the emotion for the actual work, then the answer is, if you have to go to school for one year to get a ticket to the dance, then the answer is yes.

Speaker 9 But while I'm determining this, if it were me, I would take the opportunity right in front of me because I know I can do it.

Speaker 9 And if it takes me a year, year and a half or so to make that transition, if in fact that's the right transition, that's the way I would play it if I were in your shoes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's very unlikely you spend four years sit for your CPA to do accounting that you absolutely detest accounting. Now, maybe you detest corporate America.
Well, that doesn't mean you have to do

Speaker 1 that. That's a different issue.
Where you do accounting doesn't matter. You can do accounting a lot of different places or where you use the skills from an accounting degree in a CPA.

Speaker 1 Not unusual for a CFO to graduate into into the CEO role in a company,

Speaker 1 a mid-sized company or a small company. Not unusual at all for that to happen because they know how to run the financial side of the business.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, numbers people do well inside a business.

Speaker 1 And so it's not required that you sit in the basement

Speaker 1 with books stacked around you and no one knows you're there, like Milton and his stapler to do audits.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's just not required.

Speaker 1 That's not the only picture that your degree sets you up for.

Speaker 1 So I would do something, like Ken's saying, and really lean into it and say, all right, here's the parts of accounting I hate after really doing it with great gusto for a year.

Speaker 1 And here's the parts of accounting I really like

Speaker 1 because something led you here, sir.

Speaker 1 You didn't wander along doing something for the last four years that you detest.

Speaker 1 And then suddenly when you're sitting for your CPA and you actually have to go to work now,

Speaker 1 all of a sudden you wake up and go, I've been working on things I hate the whole time. No, you haven't.
That's not true. You looked over and didn't like the place you're about to land.

Speaker 1 That's what's going on. And so, dude, lean into it.
Go bust something. Knock something over.

Speaker 1 Be a force of nature in the marketplace.

Speaker 1 Have some enthusiasm for what we're doing here. And if the place you're working at sucks, go get another place.

Speaker 1 This is not slavery. You're allowed to move around.
Yeah. And it's not a permanent.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 And the only thing I'd add to that, Dave, you're absolutely right is he's got to absolutely, you can't let a feeling like a negative experience or a negative environment over an internship totally knock you off the path.

Speaker 9 Exactly. That's the issue.
Check it out. Make sure this wasn't a, this wasn't a series of emotions that made you question the wrong things.

Speaker 1 Well, and so what am I going to do? I'm going to go get another dad gum degree. Oh, geez, you're killing me.

Speaker 9 I know. That's just the worst thing to do.

Speaker 1 I'm going to

Speaker 1 hide from facing down these demons and figuring out what I'm going to do by running from degree to degree to degree and end up with more degrees than a thermometer, never done anything. Right.

Speaker 1 So, no, I don't want to do that. I want you to go to work.

Speaker 1 Get out here in the marketplace, knock some stuff down, get knocked down, find out what's fun, find out what you hate, and then let that inform your next career shift and by the way you may not have to touch another classroom to go from cpa that's right into simply managing engineers that's right one other quick call out here on this and we don't know if this is what vinson did but a lot of people dave could wind up in vinson's place because they were always good at numbers And because they were always good at numbers, they kind of go, well, that's the direction I go.

Speaker 9 And then all of a sudden, he goes that direction. This could have happened.
And then he realizes when I actually get in there and see it, I realize I don't want to be number crunching.

Speaker 9 But see, that's a mistake that can be made as well. You've got to combine the talent with the work that's enjoyable.
And so that same numbers brain could very well do well in engineering because

Speaker 9 it's the analytic side of the numbers that he enjoyed more than the actual.

Speaker 1 Let me make the distinction between this, okay?

Speaker 1 For people out there listening, Vincent aside, okay,

Speaker 1 there's,

Speaker 1 I don't know what bucket. I don't know how to, what, what verbiage to put with this.
You probably have the vernacular for this. Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there are people that are really good with numbers and love to crunch the actual detail down in the weeds.

Speaker 1 I, on the other hand, I am fabulous at math. Yeah.
Very natural skill for me. And I detest

Speaker 1 going into the details. That's correct.

Speaker 1 So I'm designed to do what I do right here on this microphone.

Speaker 1 But if you had put me in the basement with my Stapler and Milton beside me, I mean, I would have gone postal, right?

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 let me give you that.

Speaker 1 You're not going to say that anymore, are you? I think you can.

Speaker 1 That's okay.

Speaker 9 It's one of the great scenes from a great movie. Okay.

Speaker 1 So not Milton, the postal thing.

Speaker 9 Oh, the postal. Oh, yeah.
I guess you can't say that. See, I'm so unaware of all those things.

Speaker 1 I'm the worst guy to ask about what's offensive. I don't care.

Speaker 1 Move on. Move on.

Speaker 9 All right. So here's the difference.
You're good with math,

Speaker 9 but if you were to take the the talent of math

Speaker 9 and then take a work like analysis, you'd go crazy. But what you did is you took the talent of math and you married it with the talent of instruction.
You are a teacher.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 See how you work that? Is there not some people that use a certain skill

Speaker 1 from a... a strategic viewpoint and some from a tactical viewpoint.
Yeah. That's the bucket I'm looking at.

Speaker 1 I'm above it, looking down on it, not in a snobbish way, but I mean, if I have to get down in it, it's messy. Right.
But I can do the big math real fast here, and

Speaker 1 I can look for patterns in this place. I can go over our accounting reports in 15 minutes here and know exactly what's going on at Ramsey.
I can see the numbers. They talk to me.
That's right.

Speaker 1 They talk to me. But if I had to create those numbers.

Speaker 9 That's what I'm saying. You're not a process guy.
You're an instruction guy. You're a people.

Speaker 1 But I think people out there,

Speaker 1 what can happen is somebody that's good at math thinks the only way to utilize that skill is the tactical details.

Speaker 9 That's it. You can't just take proficiency and say, The only thing I can do is that you can't do that.

Speaker 1 You can be really good at the English language and not need to be writing content every day. Exactly right.

Speaker 9 Well, the methodology is this: I use what I do best to do what I enjoy.

Speaker 9 And you took your talent of numbers and you combine it with what you enjoy, and that is teaching, instructing, and communicating.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I think that I think sometimes people get real tactical with their gifts.

Speaker 9 Oh, yeah, just I can only do this.

Speaker 1 Yep, this is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host Taylor's in Kansas City. Hi Taylor, how are you?

Speaker 11 Hey, good, Dave. How are you?

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

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 12 man, I've been

Speaker 12 able to teach a class back in the day at church and have really been trying to get ourselves in a better spot as a family.

Speaker 6 I work as a teacher and

Speaker 6 here recently, after basically having a second mortgage, paying off student loans,

Speaker 6 we sold everything.

