Quit Letting Dumb Money Decisions Hold You Back

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Normal is broke, and common sense is weird. So, we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio.
This is the Ramsey Show.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host. He's also the host of a big runaway hit on Ramsey Networks called the Front Row Seat.

You want to join him there, you'll see all kinds of very interesting people. So jump in and join us today.
The phone number is 888-825-5225. Cody is in Austin, Texas.
Merry Christmas, Cody.

How are you? Merry Christmas. I'm good, Dave.
How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I've stumbled against some obvious decisions that's led me into about a $250,000 in consumer debt that has left me stumped on how me and my significant other can make headway to get this taken care of in a short amount of time or as quickly as possible.

And it just seems like we run into a brick wall about beliefs on how we're going to do that.

That's a lot, dude. I'm sorry.

What's it on? Break it down for me. The 250 is on what?

So

I have a 401k loan that has about 21,000 in it. We have student loans in around 80,000.
thousand we have a car that's around thirty six

and then we have legal fees things that that we've both had to acquire uh over the course of a few years it's around twenty thousand and then uh we have we did purchase a house and we've added some some debt there as far as just furniture and appliances and things that we're we're trying to get off and that's the lowest hanging fruit of around eight

okay we're looking looking around two hundred two hundred fifty thousand that's just sitting out there.

And then on top of that is, is I have a child with a former relationship, and that one takes out a huge chunk of our

available money.

What's your household income?

So we sit around

before taxes, well, we about $200,000. But if you take out

child service or child payments and things like that, it's around $175,000. So we bring home after taxes around $11,000.

Okay.

And significant other.

What's that mean?

My fiancé. Yeah.
So there's not a we then until you're married. What's the wedding date?

That has not been set yet. Why?

We've had a run of things that's happened in both of our lives, and we just have, that's been pushed.

But you bought a house together. That we did.
We did buy a house.

That's more difficult than than getting married i don't disagree with you it's also dumber than crap because you're going to get yourself into a mess buying stuff in somebody you're not married to and so and so you're trying to act like you're so okay um the legal implications the relational implications and the career implications of trying to do this without being married the data is all stacked against you so that is one thing that you're that you're out over your skis on one thing that you're trying to go uphill on and the data is really, really clear, and there's a lot of research on this.

Nobody seems to be talking about it because it's unpopular to talk about it. So everybody gets pissed at me when I talk about it, but I kind of like my spiritual gift, so it's okay.

So that's one thing.

And legal fees, has that all, that's all from child support issues and other things in the past?

Primarily mine. I've spent a decade fighting for my first daughter and my first marriage.
Yeah, okay. All right.
Is that over?

No, sir. So there's ongoing legal fees?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Yeah, the state of Texas stacks it against the father.

Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.

The

okay. How much of the 175 is you and how much is her?

I make 120.

You just broke up. You broke up.
Try it again.

I make 120 and she brings home $80, so we're sitting at the $200. Okay.
But I take out the $25 because that's the child's $40K. Yeah, that's got to come out.

That is correct.

Do not Pasco, do not go to jail. Yeah, okay.

All right, I'm good with that.

Take care of the kid. That's a good thing.
So

how much is being put into your 401ks?

I have an employer match, and

every paycheck I get paid weekly. Mine goes around $175 a week.

And then that's 6%.

So they match up to 6%. So I just make the match.

And then

they match at 4%. So she's at 4% of hers.
Okay.

All right. Well, here's the thing.
You can do what you want to do, but you called and asked. So we're going to be truthful with you because we love you and we want you to win.
And

what would I do if I woke up in your shoes knowing what I know now

is

I had to come to grips when I went broke years ago with the idea of if I keep doing what I've been doing, I'm going to keep getting what I've been getting.

So for something to change, something's got to change. Agreed?

Agreed. And so, and then you can add with that formula then, the more radically you change things, the more radically things will change.

That makes sense?

And so, in other words, the more bizarre you get, and the more more your friends are looking at you like you've joined a cult and lost your mind,

the probably the more progress you're going to make away from being stuck, which is where you are right now.

So,

that's the

decision-making framework that I'm going to give this advice in. And then you got to pick and choose.

But I promise you, if you will go do every single thing I'm getting ready to tell you, in

let's see,

three years you'll be 100% debt-free, not counting the house.

In four years, you'll have substantial assets. In 12 years, you'll be a millionaire.

Okay.

Okay. I'm all ears.
So the first thing I do is get married this weekend. Merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho.

There we go. You know, that's simple.
And Rachel's anniversary is this coming Friday, so you can get married on Rachel Cruz's anniversary if you want. There you go.
So

she's a Christmas wedding. It was a lot of fun.
So gather up some friends. You all been doing this for a while.
You've been playing house for a while. It's time to be grown-ups now.

You're not college students sleeping around. You go, it's time to do this.
Okay. So, and then you're combined.
You're locked legally. You're committed into the future.

You develop a shared set of goals, a desired future, where you want to go. I would stop all 401k contributions temporarily.
I would get on a detailed written plan called a budget.

I'm going to give you every dollar as your wedding gift. It's the world's best best budgeting and finance app.

And it's also going to walk you, not only do the budget, but it's also going to walk you through the stuff I'm teaching you.

I would sell everything in sight.

No more renovations, no more furniture, no more nothing. Beans and rice, rice and beans.
You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You're not going on vacation.

That's for dad gumsure. You are broke people, and you've got to clean this up.
I'd look at selling this car, probably.

Just almost symbolically. It's not as much of the money issue as it is.
It's just stupid in the middle of all this. And it's really the only thing you've got you can sell.

You can't sell the lawyer or the credit cards or the 401k. So, um, and and then I'm just going to list these debts, smallest to largest, and I'm going to squeeze every dollar out of my life.

And like you said, I'm going to knock off the low-hanging fruit first, take the littlest, smallest to the largest, and go in that order and get in absolute crazy attack mode.

Hang on, Christian will pick up and

help you out with all those gifts. Give him a total money makeover book, too.
And Ken, if you'd shut up, I could talk.

I was going to say, what do I add to that? I just slow clap like you made a par putt.

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Hunter is in Cincinnati. Hey Hunter, what's up?

Hello, Mr. Ramsey.
How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Hi.

So I am recently married within the past three months, and

my wife has

loans, student loans, and car payments. And we are in debt.

I personally have zero debt, and I owe nobody anything.

And

we are

married but living separately by choice because we wanted to knock out this debt before we went in and decided to buy a house or something. So I wanted to see what your

advice would be for us to knock out this debt before jumping into buying a house.

You got married three months ago and you don't live with your wife?

Unfortunately, no. We are in a very special situation where we're lucky enough that both of our parents still let us live at our respective parents' houses.

So we're weekend warriors, is what I call it.

I also have a pretty. Hold on a second.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. What is weekend warrior? I'm afraid to ask this, but I gotta know.
They get to see each other on the weekend.

You guys go to one of the others' parents' house on the weekend? Yes. Yes.

Are you in different cities, honey?

We are in different states.

Okay. Where are we going to live when we get married?

Planning on, we are already married,

but

you're still married to your auntie.

Planning on living in Ohio. Granted, I am a professional basketball player,

and I have been for the past two years. Now my wife has a nine-to-five job, and

we got married very quickly, so she could join in and a contract for me to play overseas.

But I didn't get the contract that I expected, so now we're kind of standing here married, but not living together. So

your

professional life is overseas playing ball?

Yes, sir. Okay.
All right.

And but right now you don't have a job.

I do. So I am working for a friend.

He owns an auction business and

he pays me in cash. And I just work the hours that I can and the hours that I want, but I've been increasing those hours and days because I want to be better for, for, God willing, our future family.

What is the wife?

There's so many things to talk about.

What's the future on the basketball contract? One is that come up again.

So I signed a small contract coming up here in the months of February, March, April, and May.

And that will be in the United States. And they're providing housing for my wife and I for those months, for those months.
And then I will will be getting

before tax.

Is that in the NBA subleague? I've forgotten what it's called now, but is that what that is?

It's the league right below the one that you're thinking of.

Yes. So you're way down low.
So how much money? This is not a lot of money, and that's why I asked that. How much is that contract for for those few months?

Well, it would be three grand a month before tax. So what do you what do you when do you go when you're when you're in Europe, what do do you make?

Um, it really depends on the league and it depends on

what have you made in the past.

Uh, made

2,400 a month, and then the last one was at a thousand a month. So, you're not going overseas for that when you can make money in the NBA Development League.

So, what is your, what's your, what's your career plan? Because those all suck.

Um, my career plan is eventually I actually want to become a preacher.

Okay.

All right.

But I

how much debt does your wife have in emergency in student loans?

So in two loans, one is a little over $5,000, another is $13,000,

and then federal aid and student loan is $5,000, and then a car payment with $5,000 left. Okay.
And so you're planning on base camp to be Ohio?

Yes, sir. Where you live right now?

Yes, sir. Okay.
All right.

Well, the

best way to

attack this financial situation is to create a more

symbiotic relationship, and that would mean that you and your wife go get an apartment tomorrow and you actually live together seven days a week because what you're doing is unbelievably weird.

Yeah, you're telling me.

Well, wait a second. So I got to ask really quick, and I'm not picking on you, but I really want to know.
You called and you're used to coaching.

If you responded to Dave's comment that way, believe me, I know, that leads me to believe, tell me if I'm wrong, that this is not an arrangement that you came up with.

This isn't your idea, or am I wrong?

It is both of our ideas.

Okay. Again,

I was anticipating this contract to come by. That's why part of the reason why we got married so early, the main reason is because we both believe in God and we wanted to be married.

But when I was negotiating it, it did not go the way that I anticipated. No, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.
I get it. I got to tell you something.

You need to choose which, first of all, I don't think you should be in either parent's house, but you should choose one and live together. Let's get this thing going.

