Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Paycheck to Purpose, and host of the Ken Coleman Show is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, as a reminder, Ken's show is all about career and all about job and all about finding work that you're passionate about, good about, and creative about. Yeah, so he can help you with all that too while we're here. Again, phone number triple eight, 825-5225. James starts this hour in Canada. Hi, James, how are you?

I'm doing very well. Better than I deserve. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve, sir. What's up?

This is an honor to talk to you. I am such a fan of the show.

Well, I'm honored to talk to you. How can we help?

I just have a quick question. Me and my wife are planning to get out of debt as soon as possible. I just have a question that's been lingering on my mind. I have some investments, about $5,000 Canadian in some ETFs. I'm just wondering if I should sell my investments to pay off debt.

Okay, what debt have you got?

I have a line of credit that's about $19,000. We also have some credit card debt and a car loan as well.

How much do you owe on your credit card?

My credit card itself is about $13,000.

Okay, so there's an old rule that I've twisted around a little bit and used the rule because it's a decision making framework that's helped me a bunch. It comes from the Harvard Investment newsletter. The guy in there says when you made an investment and let's say you bought a stock at $100 a share and it went down to $75 a share, okay? You're about to lose. You're going to lose money if you sell it while it's down. But you really don't think it's ever going to come up. It's a crummy company. It's probably going to go on down. But you're waiting on it to at least come back to where what you paid for it. His point is what you paid for it doesn't matter. All that matters is the future of the stock. From $75, what's it going to do? Go up or down. What he says is don't analyze it based on what you paid for it. That's called a sunk cost analysis. Now, that's an investment process. Now, I flip that and I use it in situations like yours or other situations like I'm in as well. Sometimes if you own something and you reverse engineer it, it tells you what you should do instantly.

Let me give it to you in this way. Let's pretend you didn't have $13,000 in credit card debt, but you had $8,000 in credit card debt, and you did not have a $5,000 ETF. Would you go borrow an additional 5,000 on your credit cards to invest into an ETF? Well, crud, no. No. I mean, we can answer that instantly, can't we? That sounds stupid when you say it that way, doesn't it? But all that is the reverse of your question. If you would not borrow 5,000 more on your credit cards in order to buy an ETF, we would instantly cash out the ETF to pay 5,000 down on the credit cards because it's the same difference, just backwards.

Yeah, you know what? When you say it like that, it's very obvious.

Sometimes we get paralyzed by these decision-makers because we're stuck in the moment rather than in the reverse. You can do it with a boat. If you got a boat sitting in the driveway that's worth $10,000, you go, If I had $10,000 in the middle of my kitchen table, would I go buy a boat just like that if I didn't have that boat? Well, crud, no. We hadn't used the thing in five years. I'm tired of it. It takes up space. I'm paying insurance on it. It's going down in value. Or we use it every weekend. The kids love that boat. Of course, I would go buy that boat if I had $10,000 and I didn't have that boat. Well, then you keep the boat then. But if you go, Well, no, I would never buy that boat again, then it's way past time to sell that boat. You just reverse engineer it, and it tells you what to do in these situations. Ken does it with a job, don't you? You could go and go, I hate my job. Well, if you didn't have this job today, would you take this job? Lord, no. Then why are you still working there?

It's so true. People say, Should I stay or should I go? I said, Well- Just the.

Fact that you're answering the question.

Yeah, we need to go. Yeah, you wouldn't stay if I had a job waiting for you today. That's absolutely right. It's a great analogy.

That's how I'm going to tell you. But more importantly is the why or the process we use to make the decision, James, it tells us instantly with a little bit of reverse engineering. Now, that's why we tell people not to take money out of a retirement plan because there's a big penalty and a big tax in order to put the money into your credit card. It's going to hit you in the states. It would hit you about 40% between penalties and taxes. That's like saying, Dave, would I borrow money at 40% interest to pay down on my debt? Well, crap, no, that's dumb. We're not doing that. That's why we tell you not to cash out retirement, but yes to cash out the ETF.

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. In this case, huge momentum coming out of this decision as well.

I think, Ken, that the great resignation that we just came through after the Fauci pandemic, everybody quit their jobs because they wanted to have a better life, was caused a little bit by that. But even the great regret by people wishing they didn't quit their jobs is also caused by that, isn't it? It's all the... It was more emotion-driven, impulse-driven than it was thinking, Okay, I don't want to live this way.

That's exactly right. Well, we're trying to get the quick fix. The quick fix was I'm going to leave a company where I'm valued, and I actually enjoy the work, and I'm going to go over here for a 15% raise. Then they got there and it wasn't what they thought and the raise wore off the high. There's a decision like, Oh, I make a decision and I get ahead quick. You feel like you've gained the system. Then they're there for three months. This place sucks, and that's what you call The Great Regret. By the way, what Dave talked about, folks, we're talking to millions of workers. Millions. Millions who said, I wish I had stayed at my previous company. This is not a little trend. This was a major wave of people. Again, we were trying to game the system and get the quick fix, and you realize, Oh, I would have been better off staying where I am. I'd be happier, more fulfilled. That affects my anxiety, depression, which affects my sleep, my physical life, my relationship life with my wife, my kids. If I'm dragging all that crap from work, home with me, and I didn't get that much of a behavior change.

To this point, if you took a 15% raise to try to pay off credit card debt or to pay off, Well, I could live more, and you just kept spending. By the way, Dave, that's what we've seen right now in our economy, we just got the latest reports out. The GDP is up because the consumers in America are spending like Congress, and credit card debt is going up with it. We've got to take control of our spending, take control of our habits, and getting out of debt, back to this call, and not just chasing the next big thing. It's the discipline to say, I'm going to change my life, change the way I act, and those are going to guide my decisions, not the next big quick fix to feel like I just gained the system. Change who you are.

More money to get in a worse place, wears off in about 20 minutes. Really fast. Yeah, you get a career hangover from that one.

Yeah. Then you try to drown it out with credit card.

Debt.ouch. It's funny how that works. Not James. James is going to pay down his credit card with an ETF. This is The Ramsey Show. I say it all the time, debt is dumb and cash is king. But when it comes to life insurance, cash value is crap. Cash value life insurance is a high-cost product with little to no return on your so-called investment. The main benefit is fat commission checks for your agent. Term life from Xander Insurance is a much better way to protect your family's future. Xander shops the top companies to find you the most affordable term-life rates. Then you can use what you save compared to those cash value premiums to really build wealth. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282 to learn more today. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host. Open phones at triple-8-825-525. Jaden is in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Jaden, how are you? Pretty good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

My income has drastically increased in this last year, and I'm trying to find out if I should buy a house soon with three and a half % down, or if I should wait and put down the 20 %.

Okay, tell me your story. What's happening?

I was just working regular jobs, not making too much money a year. Then I got offered a job where now I make 120 grand a year. I'm only 19 years old. I was living in my van this job. I do have housing, but I have a fiancé at home who's still living in the van with our pups. That's why I'm trying to figure out if I should put down three and a half %, get her out of the van, or if I should wait and put down 20 %.

Okay. You go from a van to housing is furnished, but they won't let your fiancé stay there?

No, because I can't talk about why I do too much, but I just work with individuals that just need some extra help. I'm away from home for two weeks at a time. I'm with another person in the room and they can't come along with me.

I see. Okay.

Why is renting not an option in this? You've given us two extremes, I feel like. You're going from a van to buying your first house. Congratulations on the income. But why is renting on your own not a part of this equation?

The renting is only out of the equation because where I live.

Rent is.

Very high. I understand I make a lot of money, but I really like to save my money because I've been watching you for a while and spending money, it just makes me not feel good. I have a big dog, and with the big dog, a lot of places won't let me in. Then I'd be looking at paying two grand plus for housing. That I'm just not really too fond of. We've been living in the van now for almost two years, so they're comfortable in it. She would be all right waiting until.

20th of December. You're comfortable in the van with a giant dog?

Yeah, well, it's like an RV van. It's a van, but it's an RV, so it's all fitted out like an RV. We're outside people. Usually, we're outside. The puppy is like, the dog, he's pretty.

Good in the van. Yeah, Jaden, when Sharon and I got married, I refused to move into an apartment because I had two big dogs that I loved. One was half-malmute and the other one was a firedog, was it? Dalmatian? The Dalmatian didn't like people and the Malmute didn't like animals. I was a 22-year-old genius, and I moved into a rental property instead of moving into an apartment. The first week, the Dalmatian bit a jogger and the Malmute ate the neighbor's cat. I had decided I was not going to be able to keep my large dogs that I love because they were going to cause me to lose everything I owned, even though I love dogs more than just about most humans. But I had to give away those dogs, and I had rented a property, a particular property, nothing to do with my wife's needs or my needs, but the needs of the dogs. They didn't make it three weeks. I tell you that story to say, Sir, I'm an old man, and so I'm going to give you old man advice. Don't make decisions about where you live based on a dog, ever. Don't make decisions about where you make your fiancé live in a van, ever.

If she's your fiancée, let's set a date, get married, and go rent an apartment, or go find a place in the country and rent it for the big dog, only to discover three weeks later that he ran off to Tennessee. Now you've got a place in the country.

To Uncle Dave's house.

He's come to my house. That's where he ended up. What was that movie? Homeward Bound. Homeward Bound. It'll be Homeward Bound to Tennessee and hang out with Uncle Dave. This is actual true story. I actually did this dumb-butt stuff, Jaden. This was so long ago. We've been married 42 years, and so there were actually newspapers in those days, and they had these things in them called classified ads. I put free dogs ad in the classifieds. We moved out of that property four months later and moved into an apartment that cost half as much and cut our rent and cost in half. That was the dogs. It was all on the dogs, the free dogs that I gave away.

What happened with the neighbor? Who owned the cat?

Oh, the cat. That neighbor still got... They're still telling this story. The poor jogger had height prints. I've never heard of this. Those dogs are meaner than snot. Those Dalmatians are one-man dog. That's why they put them on fire truck. I didn't know that. Nobody messed with a fire truck because they're mean. I didn't know that. But that was the only mean dog I've ever owned. But I didn't own it long. I never heard that story. Jaden, this is going to be you telling this story someday. Only you're going to look as dumb as I look, or you're going to get rid of the dog and go get an apartment, son, and put your fiancé in there. By the way, go ahead and see the preacher this weekend and get married and get it all done at once. Don't make your decisions based on this. It's not romantic to live in a van. There's nothing romantic about it.