Speaker 12 We moved to a rental, sold our home, paid off everything.

Speaker 12 And here we find ourselves debt-free, loving the extra income, have a chunk sitting in savings, and really just kind of like, okay, now what?

Speaker 12 Looking to kind of get some guidance on what to do with the chunk of money that we have sitting there and setting some stuff up for our kids for college and what we should do next.

Speaker 1 You're renting?

Speaker 7 Yes, we moved to a rental here back in June.

Speaker 1 And how much is the chunk sitting there and you're debt-free?

Speaker 12 A little over $50,000.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. And how old are your kiddos heading to college?

Speaker 7 Not quite yet.

Speaker 12 I've got a 16-year-old that's in high school, and he's a junior this year, and then I've got a 12-year-old.

Speaker 1 And your household income is what?

Speaker 12 About $8,700 a month is our take-home.

Speaker 1 Good. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, I mean,

Speaker 1 do you have the emergency fund of three to six months of expenses in addition to the 50 grand, or is that in the 50 grand?

Speaker 12 No, we do not. We have like 52 grand sitting there, just kind of one big pot at the moment.

Speaker 1 And we took this off. So your household expenses are what? Monthly?

Speaker 12 Right around $4,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. So you need $12,000 or $15,000 sitting for an emergency fund.
Carve that out of the $52,000 and put it in a separate account.

Speaker 1 Okay. Now you're at baby step 4, 5, and 6.
You should be putting 15% of your income away for retirement. You should be thinking about kids' college.
Now, that leaves us with the

Speaker 1 $35,000, $37,000 that's left in that account.

Speaker 1 There's two things it needs to go towards. One is we need to sit down and do some detailed planning on where the 16-year-old is going to go to school,

Speaker 1 like in-state tuition

Speaker 1 or community college.

Speaker 1 And so what money of that do we need to set aside? We don't need to set it all aside. And what money of that are we going to cash flow? And what money is he going to get on scholarships?

Speaker 1 And what money

Speaker 1 is he going to earn while he works while he's in school? Those are three, you know. So where you go to school gives us the price tag.

Speaker 1 Then how much in scholarships and work is he going to help with? What are you going to maybe give him a jumpstart year one or something like that?

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, of course, school selection is

Speaker 1 the biggest thing you decide financially on college is where they go because it'll range from $10,000 to $80,000 a year. Yeah.
Okay. So obviously this kid's not going to $80,000.
You don't have it.

Speaker 1 Right. Okay.
So that's, so we're going to, we need a strategy for his. So here's kind of what I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking you're probably going to earmark about 17 of that 37 towards the 16-year-old to get him going, and you're going to pick some schools you can cash flow, he can help pay for, and he can get scholarships for.

Speaker 1 And we lay out a strategy now that that 17 will help you accomplish. And then I'm going to use the other 20 towards to rebuild a down payment fund to purchase another home.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 That make any sense?

Speaker 12 Yeah, that makes sense. I think the other part with that was just kind of, okay, with that excess now that's each month, with

Speaker 12 what to do with that, where we look to put that in the middle of the corner.

Speaker 1 Pilot in the build-up college.

Speaker 1 If the 17, once you lay the formula out, the detail formula, starting with we're going to go to an inexpensive school, what's it actually cost? Let's look at the school.

Speaker 1 What's the actual numbers? Let's don't dream up and have vague theoretical concepts. Lay down the numbers.
This is what it costs to go to Kansas State. And this is what it costs to go to be a Jayhawk.

Speaker 1 And this is what it costs, you know, whatever it is, right? We're going to lay it out here. And here's the community college.
And now we're going to choose.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's, all right, if we put 17 towards that, you're going to go get scholarships for this much, and you're going to work, and we're going to provide a little bit out of our cash flow when you get there two years from now to help you get through debt-free, okay?

Speaker 1 So once we've got that laid out, if the 17 works as an example, it's an example.

Speaker 1 Now I've got, so I took the 52 and I've carved it into three buckets: 17 for the kid, 15 for the emergency front that leaves me 20 in the in the down payment fund and all excess that I can find in the monthly budget is going to go to build that up

Speaker 1 because you need to get back in the house

Speaker 1 sure long term I mean we're not panicking but we need to have so the point being is that we've got a series of goals here all of them are good goals and we just need to force rank them and work our way through them and that's all I was doing with you

Speaker 1 yeah that makes sense yeah really good good job. It feels pretty good sitting where you're sitting, doesn't it?

Speaker 13 Yeah, it's a wild thing, you know, and looking at only six, seven years away from potential retirement as a teacher.

Speaker 12 You know, I like what that PSRS system looks like, but I wanted to set ourselves up to not have our kids be 45 and paying off student loans, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we don't need that. We don't need that.
We're done with that. You're breaking the cycle.
And so for sure. Yeah.
For sure. Way to go.
Good job. Yeah.
I love that move.

Speaker 9 I love that. You know, because now they've got a blank canvas.
And if they follow the baby steps, now we're talking about baby steps millionaires pretty soon.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Bob's in Dallas.
Hey, Bob. How are you?

Speaker 1 Bob.

Speaker 1 Thanks for taking the call. Sure.
How can we help? Hey, Dave, can you hear me? Yes, sir. What's up?

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 quick quote.

Speaker 5 And my fiancé and I have separate IRAs.

Speaker 14 And once we get married.

Speaker 1 Your phone's cutting out. You said your fiancée and you have separate IRAs.
And once you get married, what?

Speaker 5 Should we combine those IRAs into one IRA account?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Or should we leave them separate? You can't.
If not.

Speaker 1 IRA stands for individual retirement account. Okay.
There are no married accounts. But you do have beneficiaries on all of them.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So all 401ks and all IRAs should have a beneficiary name, meaning when you die, who's it go to? And you need to change those to your wife's name, and she needs to change those to her husband's name.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't believe the number of times, dude, It probably doesn't apply to you, but the number of times we find out four years later somebody dies after a divorce and forgot to change the beneficiary and the ex gets the 401k money.

Speaker 1 Boy, people get pissed off when that happens.

Speaker 1 You don't

Speaker 1 forgot to change the beneficiary on the life insurance or on the after the divorce or on the 401k.

Speaker 9 I have bad dreams about that stuff. Like every year we do our annual meeting with our actual smart vestor here locally.

Speaker 1 And I'm always like that have I forgotten.

Speaker 9 Have you checked everything to make sure I've done it right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Debbie is in Detroit. Hi, Debbie.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 8 Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 Sure. How can I help?

Speaker 8 So I'm out of debt other than our mortgage, and we're on steps four, five, and six. And my job just last week offered all of the employees a buyout.

Speaker 1 Yay!

Speaker 1 Yay! Yay!