You, as a pastor, you would never tell a young couple to do what you're doing, would you? No, I wouldn't. And you need to get like an apartment and you need to leave your parents, both of you.
Yeah.

And you've been being a basketball gypsy and now you got married. And so if you're going to be a basketball gypsy, she's going to be riding in the trunk with you.

And or you're going to move on and move to, you know, move towards becoming a pastor and moving on. So I appreciate that you wanted to get married rather than shacking up.
I appreciate that.

Thank you for that. Good man.
Good idea. Bad idea to live separately and in order to pay off the debt.
That is not no, no, no.

And apparently there's not room or it's not conducive to a married couple for what for you guys to be at either family's house, which suits me fine too.

I recommend all young people go get a life away from their parents, married and unmarried, especially married. Go get a life.

And that's going to make you more money and it's going to make your career blossom because it's going to make your manhood and your relationship blossom. And,

you know, she's she's got to be away from her mommy, and so do you. And, you know, mommy can just email recipes, and that's about it, over the fence.
That's it. And that's,

you guys really, really, really need to,

you're going to do better to answer your basic, to get her out of debt, you guys out of debt. You phrase that properly.

But from the debt that she brought in, faster when you're working together, even with an apartment rent, because you're both going to be looking at this going, I'm going to work all the time.

And when I get home, I'm going to see my wife. And I'm going to work all the time.
And when I get home, I'm going to see my wife.

And we don't do $1,000 a month stuff in 2025 and call that professional. That's slightly above hobby.

Yeah, I was going to say professionally speaking. I have a good friend who was in AA baseball many years ago.
He and his wife straight out of college. And they gave it a timeline.

They both sat down and said, all right, we're going to give it this much time, and they're going to put some measurables on it.

And you know, you've played at the European level or wherever you've played internationally, and now you're in the lowest development league. You know what the odds are.

So you've got to have somebody in your life, coach on that team, the general manager up the line. Let's put a real number on how long we're going to give this.

And you've got to work extra, like Kurt Warner, the famous now Hall of Fame quarterback, stocking shelves. This has been done before, but you need some real measurables on the basketball side.

And your wife, now we agree, this is how much we're going to give it. This is what we're going to do together.
She needs to be on the road with you, like Dave said.

You guys need to be in this together. You guys can scrape by on this three grand a month and hustle and learn how bad this situation is.
I think you've got to be together.

I just really wanted to hit that, but I think you have got to get to a point pretty quickly where we go, we're going to realistically measure what my opportunity is in professional basketball.

That's here and abroad. Give it a time length, get retested, and see if there's something there.
And if it's not, it's going to be hard to give it up, but you got to walk away and walk forward.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

So I can't tell somebody else to do it. It's that simple.

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John's in Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, John, how are you?

I'm doing okay, Dave. It's a pleasure to speak with you guys.
You too, sir. What's up?

Well, I had a series of unfortunate events this year, and I just really want to try to get some advice on if I'm making the right decision for me and my family.

I'm a single-income earner, family of four, me, my wife, and my two sons. And

at the beginning of the year, in March, my company sold out to another company. And during the transition, I was paycheck to pay.
I'm still paycheck to paycheck, but I was managing my bills.

When my company sold out, I was weekly pay. And then the new company come in and did bi-weekly pay, which set me behind three weeks without a paycheck after that last paycheck.

So I limped through that. And then in May, I lost my brother.
So

I went from that to a week and a half out with my brother, you know, passing away. And it just, from then on, I've been playing the catch-up game.

And I've got down to not only personal issues with myself and substance abuse and getting through that. And then now,

you know, I'm more than 90 days behind on every non-essential bill outside of what I need to keep my house lights and things like that going.

So

what my plan is, and me and my wife have sat down and we both agree 100% is that we want to invest, you know, it's not going to be a large portion, like $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 into

a home that we can purchase, own it outright, and place it onto her grandmother's property, allowing us to have 100% access of my income to try to nip this out as quick as I can to get that back to square root.

But I think the only advantage that I have is I'm sub $15,000 in total debt.

So $15,000 clears your debt.

Is that what you're saying? Yes, sir. Okay.
Yes, sir. And what do you make, sir?

Right now, I bring home about $2,200 every two weeks, so $44,000 a month.

Plus every two, that's every two weeks. So plus two times a year, you have $6,600.

Yes. Okay.

And what do you do?

I'm a truck driver. Okay.

All right.

And what

does it take to bring you current?

$15,000 makes you debt-free, but what brings you current?

You bring me current, I'd probably have to be just south of

probably $3,500.

Yes, sir. Okay.

And where would you get the $5,000 to buy the trailer?

Well, that's what, speaking with my wife, we agreed to take what we potentially could get back on our income taxes next year to try to just wean it out.

I know it's a short matter of time before these things will go into collections. And

I figured that once we got on. What kind of debt is it?

I'm sorry. What kind of debt is it that you're behind on?

I have two personal loans and credit cards, and well, I take that, but three personal loans and credit cards, and then my wife has credit cards as well.

How much is your rent?

My rent is $1,600.

Okay, so you're not talking about making this move. Well, no, I guess you would file your taxes after the first of the year, so you'd get the money probably in February, right?

Yes, sir.

Which would also be enough to catch you up?

Close to it,

as long as I could find a cheap enough and

something that would accommodate us. No, no, I'm just saying if you didn't buy the trailer and you stayed in the rental, you could use the refund and be caught up.

Close to it, not all the way. I don't know if it's a good thing.
No, you said you're $3,500 behind and you're talking about buying a $5,000 trailer. What's your refund going to be? Which is it?

I'd say it's probably $6,000, $7,000.

Because that $6,000 or $7,000 makes you current.

So that would bring my loans back up to current. Yeah.
And you don't have to buy a trailer.

I see that. But I mean, the trailer was an end goal for us anyway, to get out of paying rent to try to move on to purchasing property after we did, you know, paid off what we owed.

I figured once we could move into the trailer, then we could wipe out pretty much every debt within a mere month and a half, two months. That's probably pretty close to true.
Okay.

Yeah.

I'll tell you this, you've done a really good job of analyzing and knowing where you are. I'm proud of you.
You've really got your fingers around this because you're pretty stressed.

And in the middle of that stress, you've still done a good job of laying out a game plan and thinking it through. I don't have a real fault with any of your reasoning.

So here's what I would add to this. Okay.

Sometimes I have seen people do stuff like this, and then they don't play all the way through

and you have to make a commitment that we are going to be in this trailer no longer than 24 months

before months i me and my wife was thinking somewhere along the lines of three to five years okay 30 36 months then

36 months not three to five not a vague number okay put a date on the calendar we are out of this trailer and we're going to do whatever it takes extra jobs no vacations.

We're going to be debt-free, have an emergency fund and a good down payment on a house, and get out of this trailer.

Because otherwise, you're going to end up raising your kids in a trailer that you didn't want to buy.

Right. And you don't want to do that.
You don't want to look back and 10 years slips away, and you know it can.

Absolutely. Yeah.

What needs to happen for her to be able to work?

Right now, me and her agree that because of the pricing of child care, that it wouldn't really be with she is in school, she is learning, going while she's back in school, trying to finish out the studies that she chose.

But right now, me and her agree, she wants to be a phlebotomist.

What's that going to turn into? Let's assume she has that degree today. What job is she getting?

She would basically, you know, be the person that would draw people's blood in doctor's offices or hospitals.

And how long does it take her to get that certification?

Right now, as long as because the school that she is in is kind of like a pay-as-you-go thing. So like I said, everything that's not essential to the house, I've kind of just stopped.
Yeah.

And right now she's not in school. So why does put her to work right now?

Well,

she does

like delivering packages as kind of a contract job, and that helps make up a little bit. But as far as finding someone to take care of our children,

how old are the boys?

My youngest will be two on the 19th of this month, and then my oldest is four.

Oh, okay. You got littles.
Okay. That makes a difference.
Yes, sir. All right.

So here's the thing. Here's what you want to do.
You want to put a deadline on the trailer if you're going to do it.

I'm not sure I would do it, but I'm not sure I wouldn't do it. But if I did do it, I don't want to get stuck there.

I want to make enough radical changes in our lives that we move away from that time in our life, and it's in the rearview mirror forever.

Okay?

You guys have been through hell and the crummy year that you've had has highlighted for you that living paycheck to paycheck is no way to live. It's no fun.

Not at all. And so when Sharon and I went through going broke, we had a never again moment.

And I want to make sure that you guys, the two of you, hold hands tonight and look each other in the face and say, never again.

We're going to step into a trailer for 24 to a maximum of 36, but never again are we going to be here.

We're going to work like crazy people, and we're going to have goals, and we're going to live on less than we make, and we're not buying anything on debt. Never again are we going to be back here.

We're going to have an emergency fund so that a lousy 10 grand doesn't completely stand us on our head.

Yes, sir. Because $20,000 would change your whole life right now.

Yes, sir.

That's how quick this could turn. You didn't call me up with $300,000.
You call me up with 15,000. And 3,500 gets you current.
So you can do this, man. And I'm telling you, you have a good brain.

The brain you used to work through this was excellent. I'm proud of you.
And you go now go play through and look back a decade from now and go, that was the time, the year my brother died and

they changed my pay. I said, never again.
And that's what Sharon and I did. We looked back.
We said, never again.

1988, no way I'm reliving that freaking year. There's a bankruptcy filing on the wall right across from me in the office right here.
I'm not doing that crap again. Never again.

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Start every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. Max is in San Antonio.
Hey, Max, what's up?

Hey, thanks for having me on. Long time listener.
Thank you, sir. How can we help?

