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. Best selling author and ramsey personality, Jade Warshaw is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225 Tiffany starts off this hour in jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Tiffany, how are you?

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are y'all doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Well, I'm calling because I'm sort of facing a bit of a dilemma. So I recently found out I was pregnant. I was dating a guy, and when he found out, he broke up with me, I ended up finding out that he actually had a whole different relationship going on while we were together. Yes. I'm 35 years old. I make about $75,000 a year, but I'm about 40, $49,500 in debt, and I'm on baby step number one, so I'm, like, freaking out right now.

A tale as old as time, huh? Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Well, as far as helping you go, I mean, we're just gonna say Tiffany's a single mom, makes 75k with $50,000 in profit or $50,000 in debt. I'm sorry. How are we going to help Tiffany? And we're just going to approach it that way. How we got here, sad, heartbreaking. But. But that's where we are, correct?

Yes.

So let's just look out. Let's look out the windshield and say, go. Can you, can someone who's making 75,000 have a great life and raise a kid and pay off $50,000 in debt? Well, absolutely. We do it all the time.

Does your job have paid maternity leave?

Yes. So I think we have about twelve weeks, except I don't have the short term maternity leave option from disability, I think short term disability. So I think I get twelve weeks. I think nine of those would be paid. The other three would be on my own, if I'm not mistaken. I haven't confirmed with HR yet because I haven't really told anyone just yet. I'm still ten weeks, so I'm still early on.

You got family in the area?

I do. So I actually moved in with my mom last year because I started a business and I was trying to save money on rent. And so now I'm about to have a baby. So she's, you know, like, okay, well, you have to figure out your situation. So I'm gonna have to put the business on hold and, you know, get my own place. So that's sort of where I'm like.

Okay, so you're not used to your salary. You're not used to your salary supporting your lifestyle. That'll be new for you.

Exactly.

Exactly. It's very new.

Okay.

It's very new.

Well, here's the thing. You make enough to live in Jacksonville, Florida, with a kid. Okay, people, in the twelve weeks is a new phenomenon. It's a recent memory. So nine weeks, eight weeks was the old standard back in the day. People did that all the time. And since that's what you have paid, that's you're going back to work at nine.

Right.

Because you got to pay. You got to pay the bills and got to pay raise a baby. So. And so what we're going to do is teach you how to live on a game plan, a written game plan. And Jade can coach you on that and put you on a budget, a detailed plan. And what's coming in. Every dollar that's coming in, we give it a name, an address, where it's going, what it's doing, make it behave so it has food, it has lights and water, it has rent, it has the other stuff. And then we start figuring out how we're going to begin to whittle away at this $49,000 in debt. How much of that is your car debt?

My car is paid off.

Oh, that's good.

It's pretty much all student loans. I would say that. I think it's about 36,000 in student loans and the rest is credit card debt.

Okay, that's good. That's good because I was getting ready to sell your car, so that's good.

Well, we are still going to cut up your credit card. We'll do that.

Yeah, we'll do that. And so we're going to put you on a game plan. Stop the debt. You're going to be very adult, paying attention to every detail, thinking about the future. Because now, whereas now our future includes two people, not just one.

And practically speaking, your next steps are you're going to hr to find out exactly what your benefit is. Just so you know. And then we're going to make sure, is that Christian over there that he'll pick up, make sure you get every dollar. That's the best budgeting app in the world. That's what Dave was talking about. So that you're budgeting for every dollar. But then on down the line, you're going to learn. We'll tell you about the baby steps, we'll make sure you got financial peace university as well. But what I want you to do right now, between now and when the baby is born, regardless of what you learn about the baby steps, paying off your debt, all of that right now is just save up mode. You're saving up all your money. You're pausing what you learn about the baby steps and you're saving up all your money for when this baby is born and for you, because you've got to get out of your mom's house. And so when the baby comes in the next nine months, eight months or so, and everything's good and happy and taken care of, now you have that big pile of money, and that might be first and last month's rental.

That's gonna be some savings for you to get out on your own feet and, you know, start moving forward with this.