Speaker 8 A five-month salary and six-month

Speaker 8 payout of COBRA, complete payout of our paid time off, a bonus.

Speaker 1 And I'm just trying to figure out if I should take this or not, or if I should stay with the company.

Speaker 9 Yeah, what would you do if you didn't take it? What's the alternative?

Speaker 8 Well, that's the problem. If I stay with the company, I'm in a department of two people.
And for sure, the other woman that I work with in that department is taking this package.

Speaker 1 Exactly. So

Speaker 8 they would probably expect me to take on the work of two full-time employees.

Speaker 1 And And how do you feel about that future?

Speaker 2 I don't feel good about that future.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what do you make?

Speaker 8 Well, with overtime, I make about $120

Speaker 1 a year.

Speaker 8 I'm in purchasing.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So what if you went and got another job in purchasing like in 20 minutes?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 this huge amount of money becomes just a signing bonus.

Speaker 8 Exactly. That was my plan because there is an opportunity for me to stay with the company until April 2025.

Speaker 8 So my plan was to find a job that starts in April 2025 as soon as I walk out the door of this company and just pocketing this payment.

Speaker 1 Every bit of that buyout and payoff. Yeah, that's your plan.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Speaker 1 I like it. That's fun.

Speaker 1 This is the Ramsey Show.

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Speaker 9 Today's question comes from Aiden in Virginia. I had a work accident that put me out of work for a few weeks.
When I returned to work on light duty, I was assigned to a different department.

Speaker 9 I enjoy it and have been asked to stay in this position, which will come with a hefty pay increase.

Speaker 9 The only downside is that if I choose to stay in this position, a work friend of mine will probably be fired.

Speaker 9 He's the person who encouraged me to grow in my relationship with God and to do the baby steps to tackle my finance issues.

Speaker 9 How do I save my friendship with my coworker if they fire him and give me his position? I'm scared that he will think I've been faking the friendship and just trying to take his job.

Speaker 9 I don't want to lose this opportunity at work, but also don't want to be the cause of my friend losing his job.

Speaker 9 Well, Aiden, I'm a little confused with the way the question is worded because they've put you in a position and they want you to stay in this position.

Speaker 9 And I don't see the connection to where that position was his position because he's still there. So, if you know something we don't know and you've got a hunch here,

Speaker 9 if your hunch is right,

Speaker 9 this is a pretty sticky situation. It's a pretty tough situation.

Speaker 9 And I don't have a quick answer to that. Although, what I would do is they've asked you to stay in this position.

Speaker 9 So, that implies they like you, and you've got a little bit of leverage to say, hey, here's a question.

Speaker 9 If I take this, I've heard this, or I'm feeling this, is this true? Because you've got some hunch, or somebody's told you something.

Speaker 9 And I would go to the leader in a private meeting and I would ask the leader if this is in fact true. I would not assume anything.

Speaker 1 Exactly. I think you've added drama to this.
Yeah, I don't know if it's true.

Speaker 1 The way you've worded this, it doesn't sound like it's a lock.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 here's the thing: business ethics are fairly easy.

Speaker 1 Treat other people

Speaker 1 like you want to be treated.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you switch shoes.

Speaker 1 How would you want your friend to treat you if it was you?

Speaker 1 I can tell you what I'd want him to do. I'd want them to come clean, tell the whole bunch.

Speaker 1 If I'm you, I'd walk in the boss's office and I'd say, boss,

Speaker 1 thank you for this position.

Speaker 1 I am so grateful. I'm so excited.
But I got to tell you, if it means that my friend gets fired,

Speaker 1 I can't do it to him.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to be the cause of my friend losing his job. As much as I want this, I would love to have this job.

Speaker 1 But I will not. I cannot do that.
It's wrong for me to cause my friend to get his head chopped off. No.

Speaker 1 That's the answer. I agree.

Speaker 1 And if you lose the job, you lose the job. But you can't, you got to sleep with Aiden.
You got to look in the mirror. You got to put your head on the pillow at night and go, whew, I feel pretty good.

Speaker 1 That sucked. I lost that position, but I did the right thing.
And I got to tell you, man, you can sleep when you do the right thing.

Speaker 1 Even if the right thing hurts, even if the right thing leaves a mark, you can sleep.

Speaker 1 And you don't get to your deathbed, you know, many years from now with this stuff swimming around in your head, wishing you hadn't done this crap. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 9 But let's get to the bottom and let's make sure this is in fact the case. It doesn't feel like that the way it's been set up here.
So we'll see.

Speaker 1 You just put all this stuff on the table. It makes everybody that's trying to do stuff behind the curtain pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Speaker 1 You rip the curtain open, shine a spotlight on the whole thing, and just say it all out loud.

Speaker 1 As Deloney says, turn all the lights on.

Speaker 9 And by the way, that advice, when he says it that way, he's taking the high road. And in that situation, he can read the body language, read the tone, read the stumbling,

Speaker 9 the stammering, if in fact that happens. And now he has a really good idea and he doesn't hurt his brand within the building.
It's a win-win-win all the way around to handle it that way.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. And

Speaker 1 if they're willing to lie and go behind your friend's back

Speaker 1 and slit his throat, you're next, buddy. That's true.
What makes you think you're different? So this ain't the sweetest job in the world all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 It's a toxic environment and you want to get out of there anyway. So this, this, this, you know, the process of flipping on all the lights reveals everything here.
All right, boys and girls.

Speaker 1 It's like, Ken, one of my favorite things, not sarcasm,

Speaker 1 is someone comes in my office and says, you know, I need to tell you something about such and such, but

Speaker 1 you can't use my name. And I'm like, well, you can't tell me.
Right.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 you're what's known as a gutless wonder. Right.
You know, and no, you can't tell me. I don't, if you can't stand behind

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 problem, yeah then you're just a gossip and I'm not gonna I'm not as a leader I'm not gonna act on anonymous sources

Speaker 1 you can kiss my anonymous source not a chance we're doing that no way that's just scutless man yeah I agree I agree crazy Zach is on the line Zach is in Calgary hey Zach what's up

Speaker 1 hey can you hear me all right absolutely how can we help perfect um yeah so I've been looking for um an outside opinion on my situation here.

Speaker 14 And I know you guys are going to give me a straight answer.

Speaker 1 You can count on that, brother.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So we are a little tight on mortgage, me and my wife.

Speaker 10 We knew that.

Speaker 1 What's that mean?

Speaker 10 Eating up.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 10 it's probably

Speaker 10 north of 40% of our take-home.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the monthly pay.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 14 So So we're just trying to get some advice in what we should do.

Speaker 1 What is the probability that your income is going to increase dramatically quickly?

Speaker 14 Unless I take side jobs consistently and work

Speaker 17 12 hours plus a day,

Speaker 7 not likely.