Well, I'm 58 years old. I've been divorced now for a little over five years.
And I've been dating a lady who is 57, and she is a surviving widow

she well if we get married before we're sick before she is 60 she uses all of her loses all of her surviving spouse uh social security benefits and he was a big contributor up until he was about 58 years old so she would receive the max and i've heard your

your conversations today with

people about getting married and how the chances are divorce if you don't get married within a certain point of time. And we've been dating now for a little over two years.

And I was just wondering if it was worth it to get married now and forego that potential $4,000 a month for the rest of her life.

What's your household income? Or what's your income? I'm sorry.

My income is about $150,000 a year.

And what's her income?

Her income is just living off of of what she got, and she's down to a little over $600,000.

Okay, what's your nest egg?

My nest egg is recovered to just a little over a million in my retirement account, and I have no debt and have a paid-for house. It's a little old house here in Texas worth about

$400,000.

Okay.

Have you all been discussing marriage prior to this thought pattern here?

Sure. Yes, sir.
We've been dating for a little over two years and fell in love immediately and

been talking to both of our parents about it and both of our families. She's got two stepkids and I have two stepkids.
Of course, they're all grown. Everybody loves each other and doing great.

That's good.

Okay, I'll tell you,

you ask a question, and I'll give you a straight answer.

The way I try to do stuff, and Max, you said you're a longtime listener, so you know this. I try to put,

I've never been in your situation. I'm 65,

so we're fairly close in age. But if I try to put myself in your position, what would I do if I were in your shoes? And

for me,

the

joy

of

a lifetime companion that I'm in love with

supersedes $48,000 a year.

Sure. And for me, that's called marriage.
I'm a person of faith, and that's called marriage. And I don't have any confusion about that at all in my mind or in my spirit, either one.

And for me, I don't want to look at her dad in the eyes

unless I'm saying this is my wife.

For me,

and I can't make that be for you. You've got to decide that.

You guys are, you know, you're going to have a net worth of $2.5 million

or more and and a really good household income.

And you don't have to have the $48,000.

It's just a minor thing.

And so for me, it's just for $50,000, what can I buy? I can buy a marriage license and $50,000 a year.

But, you know,

Well, we're trying to take that into account to where we need to retire.

Since we've just found each other late, we're trying to figure that into retirement. you'd like to you got two and a half million dollars to retire off of i think you're going to be all right

well the way we figure that out too is is uh it's not necessarily the the two hundred and twenty thousand

a year it's uh of course the broker has to take a fee of one percent and then it's taxed and we'd have to get our

you know i'd have to get our income up pretty good to have net of what we feel like we'd like to be able to enjoy but i'm actually which way were you which way were you leaning before you called us obviously he didn't want to marry her.

I'm just curious. Oh, no, I do want to

absolutely. I mean, all you did, you answered my question with numbers telling me why you shouldn't do it.
And that tells me what you want to do. So, no, I mean, you do what you want to do.

I'm going to be mad at you either way. We'll still be friends.

But I personally,

I just see a tremendous spiritual, relational, emotional, and even financial value in being married. More than 48 grand a year.

I just do. I just think it's valuable.

And if I were 57 and had met the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, there's no way I'm letting her freaking get away over some math nerd stuff with my financial planner.

You know, trying to figure out, well, I got to pay him 1%. Who gives a crap? If you don't want to pay him 1%, don't pay him.
But don't lose her either.

Well, I think it's really clear for our audience audience to understand how we view marriage. And no judgment here, but my guess is that they're living together.

And so when you've already made that decision, we're living together, fell in love with her early, been dating two years. I'm reading between the lines.
That's probably what's going on.

So therefore, this is all about a money question. And we're coming at this not from a money answer, not in the situation.
It's just the way we see things. Yeah, but here's the other thing.

It is, it does end up being a money thing, especially maybe not in his situation exactly, but as much. But in when I'm talking to these 24-year-olds and whatever, and

we've been living together for four years, I'm great.

But all the data says when you're 46,

that you missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars

for that 24-year-old. Okay, so

it is math, too.

And I've got to think that the marriage advantage plays into this situation, although I can't put my finger on exactly where it will. But I'm thinking it's 50 grand a year easy.

The working together, the combining of forces, the combining of how we're going to get at this,

I think it has a monetary value. That would not be my motivation, to your point, though.
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I agree with you.
It's not the driving decision, right?

We just happen to have a position that the money plays out as well. In other words, we think this is a moral decision that also has money implications in the positive.

And it's not our opinion, by the way. Dave's right.
There are tons of studies. In fact, there's probably a new one that comes out every year about the financial advantages of being married.
Yeah. Now,

the 35-year-old, as an example, it's not Max's situation again. Right.
But the 35-year-old that is married has 13 times the net worth of an unmarried 35-year-old.

There it is.

That means shacked up.

And that means single. And that means divorced.
And that means widowed. It could be anything.
But an unmarried 35-year-old has 13 times less money on average in America. It's a huge advantage.

Married men live nine years longer on average than unmarried men.

Deloney thinks it's cause wives keep us from doing stupid stuff. There's no question.

I don't think that's the singular issue, but clearly a key issue. You're going to eat that?

Yes, I'm going to eat that. It's really true.
I'm going to have two of them.

Or this is the one that I get a lot. You're going to try that? Are you aware of how old you are? You know, it's like the thing that could cause a lot of bodily harm, which might begin the downfall.

See,

that's an actual number. And married ladies only live four years longer than unmarried ladies.
So it extends male.

What is it that we do for women?

Let's get something to score for the men here. How do we do? That allows women to live longer.

What do you suspect?

I don't know.

They're higher net worth. I couldn't do anything either.

Oh, man.

That's Deloney's take on it. I don't know.
I mean,

seriously, Delonee. There's all this data on your

not only your incomes. Married men's incomes are way higher than unmarried men's incomes.
Way higher. And I suspect that's because there's a lash on their back.
I don't know. I got it, Dave.

It just came to me. The reason that married women live four years longer, if I got that right, is because they have more purpose in continually trying to take care of us and raise us.

The maternal instinct of a married woman remains strong even after their children leave because they're taking care of us. I think that's what it is.
I'm gonna stick to that. They have purpose.

They have purpose. That's what it is.

You're probably on to something. I love it.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.
Thank you for joining us.

Brad is with us in Chicago. Hey, Brad, how are you?

Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up?

So, my question is:

should we or should you ever borrow money for your tithe? Why would you have to do that?

So we own a business and we had a pretty successful year,

but we bought some equipment and we paid cash for that, which kind of left us a little bit cash depleted here in December to be able to, what I like to do is give at least 10%, if not more.

So my question would be. You give 10% of your net profit, right?

Yeah.

Well, Well, purchasing equipment lowers your net profit, does it not?

Yeah, I mean,

but I would depreciate it over seven years. But that's a tax issue.
That's not a tithe issue. If I spend a million dollars on a piece of equipment, I don't have the million dollars anymore.

Correct. But if I look at my income statement, it would still show

a pretty healthy product. But the tithe is not on that.
The tithe is not on taxable income. The tithe is on net increase, according to Deuteronomy.

If we're getting technical, I mean, I assume you're asking a technical biblical question. And so approaching it from that angle.

To start with, I'm not a Pharisee about this, and I don't think God is either.

I'm pretty sure, based on my study of scriptures, that God loves a cheerful giver, and

he loves tithers as much as he loves non-tithers. And when in doubt, I overgive because when I get up there, I don't want to be wrong.
It's not any harder than that for me, okay?

So it's not, I don't try to figure it out too much. I tithe on my taxable cash flow income.

And so if I spend a million dollars on a piece of equipment, regardless of what the IRS says, they don't get to enter into the discussion on my spiritual walk. For God's sakes, really.

And so, yeah. So, I mean, I don't really care what the EBITDA is, and I don't care what the venture capitalist says.
All I care is what's my net increase.

And I do that prior to taxes, what my net cash flow is for the year and um and usually not counting depreciated depreciation issues it would be your taxable income uh was would be what you would deal with again with a lot of grace and mercy

because this is more of that but no i would never borrow money because there's a lot of indications in scripture not to borrow money and so to borrow money and go against one scripture in order to keep another scripture is oxymoronic.

So no, we wouldn't do that ever. But just the point is you don't need to if you just define tithing a little differently.
So to start with, and Ken, you're a pastor's kid. I want to get your

theological upbringing

upbringing as a PC, but the PK. But the

seriously,

I'm a tither, okay? I'm an evangelical Christian, and I believe in giving a tenth of your income to your local church. And as I study tithing, it is a a New Testament thing, I believe.

I have good friends that disagree with me, and they're wrong.

We have all these wonderful arguments, Christian arguments, right, that are fun.

But when in doubt, I give because the purpose of the tithe is not because God needs your money. And the purpose of your tithe is not so that God loves you more.

And the purpose of the tithe is certainly not salvation. And a tither is not a better Christian than a non-tither.

None of that applies because we're all walking, we're all sinners saved by grace, those of us that are Christians, okay? And that's what we call ourselves.

So we're all walking in this abundance of grace and mercy. So why does God have us to give? He has us to give to practice being a giver.

I will say that my challenge, if I understood Brad correctly, my challenge with his question, of course we're not going to borrow. So that's honestly nonsensical and non-biblical.
However,

the principle of tithing is about the first fruits.

First fruits. So I don't think it's okay to spend a million dollars on equipment and not have any money left over to actually, you know, so I get taxable income.
I don't disagree with the motivation.

Yeah, it is first fruits, meaning it's off the top, but it's off the top of your profits. I understand.
Deuteronomy and first fruits are in the same thing. I understand.

Deuteronomy says of your net increase.

I totally agree, but in a business kind of, here's where I'm sticking.

The first part of your net increase. Yes, it went spent on a really...
No, that's not a net increase.

If I increase payroll,

then I've increased my expenses and my business did not profit as much. Right.
So I don't need to tithe before I pay the payroll. I tithe after I pay the payroll.