The only thing I didn't get.

To ask him was- I've still got Saturday night live skit ringing in my head. I was going to ask him if down by the river- I was going to ask him if down.

By the river. -if he lives by the river, it's.

Tick to the cake. That would be the end of it. I would be losing it right now. With a giant dog. With a giant dog. Justin's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Justin, what's up? Hey, Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Well, my wife and I, we have some debt that are trying to get in touch and just try to get it out from under us. We've got some medical debt and some debt on our home and a vehicle.

Okay. How can I help?

I guess I'm just wondering the best way to get out from under it. I've got some land and we're wanting to build on it, but I'm wanting to get some of this stuff.

Taken care of before we go. Yeah, you need to get the debt cleaned up before we talk about that. What's the total of the debt?

It's probably around 200, probably.

On what?

148 on a house.

Oh.

Okay.

20 on a... Okay, 20 on what?

A vehicle.

Okay, and what else?

I've got 18 on a loan on the house.

$18,000.

And about 8,000 in medical debt.

Okay. Is the medical event behind you now?

No, we still have checks for our son. One of our sons, we still have checkups on him. He's disabled and it'll be a ongoing thing.

I believe. Okay, so you've got that in the budget, the ongoing. What's your household income, sir?

Around 60.

Okay, all right. Well, what we teach folks to do is get on a detailed, tight, written budget. We can help you do that with the every dollar app. You and your wife sit down together, give every dollar of this month's income an assignment: food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities, and then let's start paying down debt. First goal is maybe step one, setting aside a thousand dollars as a starter emergency fund. Second goal is list your debt, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little. When you have $52,000 in debt, you make $60,000 a year. If you paid off $26,000 a year, that's about 2,000 a month. That's very hard to do on 60,000, you'd be done in two years. Or if you sell the car, you'll be done in one year.

Yeah, I've thought about selling the car.

My wife is not for it. Yeah, she's not for it. But if you're going to build on this land, anytime in the next five years, you're going to sell the car, and you're going to start living on less than you make. You guys are not big over spenders. You don't make a ton of money, but you just don't have a game plan. It's not very dialed in. You could take the amount of money you've got and dial it in and be a whole lot better off, but you got to start making some decisions rather than just buying stuff randomly. So hang on, I'm going to put you into Financial Peace University. You and your wife go into that class, and you and your wife use the every dollar budget together and start making your decisions going forward and you'll be just fine, sir. This is The Ramsey Show. When your business gets to a certain size, the cracks can start to show. If this is you, learn these numbers. Thirty-six thousand businesses have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, the top cloud financial system. For 25 years, NetSuite has been helping businesses do more with less and drive costs down.

And one, because your business is one of a kind. Right now download NetSuite's KPI checklist absolutely free at netsuite. Com/ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. Hey, the Ramsey show annual listener survey is live. We want to know your favorite parts of the show, what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more of, and whatever it is we want to hear from you. Two ways you can participate. Text the word, survey to33789, or visit ramseysolutions. Com/survey. If you take the survey, you'll be signed up to win possibly a $500 gift card. Dad, come, man. We're paying people serious money to answer some questions. But are somebody some serious money? Five-hundred bucks? That's sweet. Not everybody, but one person. That's still my goodness gracious. Well, thank you for your help, all of you. We're thankful to you. Obviously, we're really thankful. Rachel's in Independence, Kansas. Hi, Rachel. How are you?

Good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hello. I was wanting a little bit of advice, if you could, about my ex-fiancé and I broke up about a few months ago, and we have over the course of the last five years, wrapped up some debts. And that's what we have both of our names in. I've been advised by family members like, Oh, the only way for me to start fresh and maybe get our names off of each other's stuff is to go bankrupt. I just wanted an outside perspective or outside piece of advice rather than just going off of the lawyer's perspective.

Yeah, asking a bankruptcy lawyer if you're bankrupt is like asking a dog if it's hungry. Yeah. Yeah. How old are you, Rachel?

I am 29.

Okay. How long have you all been broke up?

It's been about two months.

After five years, huh?

Yeah. Wow, okay.

How many different items are you attached to each other on?

It looks like only about five-ish.

Five-ish. Okay, what are the five-ish items?

I have two cars and then at least two, if not three loans. I'm trying to find out if there's another one that's in both of our names or just mine.

Okay. All right. No credit cards.

I have credit cards, but I don't believe both of our names are on the credit card. Okay.

Any checking accounts?

Yes, I have.

With both names?

Oh, no, we didn't do that.

Oh, no, of course not. Okay, but both your names are on the cars and on the loans, on the house deed and on the loan?

Yes.

Okay. What's the house worth?

That's a good question. The lawyer says you should look on Zillow. I thought that there wasn't going to be any equity in the house. But from what Zillow says, it's worth $130,000 and we have $90 on it, but we just refinance. I don't know how. I don't know how accurate that is.

Okay. You signed all of that. I signed all of it, yeah. What do you make?

I just got a new job. I was making about 60-ish, 65 a year now with the new job. I will be making around 80, 85. Okay, all right.

What do you owe on the cars? Each car? What are each car and what are they worth?

The one is worth 40, well, we got the loan for 42,000. I think we owe about 30-something left on the truck. Then another car, it's around 20,000, and I believe we still owe around that.

Okay. Which one are you driving?

The car. Okay, all right.

Okay. I'm assuming you have discussed this with him after the breakup. Yeah. What's that sounding like?

Yeah, we seem to give it up expenses. Since he and the boys, I didn't want them to move out of the house. I decided to move out.

I'm sorry, the boys.

He has boys from a.

Previous marriage. Oh, his sons. Yeah. Okay, all right. They're in the house. Yeah. Okay, all right. Well, what I would tell you to do if you were my daughter is to go, hopefully, with someone in your family just to sit there for moral support and not say anything, sit down and meet with him in person and say, This is an ugly mess, and neither one of our lives go forward easily with this mess unless we together figure out some way to undo the mess. Here's my proposal to undo the mess. You refinance the house and get the mortgage off of my name, and I will deed it to you. You get the truck out of my name either by selling it or by refinancing it. I will do the same with the car that I'm driving. I will either sell it or I will refinance it and get your name off of it. That will leave only $8,000 that the two of us have to pay off together. I'm going to aggressively pay that off probably in the next few months. Okay? Because if you don't do that, it's all going to land in his lap and you will have filed bankruptcy for no reason.

Because you're not bankrupt. You just have a partnership disillusionment. Another route you can go, technically speaking, but it's not very practical, is if he refuses to do what I just asked him to do, you can sue him for the disillusionment of a partnership. What you have technically, and you'd have to ask a different attorney, not a bankruptcy attorney about this is my opinion is you have a general partnership without any partnership documents or agreements. The two of you, as two individuals that were not married, went and bought a bunch of crap together. Now that partnership has to be undone, and you're asking the court to force him to do what I just asked him to do. That'll cost you about $10,000, probably. If you're lucky. I wouldn't do with that. I might sue him just to get him to make him do it, and then the suit gets dropped. Hopefully, you don't take it all the way to court, though. But filing bankruptcy on this, it's like taking poison and hoping he dies. You're killing you when you file bankruptcy. He gets all the debt. He's going to be left with the car, the truck, and the house, and the $8,000 debt.

That's what he's going to be left with. All of that gets dumped on him when you're no longer on it because of bankruptcy. You're free, but you now have filed bankruptcy, which is like dropping an atom bomb on a piss ant in this situation. It's a little bit overkill. A lot overkill is what I'm trying to say. I think the two of you ought to try to sit down and work this out like two mature adults. I have a feeling that's probably not possible though. What do you think?

We have sat down and talked. Over the last few years, our credit has tanked really bad. We have talked about doing this in the future.

How about selling all three of these things then? Sell the house, the truck, and the car? Everything gets sold.

Well, I mean, they wouldn't have a place to live.

Oh, darling, there's all kinds of rental properties right there around Independence, freaking Kansas. And you get you a hooptie and you're not bankrupt and you got out of this mess. Now, folks, ladies and gentlemen, when I tell you people shacking up not to do this, Rachel is a case study on why not to do this. Don't buy a house with people you're not married to. Don't act like you're married to people you're not married to. Don't set up life with people you're not married to. You get screwed in the process. Metaphorically, this is The Ramsey Show.

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Ken Kahlman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phone is a triple-8-825-5225. Ken, for an old-fashioned dinosaur like myself, it was shocking to me about a decade ago when I read the statistic that actually more couples in America today live together that are not married than are married. There are more people, quote-unquote, shacking up than ever before. The problem of our last caller comes up, it's exasperated. It gets really, really bad in those situations. The thing is that it can come off as some old-fashioned moralistic thing, which is fine. I'm an old-fashioned moralist in a lot of ways. I'm happy to go with that. I'm that side of the coin, if you will, and I'm comfortable in my own skin on that. But that's not my motivation. My motivation is what's good for you. We love you. We want you to win. What's good for you is to not own a house with somebody you're not married to, because then you move out and you can't get it off your name, and then you get married to somebody else and have a beautiful life, except you can't get a house because you already got a house in your name and you're messed up and you're stuck, and the person is being unreasonable.

That is the very reason you broke up in the first place in the past. Certainly cars and buying things for people and paying debt for people that you're not married to and always under the heading of, This is love. Well, this is not love. This is stupidity. That's right.

Because what happens is things do go sour, and now all of a sudden, what should just be a painful moment now becomes a painful season. That's the problem, is trying to extrapolate all of this stuff and pull all of it out, fix it. This could get really ugly for people pretty quickly, because then now you don't even have the marriage situation to have a judge speak into it. It gets really tricky. I think that's what people miss. Oh, it's going to work out. It's going to work out. He loves me. He loves me. Well, he may love you, but that doesn't mean it's going to work out. You're setting yourself up for a lot of trouble.