Speaker 1 You want to do all that just to keep a house? I don't.

Speaker 14 No, not really.

Speaker 1 You sell the house. You bought a house you can't afford.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 If your income's not gonna go up fairly quick not i mean you know in the next year two years or something like that to where this where the house payment ends up being 25 maybe 30 percent of your take-home rather than 40 percent you you're you you're you know you're in an unsustainable mathematical situation you don't have any wiggle room in your dadgum budget you are what we call house poor

Speaker 1 the house owns you you don't own the house oh i feel it yeah

Speaker 14 um our other our other idea was there was a job offer about two weeks ago that's in a smaller town that pays less, but we could buy a house cash

Speaker 17 or have a very small mortgage and maybe $100K.

Speaker 9 What would keep you from doing that?

Speaker 3 It's a small, small town.

Speaker 1 You don't want to live there. Okay, that's good.
It's a good answer.

Speaker 1 Nothing wrong with any of this. And so here's another option.
Get a better job. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And stay where you are.

Speaker 17 Well, that's the thing.

Speaker 11 I'm a plumber and I got one of the better paying jobs in Calgary so what's your wife do uh

Speaker 1 she would stay-at-home mom okay homeschooling her kiddos okay

Speaker 1 all right yeah you guys just you you you got um house fever which causes the brain to stop working and causes us to purchase something we can't afford and then the fever went away and the bill is still there and you woke up and realized you'd made a mistake and so i'm sorry you've you either have to get your income up or you have to get rid of this house These are your two options.

Speaker 1 There's nothing else that's going to work here, man. What you're sitting in, and you've discovered this, you knew it before you called us.
It's unsustainable. You cannot win.

Speaker 1 Everything you do after you pay this house payment is hard because the house payment is just eating your lunch. No pun intended.
So, I mean, it's just, it's hard. I've done it too, Zach.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've done that kind of thing. And you go, oh, crap.
I'm so, what did I do?

Speaker 1 You know, you get, oh, man it's hard but the good news is you can sell it and you know it's not uh it's not a tattoo it's not gonna be there forever so you can get rid of it that's a plan get rid of it sell the house sorry

Speaker 1 that puts us out of the ramsey show in the books

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

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of the Ken Coleman Show, number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. We're here to help you.

Speaker 1 The phone number is 888-825-5225. Kristen is with us in Fort Worth, Texas.
Hi, Kristen. What's up?

Speaker 15 Hi, Dave. I am so honored to be on the show.
I'm a little bit nervous

Speaker 15 trying to gather my thoughts to make sure that I've

Speaker 15 asked all the questions I want to ask. But I would first of all like to say that I'm thankful to my husband for finding your show almost five years ago.

Speaker 15 We were able to put down, save $50,000 to put down on the house. So I appreciate all the hard work that you pour into

Speaker 15 others to be able to change their family trees. So I I want to start out by saying that.

Speaker 1 Good job.

Speaker 15 And I guess I have more of a moral support question. I know the last year my husband's been able to, you know, I was following along with his plan.

Speaker 15 And for the last year, I'd say I intentionally try to follow your plan and listen to y'all's show on my way home from work.

Speaker 15 And a lot of people call on for moral support.

Speaker 15 So my husband recently lost his twin brother

Speaker 4 yesterday to he took his life and

Speaker 1 his twin brother committed suicide yesterday?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 1 I'm so sorry.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 15 And I think for me

Speaker 15 We have five children and

Speaker 15 I just want to know how I can support him the best and like any wisdom that you all may be able to bring to the table

Speaker 15 would be very helpful and just how I can support my husband through this time while also mourning and not getting so down that I can't support my household and support my husband.

Speaker 15 And then I'm just afraid of losing my husband through this pain. So I don't know like the right steps to take.
Do I just let him mourn for a while and then mention maybe him getting counseling?

Speaker 6 Or I just never been through this.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, I haven't either.

Speaker 1 I wish Dr. John Deloney was sitting here beside me.

Speaker 1 Not that Ken Coleman is

Speaker 1 chopped meat or something, but neither one of us are

Speaker 1 professionally trained in

Speaker 1 what you're facing, obviously. Okay.
And he is. That's why I mean that.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 just working in

Speaker 1 pastoral care around

Speaker 1 families that had all kinds of things have happened over the years.

Speaker 1 A couple of things that come to mind are

Speaker 1 the good news is

Speaker 1 that ladies have a tendency to understand this quicker than men.

Speaker 1 We have to train men in these situations because guys like to go in and fix everything. We want to go in and make it all better.
And you can't here.

Speaker 1 And so what we called it and still do call it,

Speaker 1 when you've got a friend that's hurting, in your case, your husband is hurting,

Speaker 1 we call it the ministry of presence.

Speaker 1 Just going and sitting, being present.

Speaker 1 You don't have to say anything.

Speaker 1 You don't have to do anything. You don't have to come up with some

Speaker 1 pithy saying. People say some of the dumbest things at funerals.

Speaker 1 Well, he's in a better place. Well, yeah, he is, but I still miss him.
You know, well, I can't understand. Well, nobody understands.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can't, there's not a thing you can say that makes this pain go away. So don't say anything.
That's the point. Or don't say much.

Speaker 1 Don't try to come up with a Bible verse that answers his pain. It doesn't.
You just have to walk through it with him. So just holding his hands, making some comfort food.

Speaker 1 You know, if he wants to talk, let him talk. If he wants to cry, let him cry.
And just being present.

Speaker 1 And grief is a process. You go through it.
It comes in waves generally.

Speaker 1 And you do go through it, though. You don't stay in it.

Speaker 1 This is particularly hard because...

Speaker 1 This is particularly hard because suicide is particularly hard to grieve.

Speaker 1 The loss of a twin, because there's a special connection. There's a special connection.

Speaker 15 I have twin sons that are eight.

Speaker 1 So I feel like it's almost hard to, you know, look at them

Speaker 1 under the circumstances.

Speaker 1 Well, you can look at them and say it's a beautiful thing. Twins are, they have a special connection.
My wife's a twin. She and her sister,

Speaker 1 they sometimes know what the other one's thinking and they're three hours apart. You know, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's strange and it's weird and it's wonderful, but it's sad. It makes us super sad.
So

Speaker 1 your kids are going to be okay. You're going to be okay.
And your husband's going to be okay. But it's going to take some time.
And just be kind and present and loving and, you know, listening.

Speaker 1 Don't try to fix it. If it goes on for weeks on end and he becomes depressed and doesn't go through the

Speaker 1 grief process, It doesn't begin to gradually, there's some sunshine coming out of the dark clouds, then yeah, you're going to recommend you see somebody.

Speaker 1 But not 24 hours after his brother brother committed suicide. He does not need therapy 24 hours after he committed suicide.