And I tithe the very first dollar of profit after I pay the payroll. That's the first part.

It's not first before expenses.

I agree with that. But what I'm getting at is that you, I think, as a steward of your business, need to manage your books.

Payroll is one thing, a really expensive piece of equipment. I think to be able to say, well, I brought in all this money and I had all these expenses,

I have a challenge with that. I know you don't agree with me, but I'm challenged by it.

I don't know enough about his equipment. Well, I don't either, but maybe you're saying he bought too much stuff and took his margins down to nothing.
That's what I'm saying.

So that might be risky, okay? But I mean, out of the 300,000 that Ramsey takes in, I don't take anywhere near that.

And we agree. we agree on that most of it leaves in expenses okay no I completely agree on that and salaries and everything else I don't I don't just because the company has revenue of

300 million said 300,000 300 million just because there's 300 million in revenue doesn't mean I get 300 million right that's not a that's not how that works but then the and again and I'm again I didn't get the follow-up but my point is I'd want to know what that spending is on because in your case it's not willy-nilly and we're trying to get out of it the second thing is the tithe also is what he pays himself assuming he's paying himself something yeah that's what it should be on so the tithe is on what you pay yourself.

So I just wanted to circle up on that.

Again, equipment is equipment. You got to do it.
But I'm also saying that I think if you're not careful.

And again, I want to not be a Pharisee. And I think you're right.
Yeah, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, when in doubt, up the tithe.

But, you know, like for instance, he should be tithing personally.

I'll go ahead and take it a step further since you and I are having this discussion because it's fun.

We teach entree leaders to hold back some of their profits in retained earnings,

savings

to run the business well.

And I would not tithe on that until you take it home.

I don't, by the way, until I take it home. Because it could be spent in the business.
It's here to protect the business and

it could end up being an expense.

Like during COVID, it was an expense because we had to cover payroll, right? We used retained earnings, so some of it. So

that kind of stuff.

And that's taxable. Correct.
That's right. You know, you don't get the IRS taxes you on that whether you take it home or not.
So, it's an interesting discussion. But the big thing is

good on you for thinking about it. That's right.
Good on you for loving your faith walk and your God enough that you even care about the answer to the subject.

And good on you for being generous. But to borrow, to pay a tithe is missing the principle of the tithe.
It's missing the whole thing. Yeah, absolutely.
Then you're banker tithed for you.

Oh, I think I'm going to puke a little.

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Alicia is in Maine. Merry Christmas, Alicia.
How are you?

Hey, Dave. I'm good.
How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I recently found out I'm pregnant with our second child yay

yeah

very excited about it

only thing is our house is pretty small it's about 900 square feet so we've been trying to rack our brains on how to either expand it or be able to afford a new house but my husband is the sole provider and he makes you know, he's a mechanic, so he doesn't make a ton, but

so we're just really stuck and don't know how to make make enough income to bridge the gap in between

where we're at now and

if we lose the assistance by making more money.

Why does him being a mechanic mean he doesn't have money? It should mean he does have money.

Unfortunately, in our area where we live,

we're in rural Maine. There's not a lot of opportunities for them to make a lot of money.

Did I hear you just say losing assistance if he made more money?

Yeah, we're like in this

weird place where if we make a little bit more money, then we lose assistance from the state. I am unfortunately well-versed in government programs.
So you're on some type of welfare?

Yeah, so my daughter is under maintenance care, which is like a insurance is a huge expense here. Okay.
As I'm sure a lot of other places.

We save we get about $400 or $500 worth of assistance per month if you count the health care and the WIC.

You're not going to do this, but here's what you should do.

You should move.

Told you. I know.

It's so hard because we're going to be able to do that. No, it's not hard.

It's not hard. People who are broke and have no opportunity in an area have moved to an area where there was opportunity and economic growth since time began.

Yeah.

The chances that I'm going to let my wife and child be on welfare and live in a 900-square-foot home because I can't make any money because we live in an area that doesn't support a normal mechanic's salary are zero.

I'm going to load up the truck and head to Beverly.

Yeah.

How long has your family, how long has your family been in the area?

My family has been here.

I mean, my grandparents are from here. Okay, so a long, long time.

Have you seen many people get out?

A lot of my generation has left. Why do you think they've left?

Yes, I know. It's because of the opportunities.
Okay, so you really are. You called us for one reason, and I think you didn't expect this, but I mean, this really, Dave, is absolutely right.

You can't call and say, how do we increase our income to get a little bit bigger house here in a 900-square-foot place

if you aren't willing to get off of government income.

And you're right. They will penalize you.
That's the whole point of benefits. They're going to cap you, and then you get stuck in this cycle.
So dangerous.

Yes, I talked to the guy the other day, and I know your husband's probably not a diesel mechanic. He's probably a car mechanic.
But I talked to a diesel mechanic the other day making $120 a year.

They ain't on welfare. Some of them can make good money.
They ain't on welfare. And

we don't want to live on welfare. That's our thing.

Then I don't want to live.

But you're okay with it.

I'm okay with it for now because we don't really have another option. That's not true.
He gave you one.

Okay. If he's a mechanic, he don't have another option for you if you stay there.
I do agree. I just want to get rid of this.

If he can turn a wrench, he can do HVAC. He can do electrical.
He can do plumbing. I'm telling you, he can trade.

The trades are exploding, exploding and you simply need to change zip codes in order to change your income. It's that simple.

I'd go get a decent cert in a heartbeat and be in a major metro area and buy an airline ticket and come home and see grandma every so often. Come on.
I mean, I could keep going. Welding?

I mean, a roof.

$160,000 a year. It's unbelievable the money people are making.

By the way, in the middle of the world. That makes some of these lawyers look bad.

I mean, you know the joke about the plumber and the the lawyer, right? I'd like to hear it, actually.

A lawyer called a plumber and he came in and he, in 30 seconds, he fixed the sink and he said, that's $350. And he goes, well, that's like $2,000 an hour.
He goes, I don't make that. I'm a lawyer.

He goes, I didn't either when I was a lawyer.

Yeah, Mike Rowe would love that. That's great.

You know, in all honesty, Dave, let's just, I'm just throwing this out there because I think this affects our larger audience when you start getting outside. Wait a second.
Dave just told us to move.

All right, if you go from Maine and we get real crazy and we go to the nearest big

metropolitan area in the Northeast, Boston, this is one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. They need tradesmen.

And to Dave's point, if you're willing to go to the big city and surrounding areas, by the way, it doesn't have to be in Boston proper. Make big bucks, come back and see the family.
It's that simple.

Look it up. What a tradesman would make in Boston.

What a car mechanic working at a Chevy dealership makes. It's a lot more than you're making, honey.
They're not on welfare, I promise.

So, yeah, you guys have got to make some changes in order for changes to happen. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you expect a different result.

I don't know if there is a way for him to maximize his income in your area, but I think you know, and I think you know there's not, because I don't think your man's lazy.

That's not what I said. I don't think he's got opportunity.
in his field. That's why I asked her the question, by the way, if you see people leaving.
Why? Why are they leaving?

And sadly, I mean, it's happening to small-town USA everywhere. It is.
But it is the reality of economics. It's just the economy.
And when there is a lack of opportunity, people move.

John Grisham had an old book out years ago. He's a fiction writer.
It's a fiction book called Painted House. But he talks about, he's about

a kid growing up in the Arkansas cotton fields and dirt poor, you know, white trash, and

grew up, And he talks about the cousin that moved away to Detroit. This is in the 1940s in the Great Depression in the Dust Bowl, right?

And the cousin that moved away to Detroit, and he came back wearing a fancy suit, driving a brand new car, working in the car factory, and had married a Yankee wife.

You know, and that's what they talk about when he's coming back. But that was a classic example of what you call a diaspora, which is where people move due to war or due to weather.

Katrina caused Cajun restaurants to be all over America because people left New Orleans and never went back.

Because everything was torn down, the levees broke, the whole place is flooded, it was a mess, and they just said, screw it, I'm out of here.

And consequently, there's Cajuns all over America that weren't planning to be. And, you know, you've got economics, you've got weather, you've got

all kinds of other issues that drive it, but sometimes it's just opportunity. Well, let's not forget, Dave, I'm so glad you took us there.
Let's not forget

the origins of this great nation. Is it really beginning to really explode after colonial times? We're talking about the Statue of Liberty.
You're talking about the Irish,

the Scots, the Italians. I mean, New York is the melting pot that it is because people from across the globe said, we're going to leave family and thousands of years of tradition

to go have an opportunity. So we're asking somebody to leave rural Maine.
Let's not forget how America gets where we are today. It was because people left their homeland.

We're talking countries that have been around forever and said, I'm going for opportunity. And it was desperate.
You're getting on a ship

and going across the Atlantic. I mean, that's.
Yeah, and you may or may not make it. Yeah.
A hundred percent. Absolutely.
That's just real stuff, y'all.

And it's not just picking on Alicia and her husband, but it was just something to talk about. It kind of comes back to this thing, too.
I can't afford a house. Well, where do you live?

I live in San Francisco. Well, of course you can't afford a house.
You have to be in the top 1% of income earners to buy a house in San Francisco right now. I live in downtown Manhattan in New York.

Not unless you make 200 grand, you don't.

You know, you're going to have to be in Abilene, Texas, honey. Hello.
And,

you know, you're going to have to go somewhere where you can afford to live. And so

if you're going to buy a home, you may want to think about a different location for some of you

because the economics don't fit. And you can't just decide, well, I'm in California and they don't really do math here.
I know they don't do math, but that doesn't mean math doesn't work.

Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.
You know, we hear it all the time.

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Today's question comes from Victoria in New Hampshire. My father-in-law started a business many years ago, but hasn't been actively managing it, so my husband and I have been running it.