Yeah. Here's the other thing. The data, the actual statistical evidence is there. In the financial world or the socioeconomics world, it's called the marriage advantage. I'm not mad at you if you're married or you're single or whatever, none of that matters. It's just a data issue, okay? The data is that a young man who gets married 20 years lateryears later, has a higher income than a young man who doesn't get married. It's a data advantage. It's an advantage in the data. A young man, young woman that gets married at 25, 25 years later has a much higher net worth. They have a higher net worth. They have a higher income on average. That's the actual data that's out there. Part of it is the setback that occurs if you get yourself tangled up like poor Rachel's tangled up there. Then because what this is going to end up... She's now gone from a $50,000 to an $80,000 income, gotten rid of said boyfriend/fiancé. By the way, a fiancé without a date is a glorified boyfriend. You got to set that freaking date. When are we getting married? In two freaking years? Painter, get off the ladder.

Seriously. This is not a fiancé. This is a we're playing house and trying to make it look a little bit better to our more moralistic friends. Well, he's my fiancé. Well, that matters not at all, obviously, because now here you sit with two car payments, a house payment, and you only got one of the cars. Hello. This is how this ends up happening. You really get yourself into a mess. The data is out there on the poverty cycle as well that's associated with this. Professor, I'm reading now from some of my notes, Bill Galston, who was then President Clinton's domestic policy adviser, said they did a study showing you only have to do three things to avoid living in poverty: graduate from high school, marry before having a child, and have that child after age 20. If you do those three things, only 8% of the people who do so will be at the poverty level. If you do not do those things, 79% who fail to do all three will be at the poverty level. That's a huge indicator. These are not hard things. Graduate from high school, don't get married, or don't have a baby before getting married, and have your first baby after age 20, and you have an 8% chance of being in poverty.

If you don't do those three things, you have a 79% chance of being in poverty. Will the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Nope. The people who do rich people's stuff get richer and the people who do poor people's stuff get poorer. It's the way we live our lives that causes us to reap the things in our lives. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, and they've cost me money every time. Only 4% of homes with a married mother and father are on food stamps. Only 4%. Twenty-one % of those cohabitating government for shacking up, and 28% of single mothers are on boot stamps. Only 4% with a married father and mother in the home. 78% of married people own their own home. 41% of shacking up people own their own home. Home ownership, by the way, is one of the key elements in wealth building to move you from lower middle class, lower class to upper middle class or upper class financial straighta in socioeconomic measures. This is data, people. This is data. This is the result of these moral decisions. A major 2014 report from the American enterprise Institute for Family Studies at the University of Virginia reports that family income is 73% higher for married women than unmarried women.

I can help you with part of the reason, can you? Instantly, I can come to the conclusion. I'm reading into the research. I'm commenting on the data. I've got one word. If you don't have to work, you can demand more money because you can walk out and say, Take this job and shove it.

That's right.

If you got two of you working, I'll guarantee the husband's making more money, too, because his wife's bringing in money. The two of them are making money. He's going to have to put up with crap off of some toxic situation, and somebody won't give him a raise. He'll go someplace that got upward mobility. She can do the same thing. She's not going to get mistreated in the marketplace. Married men benefit from an average annual economic marriage premium of $15,900 a year, more income on average than their unmarried counterparts. This is data. Now, where did we lose this data in the decision that half of you, more than half of you, are cohabitating rather than being married? All it does is require a trip to the preacher or the courthouse. It's not rocket surgery. It's not hard to figure out. The advantages are all over the place. The legal advantages, the relational advantages, the economic advantages, I've just outlined for the past 10 minutes. We can say the spiritual advantages, too. They're there as well. Because God loves you and He has a plan for your life, and it is not to bring you harm, it's to give you hope.

He says, Hey, kid, this is the best way to live your life. Then the data backs it up. Who knew?

Well, there's a theme going on. I think what we see in the data is that the word commitment, when we live it out, commitment makes a difference. Commitment requires you to be selfless, not selfish, and the antidote to all of this convenience living, because it's all about convenience. The other side of the commitment is convenience. Well, we're going to live together because we can, because we're fiancés. It's all about convenience. But the data shows that when marriage is about commitment, it's the bedrock of the whole thing. It's a covenant, it's a commitment. With commitment comes selfless behavior. The selfless behavior leads to more money. More money leads to momentum. All in the data there, I'm seeing a struggle, Dave, between two words:.

Commitment.

Versus.

Convenient. We live in a convenience-driven society. I haven't given a whole bunch of you in social media a reason to hate on me or to unfollow me in a while. That's what segment was for. It's to help you have a reason to go away. Some of you wanted a reason to go away, I just gave you one. That's what I'm here for.

I'm here to help. You're out of.

Touch, Dave. We love you. You Puritan. We love you. We love you. We love you. And we love you as you leave. Bye-bye. This is The Ramsey Show. Listen, folks, this show has always been about you and for you, so we want to hear from you. Right now, The Ramsey Show annual survey is live. Text survey to 33789 or go to ramseysolutions. Com/survey. When you fill out the survey, you'll be entered to win a $500 gift card. That's Survey. Text it to 33789. Thanks for helping us understand how to serve you best. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman-Ramsey, personality host of the Ken Coleman show and author of the number one bestselling book, Paycheck to Purpose, is my co-host today. Open phones, a triple-eight, 825-528. 2:25. Allison is in Boston, Mass. Hey, Allison, how are you?

Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. What's up?

I'm calling because I have been able to save in the last three years, where I'm about 20,000 short of paying off my house.

Wow, way to go.

Thank you. I have that money sitting in an online savings account, earning about 4.5 %, and my mortgage is four %. So it's pretty much close to the interest that I'm paying. However, I am a single mom, so I'm very disciplined at saving this money, and it's been like a buffer for me. Whereas I know I'm not going to touch it, I also have an emergency fund, and I'm completely debt-free.

How much is in your emergency fund?

About 8,000.

What do you make?

I make about 73.

Okay. How much is in the pay-off the house account?

About 70, and I have money in a 401(k) that I'm not.

Going to touch. Right, you're not. Not if I can stop you. You have 70,000 in savings plus $8,000 in savings, plus a 401(k) and that's it? Yes. How much do you owe on your home?

I owe about 89. Maybe the payout is like 90.

Okay. One more time. What did you say you make?

Well, I was making 65. I'm going to be making about 73 and taking a promotion.

Oh, good for you. Okay.

Thank you. Okay.

How old are your kiddos? I'm sorry? How old are your children?

They are both over the age of 18.

Oh, okay. You're a single mom, but not one that has to pay for people's food.

Correct. That's the youngest one just turned 18.

Okay, or not much of the food anyway. Yeah. All right, okay. Here's what I know. How old are you?

I'm 48.

Okay. When you're 68, what's going to make you the wealthiest? That's the way I answer the question. Which of these moves helps you become the wealthiest 20 years from today?

Well, if I'm listening to you, I know about all the millionaires that you've studied, they pay off their house. They don't take that money and invest it. I am still also, for the last year, I've been paying double on my principal.

You're a frugal person.

Yeah, they call me frugal Fannie.

And you're aand you're self-disciplined as well. Part of that comes from just the fact that as a single mom when the kiddos were little, you probably lived through some times that were terrifying. Absolutely. That makes you forever frugal. That was your Great Depression, like my grandpa was in the Great Depression. It terrified him, so he pulled nails out straightened them and put them in a coffee can the rest of his life. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Right? That's you. But you're just because you're a single mom. I have that same thing because I went bankrupt when I was 28. We lost everything. I'm terrified of my wife. Our refrigerator to this day is so freaking full of leftovers. It's a choke a horse. It has nothing to do with anything because the food is so good and it shouldn't go to waste. Look, we're not broke anymore. All right? But anyway, we all have these scars and they manifest themselves in our lives these ways. So very interesting. See here I am complaining on the radio. But anyway, what would I do in your… I don't think your emergency fund is large enough.

Okay.

I think I want to move 7,000.

That had been my emergency funds, by the way.

What now?

That had been all of my emergency funds.

I've just been- Oh, you just got lumped together. I know, but you said you had $8,000 in your emergency fund. Correct. I'm going to move at least seven over there. I think I'm going to move 12 over there. Because there's a part of you that's terrified sometimes, so I want you to have 20,000.

Okay.

So 20,000. That means we don't have 70. It means we've got 58 and we owe 80-something, right? Correct. How quick can you knock down 30 if we throw that 58 at the mortgage?

Well, ideally, I wanted to have the home. I've been in there 10 years. I wanted it paid off before 15. I started doing triple.

Towards the principal. How quickly can you pay off the 30,000 remaining balance if we throw 58 at it today?

Probably in less than.

A year. That'd be pretty tight. You are frugal, Fannie. Okay, I'm with you. I am. I'm with you. All right. Why wouldn't we do that? Sit with 20 in the emergency fund, throw the rest of it at it and knock the rest out in 12 months. One year from today, we're going to celebrate Halloween with a paid-for house.

It feels scary because I'll tell you, the momentum of looking at that money and knowing that I just won't touch it is-.

I know you also- The momentum of looking towards one year from today is and being 100% free for the rest of your life. You got to do this, girl. You got to do it. It's going to work. It's going to work. We're not leaving you broke. You got 20 grand and you're not going to touch it. I know. We're sitting there with no savings. It scares you a little bit, right? That's what you're saying. Is that fear not going to motivate you to pay this house off even faster? Say that again. If we use this money and you only have $20,000 in the emergency fund, and that makes you a little bit scared, right?

Correct.

Does that fear, that little bit scared, not motivate you even more than your normal frugal self to get the house paid off fast?

I don't know because I have.

Momentum right now. I think it's going to raise the probability that the house is paid off because that fear is going to drive you a little bit more in a healthy way. If I thought it was going to paralyze you or terrify you, I wouldn't do it. I'd traumatize you, I wouldn't do it. But I think it's a healthy fear. Get out of the road, you're going to get hit by a car fear. That's a good fear. If I'm you, that's what I'm doing. You do whatever you want to do. You call me.

Yeah, I want to suggest something. I would suggest that you just get out a pen and paper and begin to sketch out what you think the worst-case scenarios are, why the 70- Matters. -70 matters.

So much. 58 now because I moved 12 over a year.