Speaker 9 I would jump in really quick though. Kristen, if I were you in your shoes as the spouse and the fears that you've shared with us, I would call our friends at BetterHelp.

Speaker 9 This is a wonderful service. These are licensed therapists.
And having someone who is a real pro give you some steps that you can take and advise you and counsel you. I agree with Dave.

Speaker 9 Your husband doesn't need it, but this wouldn't be a bad idea for you to get some sessions in there and have someone guide you through the best way to be present, as Dave said.

Speaker 9 There are some ways that you can do that. And you also need to confront your fear.

Speaker 9 Because your husband's twin brother committed suicide doesn't necessarily mean that you should be projecting that fear. And I would talk to a professional about that.

Speaker 9 I think that'd be a wonderful step for you to give you some tools to be present.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's so sad.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Tragic. The other thing the Ramsey family would do, we'd be on the phone with our pastor.
Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Speaker 1 And we would want

Speaker 1 the closest, mature,

Speaker 1 wise, calm

Speaker 1 pastoral pastor team and friends from our church community

Speaker 1 in our living room. And

Speaker 1 we're in the south, so you have to bring a casserole to everything. It's like a rule.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 everybody brings food.

Speaker 1 You're supposed to gain weight during this time. It's like, but we do.

Speaker 1 It's part of the process. It's old school.
But there's community. Community.

Speaker 1 What is it? Deloney says, he always quotes the author, grief demands a witness.

Speaker 1 And so having... sitting in a room by yourself is not a good way, a healthy way to grieve.

Speaker 1 You know, I just want to be by myself. Yeah, that's okay for a little while, but having people around you just not to fix you, but just sitting there with you.

Speaker 1 Community is a big deal. This is the Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 The Ramsey Cash giveaway is here. Yeah, we're giving you away cash.
About $10,000.

Speaker 1 You know, the average student loan payment is $500, so that's around 20 extra payments. For a lot of people who pay off their loan, right? Hey, Hey, we actually have student loan forgiveness at works.

Speaker 1 Oh, for one person.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're going to give away $10,000.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's pretty neat. So go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway now through August 31st.
You can shop our $12 sale and you can enter the giveaway. No purchase necessary.
Must be $18,000 to play.

Speaker 1 So if you want a $12 sale on any of our best-selling books by Ken Coleman, Dr. John Deloney, Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, Jade Warshaw, and George Campbell, they're there.

Speaker 1 Ramseysolutions.com slash store.

Speaker 1 Gina is in Gainesville, Florida. Hi, Gina.
How are you?

Speaker 15 Hey, Dave. How are you?

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

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 a crane fell on top of one of our investment properties

Speaker 1 a few days ago.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it kind of destroyed the house. It's completely inhabitable.

Speaker 15 And we were all very devastated about it. And so then the

Speaker 15 tree removal company, they asked for partial.

Speaker 1 The tree removal company, it was their crane?

Speaker 15 Yeah, it was their crane.

Speaker 1 And they want to be paid

Speaker 1 for destroying the house?

Speaker 15 They want to be a partial payment. And me and my husband are just very shocked that we're here.

Speaker 1 That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 House.

Speaker 1 You destroyed my house and you want me to pay you for that.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I'm glad you're as shocked as I am.

Speaker 1 Well, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 that's cray cray yeah so what is their justification for this

Speaker 15 well they have said that they still have to pay their employees for the work well

Speaker 1 there's their employee that dropped a crane on my house

Speaker 15 yeah that's kind of where we're feeling we're feeling it's a completely ridiculous thing for them to do they have insurance

Speaker 1 yes they do they have insurance and we're good in the process their insurance can pay their employees

Speaker 15 Yeah, that's what we were thinking.

Speaker 15 I was, I mean, that's what sounds normal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so let me just help you with this. I'm not paying them.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that's what we were wondering if we should pay or not.

Speaker 1 Nope, nope, nope, nope. And by the way, just asking for that's so asinine that it's just laughable.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I mean, we thought that, but we were like, we're not business professionals.

Speaker 1 Maybe we're not. Well, no, it's not business.
It's just common sense.

Speaker 1 It's common sense, okay? I mean, the mechanic working on my car

Speaker 1 runs it out the back and totals it.

Speaker 1 But he wants to be paid for the brake job.

Speaker 1 I mean, really?

Speaker 1 That's what we're talking about, right?

Speaker 15 Yes, pretty much to an air extent.

Speaker 1 It's just dumber and crud, man. Some people, their parents are cousins.
Oh, my gosh. That's just, that's strange.
Now, I would just, you don't have to be mean about it.

Speaker 1 You could just say, listen, we're seeking legal counsel because we want to make sure that everything is made whole here.

Speaker 1 And when our lawyer tells us that we can release funds to you, it'll probably be, we will, but it'll probably be after the house is repaired because that's how these things work.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry you misunderstood how that's going to work, but that's probably what we're going to do. But we'll talk to our lawyer and let you know.

Speaker 1 And you do need to actually probably get a lawyer.

Speaker 15 Yeah, we're in the process of dealing with lawyers and attorneys and adjusters.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Tell your lawyer about that request, and after he gets done laughing, he'll tell you what what he what he thinks you should do. Because that's exactly what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 You know, talk, talk to the lawyer. Listen, I'm not able to answer questions this dumb.
You have to talk to my lawyer for dumb questions. Right.

Speaker 9 Dave's advice was way nicer than mine would have been. I had to tell these folks to pound sand.

Speaker 1 I mean, just literally get, I mean, you've got to be kidding me, right? That's so funny. Partial payment.
That's so funny.

Speaker 9 We have to pay our employees.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
I know.

Speaker 9 Probably should do better work.

Speaker 1 You know, that's scotching that crane thing. It's a big deal.

Speaker 1 This is horrible. You dropped a crane on my house.

Speaker 1 There's a YouTube thumbnail right there.

Speaker 1 Dropped a crane on my house.

Speaker 1 I've not had that call before.

Speaker 1 30 years I've been doing the show. I've never had the crane dropped on my call.
How I dropped on my house call. Cheryl is poking.
Hey, Cheryl, what's up?

Speaker 1 Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Speaker 4 I was wondering, how do we save for the

Speaker 4 step four, the three to six-month emergency fund, and then the next step, retirement, when we have upcoming expenses?

Speaker 1 Okay, baby step three is your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. You're out of debt.
You've gotten out of debt?

Speaker 4 No, but I will be on baby step two

Speaker 1 and we'll be out of debt.

Speaker 1 How have you been saving? How have you been getting out of debt? You had money in the room and margin in the budget to get out of debt, right?

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.
Why can that room in the budget, margin in the budget, not be used to build up baby step three?

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 we need a new well on our property.

Speaker 18 Okay. So I'm wondering, should I, you know.