The three of us are on the company payroll along with our employees. My father-in-law feels the profits should belong to him because he started the business.

We want to include him, but we also need to make wise financial decisions about the money that we, not him, have worked hard to earn and manage.

How can we honor our parents while still being responsible stewards of the business we now run full time?

I had dinner just the other night with our mutual dear friend Henry Cloud, and I can just see boundaries flashing light here. I understand the frustration that we can read into this email.

But the reality is, the father-in-law did, in fact, start the business. He does own it.
He still owns it. You don't own it.
So we don't have clear boundaries,

professional boundaries, as to who does what, why they do it, how they get paid.

It's just kind of you guys have all just been going about your business, and now there's tension because there isn't clearly defined lines.

And without that, if Dave and I were on some of those, one of those goofy judge shows, I'd be going, Look, I get your frustration, but this isn't your business.

So you have very little that you can do here until we sit down with father-in-law and ask for some type of restructuring. At which point, he gets to decide what he's going to do with his business.

Yeah.

Look, we don't want to run it anymore and not be the owners. Yeah.

That's what you're actually saying.

And so

we did not, we took it over just as a favor to you, and we've run it for a while, but we need to go along with our lives and our career.

And so we're going to move on unless we can work something out to where we become the owners of this. But we're not going to continue to work here as employees.

Because that's what you are.

You're not due any of the profits, Victoria.

You're wrong. That's right.
You're wrong.

You don't own it. You work for someone else that

owns the business. And you should have changed that when you walked in the door.
So now you've got to go back and unspill the milk, which is very difficult.

So the conversation is, hey, dad, we came in, we stepped up, we helped you out for a while, but that's not working for us long term

because you keep all the profits and we do all the work.

And so we either want to work out something where over the next little while we become the owners through some process that you feel good about and that we feel good about, or we're going to have to look for a different career and you're going to have to look for a different manager for your business.

And either one of those is okay. But you guys went in here

and

sat on your assumptions.

And your assumptions were that you were going to be the owner. And no one said out loud that you were or weren't.
And so you weren't. Because the title to the business is still in his name.

So he is due 100% of the profits.

He owns the business. You don't own it.
And you have to change that.

Or if you don't change it and don't like the arrangement, you need to move on. Either one of those is fine.
And that's not dishonoring or honoring to your parents.

You have stewardship and honor parents. So I'm sensing a hyper-Christian.
take on this stuff. And it's not dishonoring to parents to have boundaries.

It's not dishonoring to someone to say, I don't want to work here.

When someone leaves Ramsey, it's not dishonoring to me unless they intentionally dishonor me.

But I mean, just the fact that they don't want to work here anymore doesn't mean that I am a awful person or that I'm automatically that they think I'm an awful person.

A lot of times they have something else they want to do that's different. That's all.
And so that's not dishonoring in any way.

You know, there's something there you've just pulled out, that class, how can we honor our parents while still being responsible stewards? Here's the thing.

That is a bit of a self-righteous tone that you can clearly see there. And here's the lesson from this.
Unclear expectations lead to bad relations, right? It just 100% of anger.

Every time, because you had this expectation, your father-in-law had a very different expectation. Nobody got clear about it, at least to write it down and get some concrete steps moving forward.

Dave, you've nailed it here.

You get angry when you expect something you didn't get. That's it.
Yeah, like when you tried to chip shot that shot up onto the green the other day and you missed. Yeah, that's anger right there.

I saw that. That's the frustration.
You expected that to work. Yeah, I saw that.
And it didn't work. Yeah, and I chili dipped it and it went six yards and it's supposed to be a 35-yard shot.

That is my expectations. Number one, being unrealistic.

Let's start, since we're going to teach out of this, I don't play golf enough to be good enough to expect it. That was just an

illustration.

Let's just mix metaphors, an underhand pitch, but yeah. So, all right, yeah, too fun.
So, that's it. Yeah, the secret to happiness is lowered expectations.

And clear ones.

Realistic and clear. That would be your two

attributes. Lisa's in Cleveland.
Hey, Lisa, what's up? Hi, how you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Thank you for taking my call.

I just started listening to you this year, and I'm undertaking student loans for the first time. Good for you.

You mean you're getting ready to pay them or you're taking them out? I'm getting ready to pay them. Oh, good.
Okay. I'm glad.

Starting in January. So I have a plan all laid out, but I just need a little bit of advice.
Okay.

First of all, financial. And then the second of all,

more

spiritual, so it might be a first on this show. So my first question,

financing student loans.

should I refinance them or should I just start paying them off starting

January?

It's 6.25 for both of them. I have a subsidized loan at $29,407.48.

You don't refinance student loans unless you get a better interest rate.

Right. I want a lower one.
And if you get a lower one, you get one time.

One time you can refinance student loans. And so you got to feel really good about the new interest rate that you're going to get.
It's going to be way lower,

and you don't think interest rates are going down, which they might be, by the way. So I would not refinance right now.
I might wait till the end of the year. I'm government insured.

We're talking about federally insured student loans, right?

Right. Yeah.
Okay. So

wait a little towards the end of the year and let's see if rates come on down a little more. So if you've got a six and you can get a four and a half, yeah, let's, you know, let's get a better rate.

Rate's not going to save you. What's your balances?

So for

the subsidized one, it's $29,000 and some change. And for the unsubsidized one, it's $50,000 and some change.
But the total is $79,000 and some change. So 1%

of $79,000 is $700.

So if you save 1% by refinancing, you save $700.

That doesn't go a long way toward paying off $79,000. So the secret sauce is not a lower interest rate to getting out of debt.

The secret sauce is you dumping tons of money on these things and getting rid of them fast. Right.
And that's my goal. So a little bit of backstory.
I'm a traveling CNA certified nursing assistant.

Good.

We don't get paid like the nurses do, but, you know, that's why I started to get a lot of money. So you get paid more than staying at home.
Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, yes.

So I been traveling for eight years. I got these student loans back in my 20s.

I'm much older now,

tagged on about 15 years. And three things really jarred me.
It's just like, come on, you, I mean, listen, you've got to do it. You got to do it.

So I

ended up getting a couple of travel contracts. in New York and I get one that you know pays very well through a hospital nursing home and

I

with with

over time

I take home roughly if I get 16 hours a week I take home about 8,000 something dollars wow that's awesome live on nothing kiddo and dump it on these student loans and clean it up they've been following you around for too long they're not a pet let's a victim Sally Mae is an ugly woman throw her in the street

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Hi, Wilson. How are you?

Hey, good afternoon, dude.

I'm doing all right.

I'm reaching out to you. I've watched a lot of the episodes online.

Give a little backstory. My father passed away in July.
I'm sorry. And

thank you.

He

divided his estate with me and my two sisters. And I had just bought a house in July and maybe two weeks into having the house, daddy passed away.

So my question to you is it's kind of a two-parter. Number one,

I don't want to get rid of my father's house because my two sisters didn't grow up there. I grew up there.
And And that was the house from all my childhood memories.

It's a real sentimental piece to me. My two sisters, however, do want to

just

sell off everything.

It's kind of a big lot too.

Along with dad's house,

there's a house next door that would be my grandma's old house. We're selling that.
And then it's, I guess maybe in total, five, six acres with a working farm, a barn, a detached garage.

So it's a big chunk of land.

So I guess

first off,

my question is,

what would you do if you were in my position on that?

Well, your dad's will dictates that everything be split three ways, and generally that means the assets will be sold off. So

that was pretty much your father's intent.

Okay.

And so I think your sisters are going along with that. Now, what is the house that you grew up in? What's it worth?

We haven't.

Oh, about. About.
Give me a number.

We'll say maybe $600,000. Okay.
What's the grandma's house and barn and so forth worth?

Grandma's house, I would say

we'll say $200,000 just for the house.

And then if you add on the land barn all that you might be looking at maybe 45 500 okay so this is a million dollars worth of property and did your dad have other assets substantial assets

uh

not

no nothing that would really uh stick out on that no sir okay so there's not like two million dollars in exxon stock or something

no no sir no sir he uh because we could give your sisters that and you took the land i mean you could divvy it up three ways and you end up with it.

But basically, most of the larger portion of, almost all of, his estate is these two pieces of property, a million dollars worth, right?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Okay. So

and what is your personal home worth, Wilson?

We'll say right at $300,000. Okay.
And what do you make, sir?

I would say about

$5,500 a month.

My year-to-date right now is

I think I'm right at $70,000. Yeah.

Okay.

So

the math says this.

Yes, sir. That you lost your dad and it breaks your heart.

Yeah. And with that, you're not in a position to buy your childhood home.
And so it's going to be someone else's home now.

Yeah. And you're going to get your memories and your

nostalgia from something other than the family home place.

Yeah.

So my grandmother grew up in a home that was her parents' beforehand. My dad grew up in that home.

And when my grandmother and grandfather passed away, none of the three brothers and sisters, my dad, aunt, and uncle, had any need of that home and several acres, a beautiful old place,

and they sold it. And I was, as one of the grandkids, I was kind of sad.

Yeah. But it also was a very reasonable thing to do for an adult because you go, I mean, what am I going to do?

Move to another town in this old house, old country house, just because it's sentimental? No, I'm not. And it doesn't make sense.
And so it needs to be sold and it needs to be divvied up.

But there's a sadness that goes with that. And you've got that sadness combined with the sadness of losing your dad this year.
And so of a it's kind of the year of heartbreak for you and I'm sorry.

I guess my

leading to the other question I had

once I guess all everything's all sold and you know say I get my my portion whatever check cut today what would in your opinion what would be a good

investment opportunity for me like

do you have a mortgage on your home sir

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Yeah, I'd pay it off.

Okay.

You have any other debt? All right.

No, my

personal

truck, I paid that off last year.