Fifty-eight. I would just play with this because I think what's going on is I think she might find that, Huh, 20,000 makes me feel very good. I like Dave's plan. She might go, You know what? This could happen, this could happen, this could happen. This could have this. It's about 30. Okay, fine. Yeah.

We're fine with that. We can do 48. But I think that's the exercise. Take 15 months.

Yeah. I don't think she's thought through the tangible fears and how much money she'd need to get back up on her feet, because that's what we mean by emergency. It's got to be a full-blown dumpster fire by which we have to touch the emergency fund. She said multiple times, I'd never touch it. I'd never touch it. She never touches it.

What would make you touch it? Even when there's an.

Emergency, she doesn't touch it. I'd like her to do.

That exercise. I think she'd feel better about it. Write it out by hand. Don't type it. Write it with a pencil. This is The Ramsey Show.

Fake it till you make it. It's popular career advice, but it doesn't work for very long. If you don't love what you do, you can't fake the enthusiasm and energy you need to win at work. You also can't fake your physical health and energy. Everybody knows we should eat more fruits and veggies, but fruit chews and vegetable chips don't count. If you aren't winning physically, I promise you're limiting your opportunities to win professionally. Folks, I know you're going hard right now to pay off debt and get ahead professionally. You need another gear, and that's why Balance of Nature will help you. They help me. They give me the benefits of fresh, whole fruits and veggies in just seconds. The blend of 31 different fruits and veggies is powdered in an advanced process that locks in the nutrients. So go to balanceofnature. Com and enter the promo code, Ramsey, to get 35% off your first order and lock in a lifetime price as a preferred customer. That's balanceofnature. Com with the promo code, Ramsey, for 35% off your first order. Ken Coleman.

Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. When you need to make repairs, schedule routine maintenance, or get local help for home improvement projects, go to neighborly. Com/ramsey, your source to find and schedule reliable home service providers in your area.

Today's question comes from Bethany in Arizona. I have a question about my current employment. I've been in healthcare for 29 years and have worked my way from staff Xray Tech to director of radiology. Along the way, I have completed an associate's degree in radiology, a bachelor's in radiology management, and I'm currently working on my MBA in operations and supply chain. I've been struggling with my current role and took Ken Coleman's career assessment, which showed that I am ultimately in the wrong role in the wrong place. I'm being offered a travel technologist position rather that doubles my income. But of course, that is a step backwards in position. Travel medical personnel do not have permanent positions, and my husband currently has a medical issue that will prevent him to work for the foreseeable future. Am I committing career suicide? No, I don't think it's that dramatic. I think you have options. There's a lot going on here in this question, Bethany. If you believe that our assessment helped you realize you're doing the wrong thing, radiology in the wrong place that speaks to culture, the company itself, or maybe the opportunity within the organization, meaning you don't have a ladder, then I don't mind the travel technologist position because it doubles your income, and I don't see that as going backwards.

I understand from a status standpoint in radiology, and you've been in this certain field for it looks like 29 years. In this case, I actually would consider, I'm not telling you to do it, but I'd consider it for two reasons. Number one, we're going to double our income. Doubling our income gives us options. More money, more margin gives me and you options. I like that. Secondly, I think it's a nice bridge. For a season, you're traveling, you're stacking up the money. Your husband's got some long-term health issues, so the more money, more freedom seems to be in line with that health issue as well. What I would be doing is, if I know I'm doing the wrong thing in the wrong place, I'm taking this where I'm traveling, getting paid very, very well to figure out what is my next move. From that standpoint, I unequivocally disagree that you would be committing career suicide. In fact, this type of change, Dave, that has the benefit of more money and still keeping stability as she transitions, I actually think it's a good move mentally, not just financially.

Ken, I'm such a planner. If I saw this move as a way to get me to where I really ultimately want to be, which is, in other words, I'm ultimately not going to be in radiology, it sounds like. That's right. I'm ultimately going to be maybe she'sworking on ops and supply chain. Yeah, it feels like there's a direction there. Maybe she's moving into logistics or whatever. But let's say, okay, five years from today, I want to land in a new enCore, take a bow after the first act, come out, do the second act, career an enCore career that is solid and it's not going to be travel. This is not a permanent decision. Radiology, though, is not that location. If you're going back to radiology, it could hurt you. Absolutely would. But it doesn't sound like we're saying that. It sounds like we're going in a different direction. But the more you know that this is a stepping stone to the new place, the more you know this is not career suicide.

Correct. Yeah, not at all, because this is a nice transition. Because it's not like you went backwards or you were unemployed for a certain amount of time. There's no stain by making this move.

But I think the clarity, the clear, the HD, high-definition detail of the future place to land drawn out. I know exactly what I've got to do to get there. For two years, I'm going to travel, and then I'm going to land there. The more you've got that clarified in your mind, the less terrifying this move is. That's exactly right. If that's vague, then there's a lot of anxiety with it. It's a bridge to nowhere. There we go.

In this case, the bridge that I'm talking about is, All right, I'm finishing up my MBA. I've got to make some connections in this world of supply chain or operations. I'm not enjoying where I am. I'm stuck. Let me tell you what I know, Dave, about just humans in general. If we're unhappy, it's very hard to be clear. It just is. You're focusing all these negative emotions. It's hard to have great perspective. If you know you are in the wrong role in the wrong place, and you have an opportunity to get out of the wrong role in the wrong place, I think a fresh start gives me fresh perspective. My emotions are better. I'm thinking clearly. I'm feeling confidently. That's how we go, All right, what is my next path? I think that if she knows that she wants to move to your point into another certain direction, we know we're going to go here, then I love this move. If she needs to spend more time getting qualified, and it feels like she's got to get qualified and connected here, stage two and three. I've got seven stages we unpack and paycheck to purpose.

Getting clear is stage one. That's that, where do I want to be? Stage two is I got to get qualified. While I'm getting qualified, I'm getting connected so that I can get started. This is a potential bridge. It's hard to say without having her on the phone, but this is.

Not suicide. No, it's not suicide. Particularly, it's less and less and less suicide when the clear other end of the bridge is resting on something other than radiology. Correct. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, here's the cool. I don't know she said her husband has a medical issue preventing him to work for the foreseeable future. I wonder if he can travel, if he could go with her and you guys go stack some cash, this could just be a mid-life honeymoon. This is an adventure, a two-year adventure. This is better than backpacking Europe when you're 19. This is going to be fun. You all go see the world and hang out and stack some cash and then land the bridge and come back and both of you get back in gear again.

I agree. Even more so because he's not going to be working, the additional income really gives us less stress on the finances, too. Again, hard to think clearly when you're dealing with the fog of frustration or the fog of debt.

Well, it's turning loose of 29 years of investment into something by saying in grieving is saying, I'm not going back there. That's right. That's what makes you think it's suicide. I might go back, I may need to go back. I may need to go back. You don't need to go back. You don't need to go back there. You're going to stack cash and you're going to land on the other side of the bridge over in logistics or somewhere else that you clearly outlined. That's very cool. Good advice, Ken. Patty is in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Patty. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for.

Taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Well, the question I have is I'm buying another house and I have some money in a Roth, but I do have a Keylock that I've gotten ready. I'm selling my house. It was going to be that HeLoc was going to just be a bridge loan. But now with the market slowing down, I'm a little worried about that. I do have $111,000 in my Roth. I've always never wanted to touch that. But I think maybe I should just use the Roth money rather than the HLK money, and I wanted your opinion on that.

How old are you? Sixty-nine. How much is in your total, Nasdaq?

I just got married in July, and together, we're doing pretty good. He sold his house, got 260 for that. We've got that going towards the new house, so we got that money towards that. Then my house is worth another 250 if we can get it sold. But like I said, the market is falling down. On top of that, we've got a good income. We've got about 30,000 savings on top of that.

You don't have any other Nest egg other than this Roth?

I have my retirement fund that I get off on there.

No, not the Nest egg. Money, investments. Other- You don't have any? You have $30,000 to your name after you buy this house.

We have some investments, we have some stocks. How much? And then, of course, well, let me see. He's got about 20,000 in stocks. You're not counting my mutual fund, my retirement fund that I get that? I mean, there's 600,000 in that.

That's the- I thought you're talking about you're getting a retirement pension. You're saying you have a four-year- I'm saying you have a 401(k) or a 403(b) with 600,000 in it?

Yeah.

Oh, that makes a difference. Okay, babe. That's a lot of money. That's good. Okay, I feel a lot better now. Yes, use your Roth. Don't borrow money.

Okay, so if I use my Roth, now what they have said to me is I can use it and I can turn it back in. If I give it back in 60 days.

Then I can- Yeah, if you give it back in 60 days, but if you're going to do that, just sell the house. I'd delay the closing if you can. But yeah, versus taking out of He-Locke, I'm taking the Roth. I'm going to use the Roth. Even if you just use it and it's just gone, I mean, it's not gone because you're going to get it back out of the house when you sell it. But yeah, your net worth didn't change. You didn't spend it. Wow! This is The Ramsey Show.

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Ken Kahlman, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phone is a triple eight, 825, 5225. Ashley is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Ashley. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call.

Sure, what's up?

All right, so my question is a business-related one. This past September, but the year before, I purchased a bakery that was eight years old. It was a Mom and Pop bakery for about $105,000. It was really small. Over the year, we improved it. We did some renovations on our own dollar. We didn't pay for them. Unfortunately, it's not been successful, and I'm having to close it.

I'm sorry.

That's okay. It is what it is. My question is, originally my landlord, I have five more years left on the lease. My landlord said, That's fine, I'll let you out of it. That was great. However, he called last week and asked me how things were going, how things were moving out. I mentioned that I was moving some of the equipment out. He was under the assumptions that the equipment that was built around the space that was built around the equipment he owned. However, the couple that I purchased the bakery from actually sold it to him. I have purchased documents for it. He is holding my equipment hostage by not letting me out of the lease unless I leave the equipment. I have considered, I've looked up Chapter 7 bankruptcy because that would give me 60 days to assume or reject the lease, of which I would reject the lease. Then my assets, including the equipment, would be sold to pay off my debts. However, I do not have any debt for the business. It's an LLC, and I decided to get out of the business before I went into debt.