Speaker 1 How long have you needed a new well on the property?

Speaker 18 A year.

Speaker 1 Okay. And how have you made do without it?

Speaker 4 We have a cistern, so we have water delivered.

Speaker 3 It costs us $244 a month.

Speaker 9 How much will the well cost?

Speaker 4 Got in like five different estimates. It just depends on how deep they have to drill, anywhere from 20 to 30,000.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You on a mountain or something?

Speaker 18 No, I'm in a dry part of

Speaker 4 Washington.

Speaker 18 Wow. Very rocky.

Speaker 1 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1 We're spoiled in Tennessee. We poke a hole in the ground, water shoots out.
So, uh

Speaker 3 about nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 It's everywhere.

Speaker 15 Just a couple doors down.

Speaker 4 New house, just a couple doors. And that's what they're comparing it to, I think.
A new house, a couple of doors down.

Speaker 3 They drilled.

Speaker 4 They had to go 280 feet.

Speaker 1 Why is that 20 grand?

Speaker 1 Is it solid rock?

Speaker 4 It's rocky.

Speaker 3 It's not solid rock.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I want you to, did you actually get a bid?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 1 You had one company or two companies come out and give you a bid? 280 feet is 20 grand is $20,000.

Speaker 1 That doesn't sound right.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I've drilled a thousand-foot well in Tennessee, and we didn't pay anywhere near that.

Speaker 1 And it's not solid. It has rock in Tennessee, but not solid rock.
So I really don't know. I've just done it, and

Speaker 1 I'm certainly not a well expert in the state of Washington. So I'm not questioning.
I'm just, it sounds out of whack.

Speaker 1 So anyway,

Speaker 1 if I'm in a situation and something sounds out of whack, and I don't know, because I'm ignorant about it, meaning I don't have knowledge about it, which is me right now in your situation.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I'm going to gather more information.
I'm going to become a freaking well expert. For For $20,000, I'm going to learn everything about it.

Speaker 1 And every different company in the area that has any kind of new technology or old technology or different kinds of systems, and I'm going to learn, you know, okay, here are the 14 ways this can be done.

Speaker 1 10 of them are ridiculous, and these other four we can seriously kind of comb through and decide which way we're going to do. What is your household income?

Speaker 18 Yearly or monthly?

Speaker 1 Yearly.

Speaker 6 62,000.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
So it's going to take a while to get 20,000 no matter what we do.

Speaker 1 Yes. How long have you been doing the cistern thing? One year, you said, right?

Speaker 1 A year, yes. The other well just went bad, it went dry?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 1 What a pain in the butt.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. That's a hard one.
Because I don't know where you're going to get 20 grand.

Speaker 1 How long? How much debt have you paid and how long did that take you?

Speaker 3 We had $9,000

Speaker 3 in debt.

Speaker 1 And it took you how long?

Speaker 6 Four months ago.

Speaker 1 You did $9,000 in four months making $62,000? You've been making some extra money somewhere.

Speaker 3 No, no, I mean, no, I still owe $5,000.

Speaker 1 All right. So anyway, extra work.
tight budget pile up money to get the money to do the well and do the emergency fund in some order and you need to gather up more information because i'm

Speaker 1 i've got the german shepherd on this one i've got the

Speaker 1 head sideways right and i want to learn more this is the ramsey show

Speaker 1 andreas

Speaker 1 gutierrez

Speaker 1 is my guest

Speaker 1 The machete for your money.

Speaker 1 I can't do the Spanish version.

Speaker 1 I chop up credit cards with scissors.

Speaker 1 He goes into the Latino community and chops them up with a machete.

Speaker 1 And he does a show much like this show on Spanish radio and in Spanish podcasting, answering questions. And Andreas used to be on our team years ago.

Speaker 1 He left to start to take what we were doing as a Spanish initiative in those days years ago and to do it on his own with our blessing. And

Speaker 1 he's an amazing, amazing young man. And he dropped by Nashville today.
He doesn't live here anymore and

Speaker 1 did our devotional with our team this morning. And we asked him to come on and hang out since he's a big-time radio guy now that he left us.
Welcome, my friend.

Speaker 16 Dave, happier than a flea on a hairy dog.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 16 To be back home.

Speaker 1 Well, this is your second home for sure. Your second home for sure.
And you're always welcome here. So there's an awakening, you told me at lunch.

Speaker 1 We were having lunch a few minutes ago in the Latino community

Speaker 1 on this whole issue of money. Yeah.
And,

Speaker 1 I mean, you and I have been having this discussion about how to take this message of debt freedom, of being responsible, being on a budget, thinking long-term, investing, all of the stuff that we do around here, and inserting that more thoroughly into the

Speaker 1 Latino community. We've been having that discussion for 15 years, you and I.
But you're saying it's waking up. There's a wake up.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Dave, before I answer that, let me just take a minute.

Speaker 16 On Romans 13, it says to give honor what honor is due.

Speaker 16 And I'm happy to be here. I mean, my wife and I, we lived here for almost six years.

Speaker 1 My kids kind of grew up here.

Speaker 16 But the reason why we moved from San Antonio to Tennessee was because there was a moment when

Speaker 16 In your heart, you know, there was a soft spot for the Spanish speakers. And

Speaker 1 the story goes that you were trying to learn Spanish.

Speaker 16 You even hired a Spanish coach, yeah. And that kind of didn't work out.

Speaker 1 Worse than that, we did overdubs that were really bad, nasty. It was like a kung fu movie, yeah.
You know, it was like, oh, it's nasty with a Cuban accent. Yeah, yeah, it was a Cuban accent.

Speaker 1 It was a Cuban accent.

Speaker 1 All I knew was it wasn't English. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 16 One day I took a call. Heelbilly Spanish.

Speaker 1 That's what it was.

Speaker 16 But I took a call and said, hey, we're trying to reach this community. We know that these truths, you know, would

Speaker 16 change their lives. And we're looking for a Spanish communicator.
And I remember that the question, are you ready? And I was over there doing my thing as a financial advisor.

Speaker 16 And not long before that, I had this dream. You know, I woke up and I knew there was something special.
And I saw myself teaching Spanish. And I told my wife, she said, I don't know.

Speaker 16 I said, you know, just pray about it. And then that call came in.
And that's what got this whole thing started.

Speaker 16 And I just want to say thank you, brother, you know,

Speaker 16 for your trust. But I just wanted to say, you know, thank you for that.
And I just wanted to honor you today. And thank you for the invitation.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you. We had a good run here together, and you've had a great run after that.
So very, very well done. Very good.
Good job, man.

Speaker 16 But to answer your question, you know, this awakening didn't just happen

Speaker 16 because the earth tilted another degree.

Speaker 16 It happened because we've been with this pick, you know.