And my fiancé,

we've already got the wedding paid for. Everything's coming up in May.

And let me encourage you. Oh, congratulations on that, Bob.

That's good news. So a new fresh start and everything.
And let me encourage you this.

I don't think your sisters are bad people.

I don't want you to have ill will towards them because they're just doing what your dad said to do.

Yeah.

It's not, you know, none of y'all are going to live in that house. You can't afford to.
And so they're liquidating it and splitting it three ways. And that's...

That's what he, that's how he had set up his life.

And so they're not doing anything wrong, sir. So the last thing I want you to do is lose your dad, lose the house, and then lose relationship with your sisters, too.

Yeah, Wilson, I'm just sitting here listening. I want you to reframe this.

Your dad, in his generosity, is essentially paying for your first home for you to get started in your new life with your new wife.

This is a blessing.

Huge.

I think that's truly what you need to do is go, man, my dad. He left me and my sisters with enough for me to start my life debt-free, essentially.
Wow. That's a big deal.

And you can become very, very wealthy as a result of that.

Your fiancé's income combined with yours and no house payment and no payments. I mean, you're going to be making $100 and something thousand dollars a year between the two of you or more.

And you're young. And, yeah.
But also, it's okay to just say out loud that this hurts and it's sad.

And

I don't like it,

but I do like the future that he gave you. So I'm going to go with that.
That's a good reframe, Ken. I like that.
And, you know, you got this barn and all this.

You know, before you sell it, is there something nostalgic from the house or the barn that you take to your sisters and you go, hey, I'd like to take this? And you can take something with you. Sure.

You know, and honestly, truthfully, if you're going to have something nostalgic, it ought to be a little smaller.

Yeah. Yeah.
It's exactly right.

I always think of a cool sign in the barn. I got my grandma's Bible.
I don't have her house. Okay.

That's easier to carry around.

That's true.

So, yeah. And I got my grandpa's gun, and that's easier to carry around, right? And so,

which is kind of how we did things. She had the Bible, he had the gun.

But that's, yeah, wow. And so,

yeah, look for nostalgic things like that because memories are not in real estate. Dirt.
or bricks and mortar and real estate can trap you with emotions.

It's family dirt that's generationally been there.

I've seen some of the worst decisions in my life made, watched people make some of the worst decisions in the name of the emotions of generational family dirt.

And man, you can just get trapped in the emotions of that. When the old man that bought it originally would have never wanted that.
Right.

You know, now, you know, the great-grandpa in this case or whatever, or my great-great-grandpa would have not wanted us to do something stupid with that piece of ground I was talking about a minute ago.

Yeah. And in the name of family dirt.
Because it was just something he bought. You know, it wasn't family dirt before he bought it.
So somebody's now somebody else's family dirt.

So let's just, there we go. Hey, Wilson, there's a lot of good can come from this.
You and your sisters can be closer, get a good fresh start, and

it's okay to say that I'm sad about it.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of Front Row Seat, Ramsey Network's runaway hit.

He's my co-host. I'm Dave Ramsey.
The phone number here is 888-825-5225.

Merry Christmas, America. We're glad you're here.
Ryan is with us in Salt Lake City. Hey, Ryan, what's up in your world?

Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken.
Thanks for taking my call. My wife and I are in baby step seven with a net worth of about $1.6 million.

I'm calling because I have a plan to leave my corporate job for my side hustle and I kind of need a sanity check.

I just want to know if I'm being a fool to trade security for independence or, you know, or is this exactly what Baby Step 7 is for? Well, give us the numbers. I love this question.

Tell us what your income is and your corporate job. Okay, so I make close to 200,000 a year right now.
And the side hustle, this is not great.

Consistently, it's about 2,000 a month that I bring in net. And that has been over the course of two years, a consistent

thousand that we can count on. What is that?

So it's just buying and selling abandoned storage units. I tried the first one as kind of a hobby, and now my wife calls this my hobby jobby.
And I buy five or six a year, so it's really not a lot.

And I've just done this in my spare time. Yeah, this is just above a hobby.
She's right. Right.

So how old are you? I'm 44.

How old is she?

She's 39. What does she make?

So up until about four months ago, she only had part-time jobs and worked in the home. But starting in September, she got a full-time job as a teacher, her dream job that she's always wanted to do.

And now she's making about $4,000 a month net. So she's netting $4,000.
And what do you do? How does her job? What's your career? So I'm a software developer.

Okay.

The answer is no.

Because we always answer, what would we do if we were in your shoes?

Would I walk away from a $200,000 date for a $24,000 hobby? Not at $44,000. No.

You still got a lot of earning potential. I think there's still a transition.
I think you need a better side hustle.

And let me just tell you my rule of thumb on when do we leave a full-time job to a side hustle, just so that you have some context, because you're not there.

But I would want a minimum of six to 12 months of my my income. And in your case, that's $200,000.

I would want six to 12 months of that in the retained earnings is what we call it here in the company, the side hustle's bank account, before I even thought about moving out.

But in your case, I don't even think that's the right

because this is hard to scale some percentage of your income. It's a hard to scale business.
If you had a side hustle that was $150,000, you know, you could make that jump.

Yeah, that's fair.

But here's the thing. Going from

you said software engineer. Is that what you said? Yes, sir.
From software engineer to junk dealer is probably not my plan.

There's probably a middle ground here. I liked what you said from corporate world to independence.

Let's talk about that. And how can we maybe be a software engineer freelance,

start doing some consulting contracts, and you decide who and when you want to work for and all that kind of stuff. And maybe you make $250 doing that.
I don't know.

You don't necessarily have to go down uh but you got your independence and you can set your hours and and do some of that stuff sounds like you got a pitch i want to hear this out a little bit more because i do have a follow-up question go ahead i know you want to say something

uh i if if i could push back just a little bit uh about two years ago i was ready to just jump and leave the corporate world I was burnt out and I still am and I felt like I could barely hold on.

I found something that I could gravitate towards and something that I loved and was passionate about and something that I felt really proud that I had built and bootstrapped from a $500 initial investment to something that consistently makes $2,000 a month in cash.

And we also planned two years ago. I knew I couldn't jump then.
It would be ridiculous to try and say that I can replace a $200,000 a year income ever. But that's not what I want.

Why would I don't want to pile up money in a bank account just to have $10 million when I retire if I'm not happy?

And my soul felt like it had been sucked out of my body. Totally get it.
Let me ask you a quick question on that.

What would you say is the greatest source of your burnout? Is it people? Is it the environment? Is it the workload? Those are usually the big three. What is it for you?

Yeah, I would say it's the corporate nonsense and the lack of independence, that there's just so much in my life. None of those mean you have to make less to be happy.

I know, but does it mean that I need to make more or the same to be happy? If I can be content? No, but it's just, but to automatically assume less equals happy is

not a proper framework. Yeah.
I understand. All right, let me ask you another question.
I'm very happy, and I make a lot more.

Yeah, I'm sure. What has to happen, Ryan? You've done this long enough to know something about this business.
If you gave it 40 hours a week, what do you anticipate the income becoming?

I thought about this a lot. I know.
And I've had, so here's my plan. So

the best month that I've had was $6,000 in

net profit.

And that was from buying multiple lockers instead of having to space them out so much because I had more spare time to do it. I have a sabbatical coming up because I do have a great corporate job.

It's very cushy.

I have a sabbatical that comes up for having worked at the same company for 15 years and I have six weeks off in March.

I want to take that six weeks and I want to bust my butt and put my nose to the grindstone and see what I can do putting 40 hours, 50, 60 hours a week. What do you think you can do?

What do you think you can do?

I think that I could average $6,000 a month and I could have

breakout months of 10. Okay, so I'm going to tell you something.
After hearing your cause of burnout, and I'm on your team, but I'm going to give you some tough love.

That is a mindset issue that you actually can control. I didn't hear toxic environment.
I didn't hear a jerk boss. I heard cushy job.
So I'm going to tell you what's going on.

You can control your desire.

And your desire is to be independent. I love it, but I'm going to tell you this right now.
I love the six-week sabbatical. Do not quit your job right now.
This is the advice I would give to myself.

Let's prove out this hypothesis in the six weeks, weeks, but let's not immediately quit if that goes well. And I think you need to change your mindset starting today.

That, yes, what's really going on in this burnout is

I'm spending all my time thinking about my desired future and I'm not willing to be patient. to get to that desired future in a much better way.

And I think you're just so ready to leave and be your own guy that you're missing what is a phenomenal platform by which to step into that desired future.

I think you can step into it too soon and talk yourself into making less money because I just want to be happy. I think you need to be wise.
I think more wisdom, less happy is the mindset right now.

Yeah.

I'm a little bit afraid. No, I'm a lot afraid that you've confused the freedom that you feel doing this business.
with an actual passion for the business. Yeah.

You're just spinning its own junk. I mean it's okay, but it's not exactly like you're changing the world or there's passion.
Where's the passion come from?

The passion comes from you're independent and you're controlling your own destiny and that's where you're getting your passion from. It's not the actual actions.

And I think you can do that in a way that is better for your family at 44 years old than $24,000 a year.

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Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcasts, click the link in the description. Cindy's in Dallas.
Hi, Cindy. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Thank you.
Sure. What's up?

So I have two paid-off vehicles:

an 06 Honda Odyssey and a 2010 Chevy Traverse.

But I keep having so many repairs. I don't make a lot each month.
I'm a single parent. Why do you have two cars?

Well, they each keep breaking down. Do you have a spare?

Yeah.

Do you have a teenager?

No.

Okay. It's me and kids.
How old are the kids?

They're all 10 and under, three of them. So you don't really need two cars?

My problem is

whenever one breaks down, I use the other, but they both have so many. Well, what if you sold them both and piled the money together and got a good car?