So my question is- Who signed? Did you sign the lease personally?

I did, yes. Okay.

That lease is not the LLC's name. It's in your name.

It is. It is in the LLC's name, yes.

Did you guarantee it personally?

Yes. Okay.

It doesn't matter. It's your personal lease. You're personally liable on the lease is what you're telling me. Okay. Right? Yes. Okay. How much is the lease payments monthly?

They are currently $6,240. They go up by a certain percentage every year starting in October.

So if we agree- So you have five years of $7,000, so you got somewhere around $35,000 exposure, right? Correct. What's the equipment worth?

It's less than $10,000 worth of equipment.

So I'm wondering if I just swallow... Why do you want it? -i just swallow...

Because I'm hopeful that I can maybe start it again one day and it would relieve some of the startup cost down the road.

Do you have any money?

I have about $20,000 in personal savings, and that's about it. I've sunk all of my life savings into the.

First business. If you were going to buy this equipment right now in your situation used, what would you be willing to pay for it? If you found it on it, let's say you let him have it, and the next day you walked into a garage sale and you found the same piece of equipment sitting in someone's basement, what would you buy it for? Or would you buy it tomorrow or would you wait until later?

That's a really great question. The one piece of equipment that I'm hanging on to is the oven because it's an old oven and the old ones are the best.

Because they don't- You found it in someone's basement tomorrow at a garage sale. What would you pay for it?

I would pay probably $1,000.

For it. $1,000?

Correct.

Okay, all right. I think you can sit. Number one, the first thing you need to do is with this landlord, you need to sit down in person.

Yes, we are. We're meeting on Wednesday.

Good, good. Because you're an honorable person. I think he's not a dishonorable person. As a matter of fact, he's got a lot of mercy. He's just letting you out of $35,000.

He's already got someone lined up that he will.

Charge you- He's letting you out of $35,000. I mean, it's not a bad guy. He could have held you to it for a $1,000 oven. I mean, it's not a bad trade. At the end of the day, if I have to negotiate away the $1,000 oven in order to get out of a $35,000 exposure, it's gone. He can have the oven. But I would ask him about it and just say, Listen, I think you're an honest guy, and you think I'm honest, and we just did not have alignment on this one subject. Would you be willing to sell me the oven? Because that's the only piece I'm particularly interested in at whatever it's at salvage price, which is probably $500 or a thousand dollars. That's the only thing that I care about. The rest of it is I care about getting out of the lease. Could we work that out? Yeah.

It still just gets me that I've already bought the oven, so I don't want to pay him for it.

You're missing the part where you got out of a $35,000 liability. That probably gets him that the tenant he had just decided they weren't going to pay.

Yeah, but he's wanted me out of there since I get signed in the lease because he can charge double for the people that have already lined up for it.

Okay. You do what you want to do. That's what I would do. I would consider this a blessing. I'm in a horrible situation with a heartbreak. I'd let him keep the oven or I'd give him $1,000 or $500 for it and get the documents signed to completely relieve you of any liability, LLC or personal, further on this lease so that he can go forward. I guess if you want to play hardball from a negotiating standpoint, you could, because it sounds like he's chomping at the bit to get you out of there. You could just say, You know what? I think I'm just going to give you another 600 bucks to stay here a while and make him lose his potential tenant because you keep paying.

If.

He doesn't let you know. If you won't let me have the oven, I think I'm just going to keep paying the rent because I think the oven is mine. I've got a bill of sale for it. But honestly, I personally wouldn't do that. This is a horrible thing you're going through. It's an emotional thing you're going through. The failure of a business is a crisis of identity. Anytime I close a major area that we tried here at Ramsey, it's me admitting that I was stupid, and I hate admitting that. Yet sometimes I am stupid, but I get the opportunity running a business to admit it occasionally, and it's not fun. It's really not fun. I'm sorry. It really is emotional. I wouldn't screw this whole thing up over a grand. I promise you I wouldn't. You're going to lose that the first time you meet with an attorney. They charge you a thousand dollars for driving past their office. It's a drive-by fee.

Well, I think you made a very good point that she fails to see. Obviously, there's some tension there, and she feels like, Well, he has somebody else lined up. I found him. She mentioned that. She feels like she's doing some good. But we cannot forget the fact that this guy is going to let her out of $35,000 contracted commitment. You can't forget that.

I could be wrong, but maybe the new tenant needs the oven.

I think there's a reason. This guy is not a jerk. I think he's like, You know what? I'll let you out at 35. I'm going to keep the oven. That's a pretty Fairtrade.

It's a tenant improvement, and you're walking away sky free. If I were the landlord on the other side, even if I had another tenant lined up, I would think that's a fair deal.

I think it's a very fair deal.

It's up to you, though. You can do what you want to do. Let me ask you this, Dave. You could drag it out. If he's got the other tenant and he could lose the other tenant by you delaying him, that's a way to screw with it if you want to do it, but do so at your own peril.

But I was going to ask you, because you've been a landlord, you are a landlord, if she hacks him off in some way or just starts negotiating, he's like, Wait a second. I'm letting you out of this deal, and I want the stinking of it. He could hold her to this contract.

He couldgive her the $35,000. You could put her in some real trouble. But she says that he's got somebody wanting to pay double. That's the leverage back and forth. I don't know. I mean, to me, that's almost irrelevant, though. It's what the deal is to you. The deal is you personally put your pen to paper and said, I will pay you $35,000. He says, Hey, you brought me another tenant. I'll let you out. That's an act of mercy. It's not a legal requirement or a moral or an ethical requirement. If he misunderstood and thought the tenant improvements became his after the act of mercy, then that's something you can discuss with him, and I'm recommending you discuss it. But wouldn't push it too hard. It's a thousand bucks for 35. It's a good trait. This is The Remsy Show. Here's the thing about investing advice. You can find it just about anywhere, but that doesn't mean it'll always help you with your personal goals. Here's another option. Check in with a Smart Vester Pro. These financial advisors can review your plan or help create one that's personalized to you. To find a Smart Vester Pro in your area, go to ramseysolutions.

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Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host. Hey, guys, if you like the show, we need your help. Help. Click the subscribe button and subscribe to the show on YouTube or on podcast. Click the Follow button on YouTube or on podcast. It changes everything if you do that. In addition to that, click the share button or click or cut the link out and share the link. I pulled a poignant thing off of Instagram this morning that I stumbled into. I'm not on Instagram very often, but I sent it to my wife and said, This right here, this right here. What I do? I just click the link, the share button on it, and then it sent it right over there. You guys can do that. It helps us a bunch because we're not spending 300 million a year on football stadiums like, excuse me. We don't have that option. We're just regular folks doing a radio show, podcast, YouTube thing where we help you. Since you don't pay for this, one way you can help us is share it, follow it, subscribe it. Thank you. Oh, and Five Star reviews are helpful, too. All right, Kelly is in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hi, Kelly. How are you?

Hey, Dave. How are you? Thanks for taking.

My call. Sure. What's up?

I was calling. I left the healthcare field almost four years ago, and I've been a stay at home mom since then. And my husband has been the sole income provider. And I have felt the need all these years to keep up with all my medical credentialing, paying for the licensing and the continuing education. But my husband feels like it is a security blanket that I am keeping because I really don't have a desire to return to the medical field. But I tell him that it's a low cost... We're not low cost, but it's a good thing to keep investing in the event that something were.

To happen to him- What do you do? You're an MD, a nurse? What? A PA.

A physician assistant, PA.

A PA? Okay. What does it cost annually to maintain it?

Around.

$400. Dollars?

Correct.

Absolutely keep that.

But I want to know, is he right or is he wrong? Is this a security blanket that if something were to happen to him? Or do you have in the back of your mind maybe one day when I'm done getting the kids launched that I want to get back into it? Where do you fall on that?

I'm not going to disagree with him that it's a security blanket. I tell him that my concern, and maybe it's because I work in the ER, is that if something happened to you and I'm not worried about you dying, I'm worried about you living, but being disabled in a nursing home for a long time, that's always the argument we have.

What is it both ends? I think it's both ends. I think you're smart for saying that part, but I think you're open to maybe getting back into it one day, or at least to the point that you'd like to have it as an option. Is that true or false?

I would be open to an option, but just not the area medicine that I left.

Okay, right. But should you keep it? The way I look at it is you invested a lot of time and money to become a PA. You lose it all for 400 bucks? No way.

Okay, yeah, because it's a lot more work to go back.

Yeah, yes. It's a pain in the butt. You got to go sit for the boards again.

Yeah.

Yeah, not a chance. I'd absolutely keep it. Yeah, I'm absolutely keeping it. I kept all of my licenses for a long time. The only one I now have is my real estate license. I've had it since 1978. We actually use the real estate license. It's tied into our Ramsey Trusted program. Technically, I have a need for it today. But I dropped all of my others, the securities license, insurance license, all those kinds of things, after I got on the radio because I didn't want any of those industries or regulators telling me what I could say. So me dropping that was giving them the middle finger so I can tell a bunch of these insurance people to stick it, which is perfect for me. It was easier for me to drop it and better for me to drop it. But prior to that, I had not been in the securities or insurance world in years. But those tests are hard. Insurance is not. It was a joke. But the Dadgum securities test like taking a CPA. I didn't want to sit to that thing again. For 100 bucks, 200 bucks, I could keep that license active even though I was no longer in the business.

The only reason I dropped it again was I didn't want to be regulated by those doofuses. I'm not going to be selling securities anymore, obviously. That's the same thing for me. I would keep it on that basis, regardless of whether it's a security blanket, regardless of whether you're going back to work or not, I wouldn't lose all the work you did for 400 bucks. If it was 4,000, we'll talk about it.

Is he that tight? Or is he just like, This is silly to be paying this?

I think he thinks it's just silly. We've done SPU. We're on baby step seven. We're doing good, and I see where he's coming from with that.

But it's- You might want to go on the mission field and the PA would be handy.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. I like it.

This is a yard sale. You know what you did? Just say, You're so tight, man, we're on baby step seven. I'm going to do one yard sale a year and take care of this.