Speaker 16 Me and others probably, you know, just with the internet, you know, with the internet opening up, you know, a platform for a lot of people.

Speaker 16 But we've had this, you know, pick on our hand and we've just been kin, just hitting that rock and hitting that rock and hitting that rock.

Speaker 16 And then one story and one testimony to a two, to four, to eight, to 16, to 64, to 128, 256, whatever the numbers, 5, 12, 10, 24.

Speaker 16 And that snowball, you know, has now, you know, impacted tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of families that are

Speaker 16 living, you know, this, this, this,

Speaker 16 this awesome life, you know, where money is no longer a worry.

Speaker 16 And you would be so proud and surprised, you know, what happens to these families when, you know, when they get it, Ken, and it starts happening.

Speaker 16 Like, you know, you listen to the show and then what happened, like how much people began to earn, you know, and and what's happening in their lives now we're doing some conference we're running into people that started with nothing and they're bringing statements with accounts over a million dollars dave like they're bringing the statements showing me accounts like understand there was zero like we had no clue about money but we've been doing it long enough that there's been enough time where these families have crossed the seven you know digit mark because of the stuff that came out of sprung out of here in 2009.

Speaker 1 I love it. Very well done.
Now, this marriage event you guys are doing,

Speaker 1 that's probably different in the Latino community. Is it?

Speaker 9 It is different because imagine, you know, the way you hear it.

Speaker 16 So, you know, the way, you know, you've heard. So all we did is we took a little bit of salsa,

Speaker 16 you know, just a little spice, a little jalapenos, and just added some of that stuff to it.

Speaker 16 And that's what has us. Actually, it's two things.
You know, my wife and I, we wanted to come and hang out at Nashville with some friends.

Speaker 16 and then jorge somebody from the team ran into somebody from from your team and they said hey you know andre's gonna be here would you come and do devo for us and uh i accepted that i was excited to be here and then we said why don't we do you know this new conference and here's what happened dave you know i've been doing this conference on money and when i touch you know for those 15 or 20 minutes on marriage and money i can see people just like screwed up in their chair.

Speaker 16 And then we started hearing these comments where they're like, Andres, I've been married for 20 years. And in those 20 minutes, I've seen more change in my husband.

Speaker 16 I've seen more change in my wife than in 20 years of marriage. And I was like, hmm.
And read that comment again and heard that comment again. I said, you know what? I think there's something here.

Speaker 16 So I've been working for the last 12 months, you know, just kind of reading everything that I can on marriage and money, you know, God's principles and then how to share them.

Speaker 16 And that starts tonight here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. I didn't know you were doing it here.
That's awesome. Very cool.
Very cool. How's the radio show doing?

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 16 I love doing the radio. I love taking the calls.
I love answering questions. I love hearing the stories.
And that is kind of, that is the best.

Speaker 1 How much negative pushback do you get?

Speaker 16 Not much.

Speaker 1 You need to stir up, stir it up.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're not being honest. You know,

Speaker 1 you get the haters. No, no, no.
No,

Speaker 1 no, no, no.

Speaker 16 The haters are always there.

Speaker 1 Okay, good.

Speaker 16 The haters are there.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you mad like that. We're going to turn off your show.

Speaker 9 We're going to turn off your radio show.

Speaker 16 We're going to take you off the station. That hasn't happened.
Okay. And you know I don't shy away from sharing God's principles.
I don't at all. Right.
So, but that's, that's, okay.

Speaker 16 That's what that's.

Speaker 1 That's fine. So the marriage and money

Speaker 1 Spanish or Hispanic event, Latino event is tonight. Yep.
In Nashville. That's tonight.

Speaker 16 It's going to be in Franklin at the Williamson County Performing Arts Center. It's a beautiful theater next to the library over there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is. So we're going to be there.

Speaker 16 We start at 8. We start on time.
And for anybody that's listening, there's a Spanish speaker.

Speaker 16 Come on over. We're going to have a good time talking about this.

Speaker 1 I love it. I love it.
So we have,

Speaker 1 I believe you're still using them, six lessons that you did of Financial Peace University in Spanish. done by Andreas.

Speaker 1 They have books, they have a radio show, they have a podcast, they have online, they have other conferences they're doing. If you want to plug in to

Speaker 1 the Spanish-speaking side of what we do, Andreas is our guy.

Speaker 1 He doesn't technically work on our team anymore, but he's family and he's who we send people to.

Speaker 1 We have no idea what he's saying. We hope it's right.

Speaker 1 Have you had any complaints? No, we haven't. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 AndreasGuterres.com is how you can find out about him. And if you jump on,

Speaker 1 easy to get a hold of him on the internet. Not any problem at all.
He's everywhere. He's a big deal, especially in that community.
And so I'm so proud of you. It's good to see you again, my friend.

Speaker 1 Andreas Gutierrez.com. Be sure and check it out.

Speaker 1 And for those of you that are listening live, if you're in the area, you want to come by that event tonight, you can find out about it right there on his website. This is The Ramsey Show.

Speaker 1 Ken Coleman is my co-host. Jimmy is in San Antonio.
Hi, Jimmy. How are you?

Speaker 17 Hey there, Dave. How are you?

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

Speaker 17 Yeah, I sent it a question.

Speaker 17 Your dude got in contact with me, and now I got to ask it to you in person.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 17 in today's world of like five-round interviews, automatic rejection systems, and like thousands of people applying for the same jobs.

Speaker 17 How do you think that a 20-something-year-old dude might try and stand out in today's job market.

Speaker 9 Personal connection. To the extent that you can find it.
And I say this, this is general advice. And I understand that at times it can be more difficult than others.

Speaker 9 But if you can find a personal connection, and it may be one to one, it's more likely one to two, meaning two or three people between you and a person in that building.

Speaker 9 So if you're applying for company ABC,

Speaker 9 and the first thing you want to do is just figure out through all of your connections, your close social ties, that's your friends and family, people you're doing life with, and then all of your relationships from acquaintances to former friends at college, Facebook, the socials, all of that.

Speaker 9 You start to see if you can find somebody that knows somebody in the building at ABC.

Speaker 9 And what we're trying to do there is through the credibility of relationships, will that person at company ABC take your resume and even though you got to go through all the other stuff, the AI and all the filters, will they take your resume in and talk to the hiring manager and go, hey, listen, here's how I know Jimmy.

Speaker 9 And this is what I know about Jimmy. And, you know, I think Jimmy's probably a really good candidate to look at.
We really want to be that simple. We want to be that analog in a very digital world.

Speaker 9 That's going to make you stand out. There's some credibility.
Now, there's no guarantee for that.

Speaker 9 Now, the second piece of advice I would give is if you get into the interview process, the way to stand out in today's world, and I think has always been the way to stand out, is the questions you ask in the interview.