I don't know that anyone would give me a whole lot for both. I don't want to end up back where I'm at.
Like, one needs a timing chain, and the other,

it's been leaking oil.

I just, I feel like I don't have enough to get a decent

problem. How do you know?

I've asked around for people to buy the worst cars. Who'd you ask?

I've asked two different mechanics, a dealer. You ask a mechanic to buy your car.
Well, he sells these cars. I bet he does, which means he buys yours cheap and resells it for a profit.

Bad information.

Okay, I want you to take these cars and look them up on KellyBlueBook, kbb.com, private sale. I think you have a $3,000 car and a $5,000 car.
That's what I think.

And I think that's $8,000, and then you go get an $8,000 car. Do you have any money at all?

I have some, but I've put thousands into.

How much do you have in money?

I have about $2,000. Okay.
All right. And so if you got $8,000 out of these two cars and put your last $2,000 with it, you could buy a $10,000 car.
Do you have any family in the area?

Some.

What?

I have some. What's some? Who?

My parents. Okay.
You say that with great enthusiasm.

How old are you?

I'm 34. Okay.

How long have you been by yourself, kid?

Three years.

Is there a large church, what we call mega church, or good-sized church, or multiple good-sized churches in your area? Sure. She's in Dallas.

Yeah, there's a large church. Okay, here's what I want you to do.
Because you're a single mom, and I'm not saying these churches all have it,

but I know several churches in our area have a program where they help single moms that have automobile issues.

So that could be a free mechanic to get this timing belt changed to then be able to sell, as Dave has been.

My point is, I want you to know that there is some real possibilities for help, but you've got to know that as a single mom, there are people out there that want to help you with the car.

They may give you, there's a large church that Dave and I go to. We give cars away to single moms.

You've got to be okay asking for help here because it feels like if we can fix this car situation, this is going to take a huge lid of stress off of you. Am I right?

Yeah, it would be a lot better. Are you willing to show up and say, I need help?

I've applied to one of their programs. I didn't hear back from that one.
I'm sorry about that, but I would show up. Call them again.

Prove to them that you aren't a deadbeat, which you're not, and that you're taken care of. Let them know who you are.

You applied to a program with a church?

Yes. Yeah, usually there's some type of.
Oh, and they didn't call back?

I mean, they have something where you have to call in at 6 in the morning and you have to go through an application for them to

one family. Let's go.

You're in a desperate situation. Let's get up at 5 a.m.
for that.

I have applied to increase my VA disability. I'm hoping that that will be a good thing.
You completely sidestep the suggestion.

Yes. You need to go do what Ken's telling you to do.

And then when you get ready to sell these two cars, I would ask that you get your brother or your dad or one of the gentlemen from a local church to go with you in the sale and in the repurchase to help you select something in the repurchase.

Not that you're not able to, but you want another set of eyes looking at the mechanical ability so you don't buy another problem.

Okay? Yes. And you might even get it inspected before you buy it.
So if you could find a $10,000 car

from

a grandmother that is selling it on a garage sale, And you probably could get a very good car for that kind of money right now. And you probably can put that money together from these two vehicles.

You may have to go through that church program at 5 o'clock in the morning that Ken's talking about, get that timing belt changed and cause all this to happen.

But what you're doing has to change because what you're doing is not working. Would you agree with that?

Yes, it's impossible to save and keep

it. And you're getting tired and you're by yourself and you're getting the crud beat out of you by this situation.
I can feel the fatigue in your voice. I'm sorry.

But you're tough. You are a tough lady.
You're a warrior princess. And you can fight through this, but you're going to have to start making some big moves to get these.
These cars need to be gone.

A spare, because both of them suck, is not a plan.

Yeah, I've been trying to follow what you said about buying in cash. and I bought the van in June for $675, and I knew it needed some repairs, but it just keeps needing repairs.

Well, we've never told anybody to buy a $675 van.

We have, but I didn't tell her that.

Have you really?

I guess I think she is in that range.

Yeah, no, listen, keep your head up. Listen, get your head up.
Here's what I need you to know. That there are people who are willing to help you.

And you have got to swallow. I'm not saying you're prideful at all, but we all have have it.
I think you've got to show up and say, will you help me?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we've got some pretty good connections there. I agree.

I'm not going to name their names on the air, but we'll make some calls for you there and see if we can help you get tied into a good local church and see if they can walk you through some help, okay?

Because you need some help.

And I'm going to ask you to ask your dad, it sounds like that's not a comfortable relationship, but to ask him to help you select the next thing and get rid of these two so that you can get into a decent car.

And maybe I'm wrong. If you bought it for $6.75, you might not have $8,000 worth of vehicles.
I'm probably wrong on my math.

But yeah, the thing is, we've got to get the two of these put together with a little money and some wisdom and get you into something where cars are not consuming your life anymore, hon.

So you hang on. Christian's going to pick up and he'll get you with our church guys.

We have a department that works with churches.

Christian, you can put her with Josh and he'll help her find somebody that's got a car program there in Dallas. There's a bunch of them that do, I'm sure.
I don't want to name any of them.

I know a bunch of them, but I don't want to name them on there and put them on the spot. But we'll take care of her.
Make sure she's okay.

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Taylor is with us in Houston, Texas. Merry Christmas, Taylor.
How are you?

Well, maybe if I push the button, Taylor would be there. Hi, Taylor.
How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing great.
How are you, sir? Better than I deserve.

I see on my screen, you're a baby steps millionaire. Congratulations.
Thank you very much. So, how much is your net worth, sir? $1.1 million.
Very cool. How old are you? 32.
Oh, wow. Young one.

Good for you. And what's the breakdown of your 1.1 million? How's it invested? Well, it's pretty simple, Dave.
I've got $570,000 in my 401k. I've got $125,000 in my Roths IRA.

$170,000 in taxable.

My home's worth about $250,000. And I've got about $20,000 in cash.
Good for you. Well done.
Well done. And what do you do for a living? I'm a union electrician.
Ah, very good. Good for you.

What's your wife do? I'm single. I'm not married.
Ah, okay. And you did all this by 32.
Did you inherit anything? No, sir. Not a penny.
Zero inheritance.

So you're an electrician at 32 years old, and you've got a $1.1 million net worth. I think that kind of rests our case on the trades, doesn't it?

Yes, sir. How old were you when you started?

20.

Okay, so 12 years. Yes, sir.
You paid off the house and stacked the 401k.

Yes, sir. I paid off my house about three months ago, actually.
Wow, good for you. How does that feel, man?

Did you ever think when you started as an electrician at 20 years old that you were going to be a millionaire at 32?

No, I definitely didn't think that it was going to be possible. It was always a dream, but I started listening to you about 10 years ago and set myself the goal to

achieve becoming a millionaire and being able to be on your radio show. And here we are.
Wow, look at that, man. Congratulations.
Thank you. So you have a

what did you do? An apprenticeship or did you get some kind of a certification degree or what

so I actually got a scholarship out of high school from a local plant that I really wanted to work at and they put me through a two-year associate's degree program and after I finished that I was lucky to get hired on there and I did go through a three-year apprenticeship program with them and then

So, and ever since then, it's just been

just staying steady and being consistent. So, So what was your starting income when you started all that?

My first year, I've been very blessed. My first year was $95,000.
Okay. And what do you make now?

About $200,000, $210,000.

Okay.

As an electrician. Oh, I love this call.
This makes me so happy.

Incredible. Incredible.
How's it feel to be at this point at 32 years old? You ever look at that and go, wow?

Well, I I do.

It doesn't really feel any different as far as how I've always felt, but

it is a nice milestone to reach. And

I just look forward to just continuing to save and invest and see what other goals I can reach.

You think it can still be done if somebody's listening right now and they're 20 and they started an apprenticeship program, an associate's degree, and move out an electrician.

You think that can still be done in America? Absolutely. 100%.

What'd you pay for your house?

242.

Okay.

In Houston, Texas.

Yes, sir. I'm about an hour outside of Houston.
I'm in more of a rural area.

What's the area? Yes, sir.

Bay City. Okay.
Yeah, I know Bay City. All right.
Do you have any... So does 242 buy a pretty decent house in Bay City, Texas right now?

Yes, sir. I would say so.
It's a three-bed, two-bath, 2,000 square feet in a nice neighborhood, quiet, established neighborhood. So

I think that addresses the affordability concerns we're here.

Yes, sir.

Definitely. Question, do you have plans or have you allowed yourself to wonder about owning your own business as an electrician?

Or what do you think about professionally now that you've been in this field for, let's call it, 10, 12 years?

I have thought about it. I've thought about what other opportunities I could get get into as far as additional income streams.

What have you identified? Not saying you're going to do it, but what have you identified? Because I want our audience to hear what these options might be.

Well, one of them is I've kind of always been interested in owning maybe an RV park. We're kind of in a big industrial area where I'm at.
There's a lot of plants and a lot of industry around.

And it seems like the RV parks are always full, just constant, constant visitors and contractors, workers coming through. So that was always something that I've been interested in.

And that cash position and no debt sets you up to be able to do that. All right.
I have another question.

For parents that are listening right now and they've got a kid who has either said something about it or maybe they wonder if their kid is a college kid

and maybe they're feeling cultural pressure about that.

If their kid's handy, a little bit leans towards some of the skill sets that could work in a trade, but they're worried about the perception of that, not going to a four-year school.

What would you say to those parents?

I would say there's some excellent opportunities in the trades.

It's a very respected career in the area. You have a skill set that you can keep for life.
I mean, you can take the skills you learn in the trades and you can take them anywhere.

And we need a lot of tradespeople in this country.

There's just some great opportunities for earning and for stability in those careers. Yeah.
Well, Taylor, we're proud of you, man. Congratulations.
So happy for you. Excellent, excellent work, man.

Baby Steps Millionaires, listening to us at 20 years old, goes and becomes an electrician.