I'm going to sell all the clothes you don't wear, honey, and pay for it at consignment sale. That suit that's been hanging in the back of your closet for seven years, you've not put on, darling, I'm going to sell that.

That's what I think he did. I'm selling his clothes. He'll never bring it up again. Sell his clothes, he'll never bring it up again. That's true.

He's a baby step seven. I appreciate it. That dude does not like to.

Waste money. Great discussion. $4,000 might trip my trigger, but $400 doesn't. Eric is with us. Eric's in Oklahoma City. Hi, Eric. How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you guys? Better than we deserve, for sure. What's up?

Perfect.

Well, hey, my wife and.

I, we're battling the idea of a few financial decisions between paying off our student loans, keep saving to buy a house next year. Do we invest more? How much do we keep saving?

We're really.

Just feeling a lot of outside pressures to different decisions and what we should do. We're just not really feeling clear on our next.

Steps and decisions and what's- Consequently, you're not getting really great traction on any of them. Right. Lack of focus does that. It disperses the energy.

Right. Right. Right now, we have so many options. We're doing pretty good financially. We don't have any debt.

Honey, you have student loan debt.

Yeah, besides the.

Student loan debt- Okay, that's debt. How much student loan debt have you got?

Two hundred thousand.

Good God.

Jesus, Mark.

We don't have much debt. We're really doing good. I've only got 200,000. That just came out of your mouth.

Okay, yeah.

What's your household income, sir?

We are making about $133,00030,000 a.

Year combined. What do you all do?

I am a film director. I specialize in the film space, video space here in Oklahoma, and my wife is an attorney.

That's where the law degrees are the 200,000. Yeah. Why does she not make any money?

She makes about $105,000.

A year. Oh, so you don't make any money. Okay.

Just about. It's my first year doing this, so we're seeing some good growth so far toward the end of this year.

You guys are... How old are you all? Twenty-six?

I'm 30 and she's 27.

Okay.

All right.

You're new to this whole Ramsey thing, apparently.

Yeah, we took a course through a church last year with you guys, and it's where we learned a lot of You.

Took Financial Peace University?

Yes, correct.

Okay, you flunked. You got to go back. Okay. Because we taught you in that a thing called the baby steps. It said don't buy a house until you're out of debt. You remember that one? Yeah, I do remember that. It said, We're not investing until we're out of debt and have an emergency fund in place because we work the baby steps. Baby step two has become debt-free. Everything but the house. Three is an emergency fund. Four is investing into retirement. That gives you the focus and the clarity that you're looking for. That was in that class, and that's what we teach, and that's what we've taught 10 people to do. That's why it's a proven plan to financial fitness. You all have a mess, dude. You need to clean up your $200,000 mess. Yeah, just a little bit. That's what I'd be focusing on. It's not a little bit. You need to quit minimizing it. You have a dadgumb, big old pile of manure right in the middle of your living room. Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of student loan debt. So you need to work on that. Let's get that cleared up, and then we'll build an emergency fund, then we'll save up for a house, then we'll start our investing.

That's your order of attack. Don't think you're going to do it, but that's what you should do. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Colman-Ramsey, personality host of The Ken Colman Show, author of the number one best-selling book, From Paycheck to Purpose is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at triple-eight, 825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. George is in New York City to start off this hour. Hi, George. How are you?

Hey, George. How are you doing?

Better than we deserve, George. How can we help?

Yeah, I was curious if you could help me with one thing. I grew up in a situation where my family didn't have much financial labor room, and now I'm in a place where I can spend a bit more than I used to be able to. I live in New York City. Like you said, I work in finance. I'm single. As a student, I max out my 401(k) each year and have a fair amount of savings. I guess it's just that every time I think about spending money on myself, there's this overwhelming feeling of guilt that I get. I don't know if this is something that's common that a lot of people feel, but yeah, I was curious if you could help me rational my way out of it, or maybe if you could tell me about it if it's a rational feeling.

It's so common that it's almost everyone in your situation. Wow. Okay. It's very rational. Is guilt the right word or fear? Do you hurt someone else or what?

That's a great question. I think it is more fear, actually, because I think that the feeling is more.

Related to- I feel like I'm irresponsible. Am I being irresponsible if I spend this?

Yes, exactly. It's a feeling of like, do I know that the current situation can last forever? And if I have spent this and then something turns, that.

Would be it. Got you. That is universal by people who move from not having money to having money. I certainly have experienced it. I mean, Ken, you and Stacey, and Sharon, his wife, my wife are good friends. We all talked about this on trips we've been together. We're sitting in some trip and we're like, How can we believe we're actually in this place? We're sitting here together having this meal. Oh, my gosh.

Give us an example. Give us an example of something because I want to walk you through that emotion. Give us an example where you felt this. You wanted to buy it or you did buy it, then you had a negative feeling afterwards or in the process of getting it.

Yeah, actually, it's a pretty current example because I just came back from a trip to Portugal, and I was there for two weeks, and it was a pretty incredible trip. I had to spend a lot of time in some of the big cities every morning to visit and also just the outdoors.

Did you go to Lisbon?

I did go to Lisbon.

It's fabulous, isn't it? Did you go up to Durow Valley?

I.

Did. I mean, that's the home of Port, Boys & Girls. That's about as good a port as you'll get because that's the only place it's from.

Wow, I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty all of a sudden.

Man, that's a great trip. I've done that. Wonderful trip.

Did you pay cash for it?

Yeah, I did. How much was the trip?

Portugal is pretty cheap, but the flights were expensive. I think all in, I probably spent $3,000 to $4,000.

How much money do you make?

In a year? Last year, I made 400k.

And how much do you have in savings?

Last year was my first year getting a paycheck like that. And so I have 140k in savings.

And how old are you?

I'm.

26. Way to go, George. What do you do for a living? I work on.

Wall.

Street. I'm so proud of you. Way to go, stud.

So one quick question, George, did you earn that trip?

On.

Did you earn $400,000?

Yes or no. Did you earn the right? Did you earn that trip?

Did you work? I did, yeah. Did you steal the money?

I did.

Not do that. Okay, that's the point.

Listen, you're in great financial shape and you worked hard and you were frugal. You didn't spend $30,000 on the trip. You spent $3,000 to $4,000.

You're single 1%.

Man, listen. I tell you what I think.

This is, too. I think this is- Like somebody making 30,000, spending 300 bucks.

Yeah, this is the family you came from the environment. I think you were over there and you're like, I can't believe I'm here. I feel a little guilty that I've earned this right to get here, and maybe some of my family members didn't. I mean, there's some of that, too. That's why you use the word guilt. Is that true?

That is exactly what it was. I think.

Like - It's a comparison. It's a negative comparison.

-i felt like I'm feeling guilty, like eating food and experiencing whatever I was doing and thinking like, Oh, my parents never got to experience this, but I'm getting to do this right now. I guess there was a feeling of like, Oh, should my parents be here? Or should this be like.

A- Eventually. Take them on a trip one day. Thank them for it. But you don't have to walk around with this guilt that you're standing on their shoulders, and you are. I love that spirit to know that your mom and dad made sacrifices.

They're proud of you.

They're proud that you're doing this.

Let me give you, to answer your question in a macro way. Number one, Ken and I are saying you have permission. You did a great thing. You should have done that. You should have. If you had called us, we would have said take the trip. Okay, absolutely. There's a couple of ways that I can make that decision in my current life and feel no shame, regret, guilt, fear, irresponsible vibes. Number one, there are three things you can do with money. You can invest it, you can enjoy it, and you can give it with generosity. You should always be doing all three things with your money. You should always have built-in systemic generosity and random generosity. In other words, large tips is an example of wonderful generosity. Just walk up and pay for somebody's gas at the gas pump randomly. That's little ones, right? And big ones, too. You make 400 freaking thousand dollars. Let's do some generosity, all right? Let's do some investing. You've already saved $140,000. You've only made 401,000 a year. That's a good savings rate. Well done. You're doing really good, by the way. At 26, you're mature emotionally beyond your years because one definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure.

Amature people don't even ask the freaking question that you're asking. Okay? This is incredible. Very, very well done, sir. Proud of you. So you should always enjoy your money. If you are being systemically and randomly generous and you are investing systematically as well, then when you choose to enjoy a percentage of your money, you can do that easily without any negative vibes or negative emotions, especially if you do one last thing. I always put it to the burn the money in the middle of the floor test. If I'm getting ready to do something that feels opulent or feels wacky compared to my childhood or feels like something my parents would have never been able to do or my friends maybe can't do, if I ask myself, Is it okay if I do that? Is God going to be mad at me for this level of enjoyment of this money? I ask myself if I take that amount of money and put it in the middle of the floor and light it on fire, is my life going to change? If it's enough money that my life would change, that tells me I've got too much going into this crap.

But 3,000 bucks out of $400, you wouldn't have even noticed it. It passes the burn the money in the floor test, too. That's how we know that you're more than okay here. Dude, if you were overspending and acting like you were in Congress, we'd have been all up in your game. Don't worry about it. We tell you. We love you enough to tell you the truth. But the truth also is if you got your generosity game going, your investing game going, also have your enjoyment game going. These are the only good things that you can do with money, and you ought to do them all. This is The Ramsey Show. Folks, changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles. It's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups starting right now at ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. That's ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host.

Cherie is with us. Cherie is in Chicago. Hi, Cherie. How are you?

All right, how are you? Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. Is it Cherie or Cherie? Cherie. Cherie. Okay, how can we help?

All right, so I am thinking about changing career. I think this is going to do with my third, maybe a second career change. I'm just a little bit freaking out because this is more of a change where I'm not getting a paycheck, paycheck every other week, that deal. So I'm currently working as a procurement in the industry. And I'm thinking about going into being in real estate, like a real estate agent.

Why?

One of the things is I want to be my own boss. I want to make my own hours. If I put that much effort into it, then that's what I'm going to get. I just don't want to be chasing after the carrot.

You don't want a ceiling on your income and you want to be in control?

Most likely, yeah, definitely.

That's what I'm going for. What do you make as a procurement professional?

Currently, I make 75 right now.

Seventy-five? Okay.

Seventy-five thousand.

Do you have any debt? What's your other financial situation look like?