Speaker 9 Most people don't treat an interview, Jimmy, like the interview is just as much for them as it is for the company that's looking at you.

Speaker 1 This is a- Well, what are some good questions he could ask? Great.

Speaker 9 So, first question I would ask is, tell me the kind of person that wins in this role.

Speaker 1 This is to the hiring manager.

Speaker 9 Describe the person that you think is going to win in this role.

Speaker 9 Another question is, describe your leadership and management style.

Speaker 9 What would someone need to know to thrive and connect well with you? These are two very interesting questions that require that hiring manager actually think.

Speaker 9 And in this process, if they've actually thought about that and they have an answer, they're going to give you an answer. You get to assess if you think you're a good fit there.

Speaker 9 The second thing it will do is whether they got a great answer for it or not, you're going to stand out because you put them on their heels in a good way.

Speaker 9 In other words, you didn't ask a twerp question. You asked an insightful question that implies that you want to fill that role.
And that's the way you ask it.

Speaker 9 Those are two samples, but I've got a how to win the interview resource at kencolem.com that's free that goes into great detail. So I don't have to list all those out.

Speaker 9 But that's how you stand out in today's interview process.

Speaker 1 Well, and it kind of

Speaker 1 always just a good idea to put the employer's shoes on. Yes.
So

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 as an employer, I don't personally do interviews at Ramsey anymore, ever. I'm not good at it for one thing.
But

Speaker 1 what I'm looking for is if they're asking questions that tell me they're a taker,

Speaker 1 how much does this pay? Yeah. That's exactly right how much time off I get.
Right.

Speaker 1 You're just trying to figure out how little amount of work you can do for how much money, right?

Speaker 1 Instead, I like questions.

Speaker 1 They're not a taker.

Speaker 1 They're not subtraction. They're addition.
That's right.

Speaker 1 They're not division, they're multiplication. And so, you know, how can I add value? How can I, the question you asked, I like that one.
It's like, what kind of person wins here? Yeah. You know,

Speaker 1 if I came in here

Speaker 1 and I, you know, what's the advice you would say to move ahead at Ramsey? Yeah, that's a great question. And how can I add value?

Speaker 1 How can I make you more than I cost you?

Speaker 1 Because that's really what's running through an employer's head is can I ROI this payroll item? Yeah. That's what they're asking.

Speaker 1 It's like if I hire a technician, I'm in the heat and air business, he's got to do more heat and air work than I pay him to make a profit on having hired him.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, I don't get to keep him because I can't afford him.

Speaker 9 Here's another question: Describe how this team that you lead, describe how they work together. What's that? How would you describe if you're going to pick a one-word to describe this current team?

Speaker 9 Again, an insightful question that yields an answer for you, and it actually gives you some sense of what it's actually like there.

Speaker 1 And what kind of team member, what would I need to be

Speaker 1 to be a great team member? That's right. To add value to this team.
And to add, what kind of synergy can I add or lift can I add?

Speaker 1 And so.

Speaker 9 By the way, if you get a nothing answer or a crap answer, so if it sounds like a politician on a Sunday morning show, that's the nothing answer. A lot of words, no substance.

Speaker 9 Or you get a really kind of crappy answer, that's a warning sign that maybe I don't want to be a part of this team.

Speaker 9 If I can't sit with a leader and a leader tell me, this is the kind of person who wins here. You do this, you win.
We reward this here. And they, by the way, will show you.

Speaker 9 Now, Ramsey example, you asked that question at Ramsey and a leader is going to show you somebody in our company.

Speaker 9 They'll point this way, this way, and this way and say, now they started out in this position, now they're here.

Speaker 1 I always think of that old story of the guy walking along the dirt path, and he comes along a guy, and the guy says, what were the people like in that town you just left over there?

Speaker 1 And he said, well, what were they like in the last town?

Speaker 1 He goes, they were wonderful. He goes, you'll find them to to be wonderful.
He runs another guy and he says, What are the people like over there? And he goes, What'd you find in the last town?

Speaker 1 He goes, Oh, they were horrible. They were just awful.
He goes, Well, you're going to find that over there, too. That's so.

Speaker 1 And so, so if somebody sits down, all they tell me is all the horrible things about all the places they've worked, and the only common denominator is them. There you go.
I'm done. That's right.
Done.

Speaker 1 So you come in and victim mentality, your interview, you screwed up your interview.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 because it's possible that you are actually a victim of a toxic thing, but not repeatedly.

Speaker 1 That's highly unlikely unless you are like attracting this. Well, that's a very good point.

Speaker 9 You don't know how to sniff it out. You keep allowing yourself to go to these situations.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, yeah. Or it's, you know, or you're just a drama coin.

Speaker 9 You're part of the toxicity.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're the

Speaker 1 core of the issue. There we go.
Hey, guys, for all of you that are listening to the show right this second on YouTube or on a podcast,

Speaker 1 at the top of the hour here, the show is going to end.

Speaker 1 And the other 40 minutes of the show is available for free on the new Ramsey Network app. As a matter of fact, all three segments of

Speaker 1 the entire show is available, the first part and the last part, on the Ramsey Network app, video and audio.

Speaker 1 And so you can watch the show, listen to the show, however you want to do, download the show.

Speaker 1 You can search the show on the Ramsey Network app by subject and find calls that we have taken on each subject.

Speaker 1 You can send emails that we will answer from the Ram on the air from the Ramsey Network app. It is 100% free.

Speaker 1 We do not have plans to take it to a subscription. We simply need to offload part of the programming and we built out like our audiobook stuff is over there.

Speaker 1 Everything else is, we're starting to build a whole network app literally over there.

Speaker 1 And the last 40 minutes of the podcast the last 40 minutes of the YouTube show is now available only on the Ramsey Network app so jump on the app store get the Ramsey Network app download it open you an account it's completely free you can watch the whole show there or you can just jump over there and pick up the last 30 or last 40 whatever you want to do google play as well it works on all of that

Speaker 1 if you're listening on radio nothing changes Everything's exactly where it's always been. We're not moving a dime on radio.

Speaker 1 So if you're in a city where they carry, radio runs by the hour, if you're in a city where they carry all three hours, you're still going to get all three hours. We're not changing a thing on that.

Speaker 1 But this is podcast and YouTube. The last 40 minutes is free and available only on the Ramsey Network app in the App Store or in Google Play.
And jump over there and get that done. And

Speaker 1 you can click in the show notes if you want to get the free app too. That'll be another way you can get it and get it done.

Speaker 1 I can promise you this. The value

Speaker 1 is going going to be worth the cost.

Speaker 1 It's free. It's free, okay? This is not hard.
Quit your cry, don't be crying about it. It's free.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Ramsey Network. Check it out.
This is the Ramsey Show.