$1.1 million net worth, $250,000 paid-for home that's 2,000 square feet, three bedrooms in the Houston, Texas area. And $625,000 in retirement accounts, Dave, at 32.
Yeah.

That's just going to turn into millions. It's going to be, you know, he's going to have $40 or $50 million if he doesn't watch what he's doing.

It's going to get out of control. That's pretty wild.
That's just bizarre. At 32 freaking years old.

Starting out making $95,000 after apprenticeship and moves into $200,000 a year.

So there's your answer. And you know what they didn't have?

$350,000 in student loan debt and a parent-plus loan. That's a fact.
That's what he didn't have.

And so,

oh, they gave the place he went to work gave the scholarship for him to get an associate's for free. Exactly right.

Let's just track this a minute, okay?

And this is a different way of thinking about things.

Again, we're not against higher education, but we are both very excited that the trades are exploding in America and Made in America starting to be a thing again. And that's a good thing.

There's a bazillion of these things. We need to clip this call and send it to our friend Mike Rowe.
He'll love this call.

I almost said if we fund it to three-way call, Mike in here, and he would be so excited. He would have been cheering Taylor on.
Here's something, by the way, out of the news.

In the next 15 to 20 years, the federal government is predicting that they will have to hire as many as 600,000 electricians. The federal government will? The federal government.
To do what?

Government contracts, you know, like of defense. Electric chairs for the IRS agents.
I mean, what do you got? I'm just telling you. 600 over

federal employees to do work on federal buildings, federal. And I'm just pointing it out that the need is that big.
And whether or not they're going to do that or not is not the issue.

I don't want you to get lost in the massive number there. But the idea here is that...
You get lost in the massive government spending is what I'm going to say.

I know, but the point is, and again, I'm not trying to drive to federal work, but I'm saying that the need for the tradesmen, and Mike's been saying this, you've been saying it, I've been saying this,

there is going to be a massive amount of

tradesmen who are retiring. And the need is massive, which means that the pay scale is going to be very, very good.
And this young man, Taylor, not doing a bad example, not doing $200,000.

He's doing better than most lawyers. Yeah.

And no law school loans. Yeah.

There's so many jokes there.

So many jokes. Lawyer jokes.
My favorite.

Yeah.

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Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 21 and 5, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance.

I'm going to say that again.

The plans

of the diligent.

By the way, diligence is excellence in the ordinary over time.

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty

comes only to poverty.

Ronald Reagan said the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things.
Rudy is in Sacramento, California.

Hey, Rudy, what's up in your world?

Life is good, and that verse is amazing. I'm going to give you an example of it for my wife and I.
We recently moved to the Sacramento area to be near our children and our grandchildren.

And

so I took a job with a public agency. And we currently have in our retirement accounts $1,080,000.
Wow. And the equity in our home is about maybe $600,000.
Good for you. About $300,000.
So

I've been doing your principles for 25 years.

Good for you. And so you're talking about your retirement accounts from before in your other job, right? That you've rolled over.
All my other jobs combined. I've rolled them over in IRAs.

I have Roth IRAs. I have an SP 500 index account.
Good. So I maxed everything out.
We're actually closer to 20% of our investments. Wow.

Of our income. So no debt, just our mortgage.

I take cash for cars.

I only buy used cars.

Excellent. So here's the

56. Way Way to go, man.
You did good.

We've been working our butts off. And it's, you know, your wife ought to make a, by the way, on a side note, your wife should make a recipe book on beans and rice and rice and beans.

There's some good stuff out there.

Except that we never really ate it. It's just a metaphor.

I know. I know.

So listen, the public agency that I got a job with, they have a retirement plan. I put in 3%, goes into a 457B pre-tax.
They match it with a 3%

match that goes into a 401A with a vesting period of 10 years. I'm not going to be here in 10 years.
And then it gets worse. The money goes into a variable annuity.

I'm wondering if I ought to just stick to doing what I've been doing and forget their retirement plan. What do you think? Well,

you're not going to get the match because you're not going to be there. I'm not going to be there.
So the only thing you've got is just a 457, which is just deferred comp.

That's all it is. So it's, you know, you're avoiding taxation for a short period of time, is all you're doing.

Yeah.

Hmm.

I mean, I

maxed out $548 a month, whatever it is each to each of us. I'm maxing out the IRA at $23,500, and then I have a bunch of money going into the S ⁇ P 500 index fund that I have.

You can't put money anywhere else. You know what? That's exactly what I would do, is what you're doing.
I'm with you. I would avoid this thing.
Because

what you've laid out is excellent work on what you're already doing. And, of course, the 600 that you already, you said 600 in retirement now, right?

No, I have 1,080,000. Oh, I missed that.
I'm sorry. I got it wrong.
$1,080,000.

I have about maybe $600,000 in equity. Yeah, that's what it was.
That's what it was. Okay, so that million, you're 56,000.

When you're 63, will be 200.

Yeah, we've been planning for 63 for 28 years. It's 2 million.
And then when you're 70, it'll be 4 million. And that's if you add nothing to it all.

And the house, I mean, you'll have it paid off in short order. I would be chunking it on the house and in that index fund.

Now, here's the comparison on the index fund because you're at baby step seven. You've maxed out any reasonably good retirement.
You're avoiding this bad retirement thing.

And so that brings up a whole nother discussion. You're not at baby step seven.
You've got that

mortgage left. Okay, I'm going to change it.
I'm going to throw it on the mortgage.

All extra goes on the mortgage. I'm going to call the mortgage company, and I asked them if I send them $5,200 a a month, when would I have my house paid off? And they said December 12, 2032.

I don't care what they said. I'm throwing it on the mortgage.
I want that mortgage gone. The sooner it is gone, the faster this whole thing explodes.

And the more it can, it's already on a great trajectory, and it's going to increase the trajectory. Now,

having said that, and that's really what I would do if I were you. Let's stop and explain why I said I like the index fund in your situation.
Because here's the thing.

If you've maxed out all retirement, and we're going to set aside the bad one as

not even there, okay? But if you're maxing out all Roth IRAs and everything that's available to you and you're throwing money at the mortgage, if you put money

in an annuity, a variable annuity, not the one you're talking about, but just did that, it's going to grow, but it's going to be taxed at ordinary income when you take it out. What you put

in an index fund,

it's a low turnover fund, so there's almost no turnover so there's almost no taxation on it until you pull it out and if you leave it alone one year or longer you qualify for capital gains so you're only going to be taxed at 15 percent rather than at 37 percent

yeah that's what i've been my cpa told me that too yeah so it's a great you got a good cpa so it's a great um

you know the s p is a great place to park money because it's a low turnover ratio fund but i want that house paid off would you say you're making household income?

I'm at 120. My wife's at 60, so 180.
180. Okay.

Yeah. $5,260,000 a year.
Yeah. We're trying to get aggressive.
We're going back to the beans and rice and rice week. I wouldn't go that far back.
There's no reason to go crazy.

You're not intense. You're just intentional.
And I'm just saying, okay, I'm going to have a life. And then beyond that, do I put money in additional investments or do I put it on the house?

I put it on the house. That's all I'm saying.
You're at baby steps four, five, and six. That's right where you are.

Four and six because your kids are grown. But yeah.
So well done, Rudy. Congratulations.
Another millionaire we talked to that became a millionaire because of doing the stuff we teach. Yeah.

And again, good, good income, not insane income. You know, just really consistent for a long period of time.
It's what the scripture led off to. Exactly.
And he said, I model that, and he did.

That's exactly right. Diligent, prosper.
Joe's in Toledo. Hey, Joe, what's up?

Hey, what's going on, Dave? How's it going? Great, man. How can we help?

Hey, man, just got a question.

So my wife and I, so we're avid followers of your program. We just actually

diligently paid off about 58K in debt. We sold our house.
We could do that. We rent now.

And boy, let me tell you, that was a lot. But we could finally breathe right now.

So my wife has a good job. She's a nurse practitioner.

She works works nine to five home with the boys. I got four part-time jobs,

and I'm only making around 30K. Well, what's your career figure? I mean, what are you trying to build a career in?

Well,

I'm passionate about audio production and stuff like that.

I don't care what you're passionate about. I asked what you were trying to build a career in.

I don't know yet. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Okay. I'm trying to figure that out.
You have more sucking part-time jobs. Okay.

Yeah.

All right, Kim. Yeah, you know, when I meet somebody like you, we have very limited time, so we got to cut right through here.
So I want you to give me the heart answer, not think about this.

What would you try

if you knew you couldn't fail and you knew you could do something else? You couldn't make $100,000 a year. Yeah.
Just what's at the top of the heart there? What is it? Oh, man. Say it.
Songwriter.

That's it. Okay.
Now, so here's what we know. It's very, very hard to make it as a songwriter.
I've got several friends that are some of the best songwriters in Nashville. They're amazing.

So we got to then step back and go, okay, that's what we would try for Couldn't Fail, but I love music. There's a theme between the audio engineering, the songwriter.
Yeah. There's a theme there.

Okay.

So again, to Dave's point, we got to work our way to this ultimate job. But right now, four jobs equaling $30,000 a year, it's not going to cut it.

So I'm going to give you my book, The Proximity Principle. That's my gift to you.
But you've got to figure out what can I. I'm finding the work you're wired to do.
That's right.

We'll give you the assessment as well. But the proximity principle first is: all right, who do I know in this field?

Just the music field, that I can sit with and see what a clear path might look like.

This is just for the long term, but in the short term, you've got to stop working four jobs and find a job, a job, maybe two,

that now we're making 60.

Let's make more money in the short term while we figure out what our plan is for the long term.

That's the progression here. So hang on the line.

Take the assessment from find the work you're wired to do. I think it's going to help you out a lot.
That puts us Hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.