I know... I am married and my husband actually is a debt analyst and he makes about 120. Okay. We don't have any debt. We actually paid all those off years ago. Actually, I made sure that those debts were just gone. We don't have any car payments other than a mortgage. We do have some credit cards here and there, but not that much. We just pay it off every month, that thing.

Let's look at this real estate. Have you spent time with a realtor to where you know the ins and outs, the good, the bad, how long it took them to get going? How much of a snapshot do you have of a realistic launch into this industry?

That's the thing. I started taking a course, and I have talked to one or two people regarding it, and I have gotten some goods and bads, and some people said they really love it. Other people said they really hated it.

All right, so hold on. The people who said they loved it, were they successful real estate professionals?

Yeah, they were actually successful.

All right, what about the people that hated it? Were they successful?

They were not successful. They totally hated it. They tell you- They were totally have a.

Different opinion. They tell you, Right. Well, but there's a reason I'm pressing you on this. There's a reason why that is, and you've got to understand of the stuff that you heard that was, Well, I loved it. Did that resonate with you? They said they hated it. Did that resonate with you? You have to understand, am I wired for this? A lot of people in America, in fact, Dave, I saw some data recently, 70% of Americans want to be self-employed, but only 7% are. Now, there's a gap there for a reason. That's a massive gap. The gap is, here's what that data tells me, Sherry, and this is why I'm pressing you for a moment. People want the freedom. The 70% want the freedom, but only 7% are willing to do what it takes to get said freedom. Many times you work harder for yourself. In fact, most people would tell you to work for themselves.

It's the worst law she'll ever have.

Yeah, exactly. I want to make sure that you have looked into this, the good, the bad, the ugly. Is it something that you deeply enjoy, or is it just an avenue towards this freedom that I want that, quite frankly, we all want, but most people aren't willing to do what it takes to get this freedom?

Let me help you a second. I grew up in the residential real estate business. Mom and Daddy owned a company. I got my license when I turned 18. I sold real estate all the way through college. I sold for a couple of years after that. Residential real estate agents work by definition when other people aren't working. So be ready to work nights and weekends or don't plan to sell any houses. That's right.

Yeah. No, that part I understand completely.

Okay, and be ready and know that you're going to work really, really hard and spend a lot of time on the first few deals, and a lot of them are going to blow up because you don't know what you're doing yet and you don't put them together right. It's going to be really freaking frustrating. The first six months is hell. It's boot camp. If you can get through the first six months and do two or three transactions, you might make it in the second six months, but you're going to be working 60-80 hours a week to get this airplane off the ground. This is not for the faint. I went around the show, How is this three hours a week and make $100,000 a year? Bull crap. This doesn't happen. I mean, this is the only industry that people put glamor shots on their business cards. 90% of the people leave the business when the market slows down like this. So it is a great time to get into the real estate business because you don't have a lot of competition right now. It's also a hard time to get in the business because there's not a lot of property moving right now.

The turnover is not nearly like it was a few years ago. It's harder to sell a house, and there's not as many houses for sale. So both are happening. When the economy slows down in by dynamics. That's what you're sitting in the middle of. By this time next year, it might be different. I hope it is. For God's sakes, I hope it is. But in the meantime, you've got a real harsh environment you are walking into, andit be done? Sure, it can be done. I made a living in 1983. Interest rates were 17%. I sold houses. I don't know how in the crap that happened, but I was just too dumb not to stop. So I sold houses, but I worked like a maniac, and I was only 23 years old, so I was dumber than a rock. But you can do it. I'm not going to tell you to not do it. I'm just telling you it's a lot of hours, a lot of frustration, a lot of drama, because people are mean when they're moving.

There's one thing that I heard, Cherie, I'm going to give it back to you because I know you got a question. But one thing I heard in your voice was you said, and what you said, you said, I want to be able to put the effort in and control. It's going to take you a while to build a pipeline and a reputation up to where you can downshift and control it like that. Do you understand what we're saying on that?

No, I completely understand what you're saying. Right now, I'm at a point in my life. I mean, I still have 20 more years before I could actually retire. And I actually went through hell going through the cancer survival. It took me two and a half years just to recover from it. And still, I'm having some side effects that I still have to recover from. Oh, sorry. Yeah, me too. But the things are looking good, and I want-.

You can beat that. You can win the real estate game. Yeah, before.

I was so afraid to just be my own, go through my own business and do something on my own. But after having a face-to-face conversation with Dad, it changes the perspective a little bit. You know what I mean?

Well, practically speaking, can you financially do it if it takes you six years to get on six months? Excuseme, six months to get on your feet? I know, scared her to death. Can you guys do that financially?

Live on your husband's income for six months?

Because you got $75,000 going away.

I got $25,000 going away. However, we do have about $50,000 in our account. You can't.

Do that. I don't want you burning it. You need to live on his income. I'm not.

Burning it.

Can you live.

On his income? I have to live on his income. I have.

To live on his income. Then live on his income and go do it. Perfect. But just go in knowing this is going to be hard.

I am not expecting this to be easy by.

Any means. The rules of business, when I'm talking to entrée leaders, when I'm talking to entrée leaders that are talking about starting their own business, it takes twice as long as you think it's going to. It costs twice as much as you think it's going to, and you're not the exception. Those are the three rules.

Then the other thing is that I just heard that right now there are a lot of people going into real estate agent, being an agent and whatnot.

It's a great time to get in because everybody else is getting out.

I've got an edge for you. Dave and I are really good friends with Bryan Bifini. Bifini and company, he is the top coaching company in the world for real estate professionals. I would highly recommend you connect with Bryan Bifini, Bifini and company, and use them as your coaches to get you going because.

They walk.

You through all this.

They know what it's like. Yeah, I would agree. And Brian is a great guy. And Ken is not kidding, he's the top company. It's the largest coaching company. They coach more than anyone else, and they do the best job, in our opinion. They're really incredible. So be sure and check him out. Hey, I think you can do it, Cherie. I'm just warning you that this is not Skittles, Rainbows, and Yellow Brick Road. There's flying monkeys out there. Be ready. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, it's Dave Ramsey. And Rachel Cruz. We want to tell you our number one tip for managing your money well. I'm talking about budgeting. Yes, and everyone knows that I am a huge fan.

Of.

Budgeting. Well, that hasn't always been the case, though, has it, Rachel? No, but listen, I seriously love it now because as soon as I started making a budget, I learned that it puts you in control of your spending. And my favorite way to budget is on our app, Every dollar. Yep. Every dollar makes budgeting simple. It's the easiest way to make a plan for your spending so you can prioritize the things that matter to you. And you can get started today for free. Just download the app and check the show notes for the link. You guys don't wait to start budgeting.

Download every dollar and.

Create your.

Free account today.

Do it. It's the best. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at triple-8-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the dead-free stage, Eric and Alyssa are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing great. Doing great. Good, how are you? Welcome. Where do you live? Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Oh, that's fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you two paid off? $125,000. All right. How long did that take? About four years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started at 90,000 all the way up to 150,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I'm in sales. I'm in marketing. Very good. How long you two been married? About two years. Oh, so you started on this before you got married? Yes. Very good. And completion after marriage? I like it. What debt is the 125? Student loans is most.

Of it, and then.

Cars, credit cards. That's pretty much it. Okay, who had the most? Me. You owned that the way you brought it up, yeah? Yeah. All right. Was it all you? No. Okay. All right, good. I'm feeling better now. All right, so 125,000 of normal. Yeah. Then you two meet and start working towards out of debt, then get married two years ago and complete. Tell us the story. How did you get connected to Ramsey and how did you decide to, as a young couple, you were going to do this?

Yeah, we were living just.

Going along.

It felt like we.

Had adult responsibilities.

But we were still living in a lot of ways like children who didn't like.

The word no, and that was really stressful.

I actually listened to entrée.

Leadership first, and then.

I listened.

To.

That for a while. And I was like, I'm going to check out Ramsey's.

Show, see what it's all about.

And.

Then it just felt like.

What we were.

Missing, the discipline that we were missing. And later that night, I.

Had him listen to.

It, and I.

Was worried.

That he was going to think it was too extreme or whatever. But he was right on board right away. And from that point, we were game on.

We cash flowed our wedding.

One of our dogs needed a $5,000 surgery. We were.

Able to cash.

Flow that washer and dryer.

It's like different things.

Came up along the way. But like you say, David, it turned it into.

An inconvenience.

Rather than an emergency.

It was wonderful.

A great way to start our marriage as well.

Way to go. Eric, she says, Just weird guy on the thing here. I want you to listen to this. You had to roll your eyes a little. I mean, at first I.

Did.

But honestly, what we were doing wasn't working. I mean, we started the.

Journey.

Separately. When we were dating, even I was down to my last $20 sometimes, and I was like, Oh, we should go on a date. I was like, Well, I better get my credit card out and.

Pay for that.

Once she brought it to me, I was like, Okay, this makes sense. No more dates. Yeah, exactly. See what you did? Oh, man, that's fun. Now what was the last thing you paid off? Student loan? Student loan. The big one. You gave both Sally May her eviction notice. Oh, yeah. Pretty cool.

This seems particularly relevant right now. Why didn't you guys just wait to see if Uncle Joe and his proposal was going to come through? Why did you keep attacking it?

We thought about it for a minute, but ultimately we were like, We've already got this momentum.

We're already going out.

At hard. Let's just do it. Nothing's gaining interest right now. It's the best time to be doing it. I can tell just because I have friends who didn't and they're kicking themselves now. Yes, sir. Wow. Yeah, the old interest and the payments have kicked back in and they kick some people in the teeth in the process. It's tough out there for some folks right now. Oh, yeah. I'm so glad you all are free. Way to go. Way to go. Thank you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I'd say for me personally, it was having that strong reason why. What was your why? Mine was growing up, my parents grew up middle class, but that meant having heat locks, taking out credit cards and everything. I can remember watching my dad at the kitchen table talking to credit card holders and everything. I'm going to pay that next week.

I'm going to get to that.

This week or telling us not to answer the phone because he knew who was calling. I knew I didn't want to put that stress on us. They give us everything that they could for us kids growing up. But I knew I wanted to be able to honor them by not doing that and being able to build even more bigger life for our kids. That's something that's interesting with the culture doing away with the home phone, the family phone and the family living room, family kitchen, there's no longer there. The kids don't get to hear the collector calls. Yeah, it's true. You're right.

It's a lot easier to head outside or in.

The garage. Yeah, the garage. It's never a thing. You just look down and block that one. When it was ringing off the hook at home, the kid's like, I got it, dad. Don't answer it. I hadn't thought of that in a long time. That's an interesting change, though, in the way we do technology in our lives. Alyssa, what about you? What do you say the key to getting out of debt is? I think it was the budget, the discipline.

Learning that no is a.

Complete sentence. We don't have to.

Keep up with what.

Everybody else.

Is doing. We can do our own thing and be on our own path.

Towards our future. While you were doing this for four years, $125,000, what was the biggest money fight? I'll take.

This one.

For my job, I'm on the road a lot. I drive every day. During those drives, I'd like to.

Stop at a gas.

Station, grab a coffee or pack a beef jerky or something. But that wasn't in the budget. Anytime that would hit the budget and we didn't talk about it, we'd see that in the every dollar pop-up. It wasn't a beef jerky category. There was not. Not even a dime.

It feels like that still has a little pain.

Attached to it. I saw that. There was a little scarring there.

It still happens.

Does he have a beef, jerky budget now?

I do know. He should have now, yeah. He should have beef, jerky, and coffee. You got to have that. That's gas station food, man. You got to do it. That's good. I like that. You came home to the Walk of Shame and said it was a beef, jerky day. She's like, I know I've already seen it. She knew Fridays was usually that day. You made it all week, and then your willpower dies on Friday. I know the feeling. I know this guy. Okay, way to go, man. That's awesome. Good realism. I appreciate that. You're 100% free. You're how old? Thirty-three. Twenty-nine. Wow. How's that feel? The best feeling ever. I can't explain it sometimes. Yeah, you all can do anything now. If you can attack this monster, kill this dragon, you can kill anything. I'm so proud of you. Way to go. Very well done. Well done, guys. Who was your biggest encouragement? Outside of the two of you?

Yeah, we had our friends. They thought we were crazy, but.

Once we told them that we.

Couldn't spend money on.

Things, only free activities.

They were supportive.

Come.

Over for game.

Night, movie night.

They were always happy to just come hang at our.

House or invite us.

Over to their house. Will you keep doing that now? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's fun. It's better community than the other stuff. Absolutely. Much more personal. Than some loud bar where you can't hear each other talk. Right. It really is. You can have an actual conversation with an actual friend. We had friends over Friday night for dinner, and it's an old-fashioned thing to have people to your house for dinner. It really is. It's a lost art. I mean, it's really well then. But you all brought it back. I'm proud of you. Hey, we've got the live and give box for you, the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. That's your next step in the process. You'll be there soon. The total money makeover book to give away and get someone started, and a financial peace university membership to either go through or give away as well. It's your live and give box our way of saying thanks for coming to Nashville to do your debt-free scream all the way from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Eric and Alyssa, they're heroes. They did it. They took control of their lives while everyone else stands around and watches. Way to go, you two.

125,000 paid off in four years, make a 90-150. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt free! Yeah!

I love it! Well done. Man, absolutely amazing. Good, good work. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 32:8, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise and watch over you. John Rockefeller said, If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. Yeah, it's interesting, Ken, the difference between the wisdom of studying other people and finding what we in business call best practices versus just carving your own path and making your own way. Sometimes doing an old thing a new way is a good idea.

Well, it's really the heart of entrepreneurship. The problems aren't necessarily new, but the solutions to these problems are new. That's how we see the entrepreneurial spirit, the innovation. They are, by definition, cutting their own path to find a new way to solve a problem or create a new solution, a new desire for people. That's the name of the game right there.

It really is. The one that always just enthralls me, and I always just think it's so interesting, taking something that is so standardized and finding a different take on it. In the 1920s, there was not any free-on. There was no refrigeration. You had a box in your house that was insulated, and the wagon or maybe a motorized vehicle, but likely a wagon, delivered a large block of ice with tongs. They set the block of ice in the box for you to keep your milk, your eggs, your meat, and cool. It was called an ice box. That's why some people still call their refrigerator an ice box because their great grandmother did that, right? Then along comes refrigeration. General Motors invented... The chemists found F. R. E. E. O. N. And invented what we now call air conditioning and refrigeration. The Frigidair, was a division of General Motors, was born. They started making refrigerated boxes that go in houses. We called them fridges or refrigerators or Frigidairs. First brand that got brand penetration was Frigidairs. One of the ice houses that used to deliver ice in North Dallas was owned by a guy, his name was Johnny, and they nicknamed him Uncle Johnny.

It was Uncle Johnny's Place. He had this huge ice house, and he had figured out that if he would store in the ice house, it was at a central location in North Dallas, if he would store some meat and some eggs that people would come by in the mornings on their way to work or in the evenings after work and pick them up. He used the ice house to store, and he had a little store going there on the side. Well, ice houses, of course, went out of vogue because there was no more ice boxes because refrigerators put them out of business, right? But Uncle Johnny kept selling more and more stuff out of his ice house, and he ended up chopping up the ice and would bag it for picnics. He named his little store after the hours he was open from 7:00 to 11:00. Oh, man.

There it is.

That's beautiful. Isn't that a great story?

It's a great story.

That's an entrepreneur. But it was born out of a business that went out of business because of technology. Ice is now no longer delivered to houses. It has to be chopped up and put in a bag. But by the way, we've been selling some eggs and some bread here. I love that. Now we sell lotto tickets.

Yeah, and to bring it full circle on the ice, the greatest thing 7-11 has ever sold and ever will sell.

Is the Slurpy.

The Slurpy. The flavored ice drink. Uncle John, that's great. You really had me there. I felt like this was the old days.

The Paul Harvey, the rest of.

The story. You really did do a Paul Harvey.

Right there. It's the rest of the story. That's great. By the.

Way, if.

You're a young person- It's a market disruption. We have all this technology that is market disrupting everything. The internet has disrupted almost every industry in one way or another. The grocery business is now interrupted, right? We've got an amazing number of people that work here in the office that don't go to grocery stores anymore, including one of my daughters, which shall go unnamed. Her name sounds like Rachel. Yeah, starts with a Rachel. Rachel.

That's how it sounds.

She doesn't go to the grocery store? No, she has that automatic delivery crap. She's truly a true millennial.

I did not know this. This will lead to some great harassment next time I see her. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, that's good.

Because we.

Know she's- What I was trying to cause. Rachel harassment is always good.

Very interesting. Once it all delivered.

Ben is in Anchorage, Alaska. Hi, Ben. How are you?

Hey.

Ben. How are we doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

My wife and I were basically at maybe step four, I guess, looking to-.

So you're saving 15% into retirement?

Yeah, we went through in our budget and we have about 17% left over after home repair funds and car funds and all that stuff. But we're debt-free, and so we're just saving up those things for replacements and whatnot. Then trying to decide what to do with that 17 %, obviously, we'd like to invest for retirement, but we would also like to start a business.

What a business do you want to start?

She's a baker. She's been a baker her whole life and is looking... But she's always worked for someone else, and so she's looking to get on her own and-.

What would she bake?

We're actually going to start with pizzas. Pizza. Which is a magnet and then artist and bread.

You mean Pizza crust?

Well, we'd be.

Selling pizza. Oh, so you're going to the pizza restaurant business?

Yeah. From there, she really wants to sell baked goods and bread, like artisan sourdough bread. But the pizza would be the...

Are you going to prepare it at a restaurant or is it going to be cold and I'll heat it up when I get home?

We're looking to start a food truck, ultimately.

A food truck? Okay. Yeah. But they're like to go behind. Expensive way to start. That's very expensive.

Yeah. We don't have enough money to start that way. We're going to start with a small trailer that I'm going to make with two tiny ovens.

On it. Okay, what does that cost?

That is probably going to cost around 10 grand.

Okay, and what do you make?

What do I make?

What's the household income?

The household income is around 1.15. Great.

Save up 10 grand, build the trailer, and start the bakery and the trailer on the side as a side hustle.

Yeah, but ultimately we would like to have up to that larger food truck. We would like to save for that and we.

Would do our- Guess what? The trailer with two ovens will pay for the food truck if you work your butt off.

That's our goal.

Yeah. That's a side hustle. That's extra income above 1.15. Right.

I.

Guess- Why do I not believe you?

Well, the question I was going to ask was my company pays 10% towards retirement of my gross income per year without me having to do anything. What I would like to do is put an additional 5% towards that to get 15, and.

Then that leaves 10%. That's not the 15 we're talking about. The 15 we're talking about comes out of your income. If they match you, the matching is gravy on a business, on a biscuit. You can do both. Save up 10 grand and go build a pizza trailer. A pizza trailer will self-fund itself. You don't have to not invest or retirement to get a food truck. The pizza trailer, the two-oven trailer will buy the food truck, but it may take two years. Hey, I didn't start this thing with Six Studios and 2,000 miles of wire and 18,000 computers or whatever it is I got in this stupid building. I started this radio show and a radio station that someone else owned, and they let me use it to do my radio show. I went and made money. After I made money, I bought my first little computer and two microphones, and we finally got our own little studio, and it was pitiful. It was the pizza trailer.

Yeah, which is what we're going for.

I just try to accelerate it. But now, dude, I'm sitting in the freaking Taj Mahal over here in studios.

But I.

Didn't start there. It was 20 years ago. You'll get there. You'll get there.

You got to focus on proving the business first. Everybody wants to accelerate. I heard the word accelerate and scale.

You don't have to choose between retirement and business success.

By the way, Dave, the acceleration takes care of itself. You know what I mean?

If the pizza is good.

If the pizza is good, the bread.

Is good. You can't keep people away from good pizza. They just attracted like flies, man. For that matter, Artisan Bread, too. My mouth is watering right now. I need to stop and get a sandwich.

Get him some sourdough bread, James, please.

Can we get him a loaf? Wait, get me a loaf in here right now. That puts a Sour 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. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience. I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on The Entree Leadership Podcast. I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or on the Ramsey Network app.