Yeah. And, well, you know, how much are you? So you got 1015 thousand in credit card debt, right? Yes. Yes. So let's pretend you saved up 15,000 before the baby comes. Baby comes home, maternity covers it. You don't have any loss. You don't have to use any money for baby situation. Now we just take 15,000 out of that account, we pay off all the credit cards. Boom. That jumpstarts your get out of debt once you get the birth behind you and there's no issues. But in the meantime, Jade's right. Let's see how big a pile of cash we can pile up. Cause you're gonna lose no ground on your get out of debt plan or on your other plans as well. Now, financial peace University is a nine week class. It's taught online. We're gonna show you every detail of how to handle money like a grown up. Everything about becoming wealthy, getting out of debt, insurance, real estate, everything is in there. If we give you that class for free, do you promise to take it?

Yes, I will.

Don't you miss one. Don't you miss one.

I promise. I would not.

This is your time. This is your time. Okay.

And let me give you one piece, one more piece of advice. What I want you to do is go and start looking. Just start doing your research on apartments or places to live in your area. And when you make your every dollar budget, I want you to start practicing living on that, adding that into your budget and going, okay, when real life hits, this is really the money that I'm going to have to spend. And whether it's, you know, maybe rent is $3,000. So you're going to learn to live.

Without staying with mom until baby comes or you're leaving now?

I'm leaving in August.

Okay. All right. So that's already set. Yes.

Yes.

All right. And I don't know, does Florida have any kind of child support on paternity issues?

Yeah. So I've been. That's another thing that I've been thinking about.

Yeah, I'm thinking about that, too. I got a thing about people that make babies have to pay for them.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, I'm just, you know, he really wanted me to have an abortion and everything.

Yeah. I really want him to pay for it. I want him to pay for 18 years of taking care of his child. That's like his job. If he's, if he's such a wuss that he runs, as soon as he finds out what he caused, then on top of that, he gets to pay for it. Sex. Yeah. Bring it. Bring it. That's an issue. Wow. It's a self centered little. Yeah. Okay. What do I know? This is the Ramsey show. Hey, guys. Whether you're starting on a card table like I did or well on your way to becoming a multimillion dollar company, Netsuite can help your team communicate and plan ahead better, like they do for Ramsey. Let me tell you, Netsuite really helped us get our systems together. And more than 37,000 other companies also use Netsuite to know their numbers and their business better. So check out Netsuite today and find out how they can help you become the business you want to be five or 30 years from now. And right now, you can download Netsuite's free KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance@netsuite.com. Ramsey Jade Washaw Ramsey personality is my co host.

You've never seen, seen a reporter run up after the Super bowl of the World Series to the star player and say, you just won the Super bowl. How'd you do that? They never say, I don't know. I just got off the bus. No one accidentally wins. Winning at marriage, winning at your career, winning at money is a series of intentional acts. Around here, we say you should give every dollar of your money an assignment, every dollar a mission. Every dollar should have a name. Use whatever vernacular you want, but make your money behave. Instead of wondering where it went, make it behave. That's why we named the world's best budgeting app that we started working on many years ago and have continued to iterate and improve it to where it literally is, the world's best budgeting app. That's why we named it every dollar, because you give every dollar an assignment and it works wherever you are on iOS or Android or online, it's free. And immediately you can start it for free. And immediately you see where you stand with your money. You can get organized. And if you're new to everydollar, we're going to show you, in addition to doing your monthly budget, a long term financial roadmap track, your net worth, your debt free date, your retirement date, your process on progress, on the baby steps.

And we're going to proactively coach you to build wealth. You download the free app for iOS or Android, or go to everydollar.com and put it on a desktop. And Jade, you and George are going to be hosting a live stream on YouTube on the 11th later on this week, this month, and setting people up to answer the top questions.

That's right. People have top four questions we asked you guys, and you told us the top four questions are, how do I even get started? So we'll tell you how to get started. We'll show you everything. We'll have every dollar pulled up. You asked us, can I budget and still enjoy my life? The answer to that is yes. But we'll go into detail. George and I will. You also asked us how do we deal with changes that come up throughout the month. And so we'll be covering that as well as how couples can best budget together. So definitely stay tuned for more details on that live stream. We want to hear from you. And in the meantime, if you want questions, if you have questions that you want us to answer on that live stream, you can email them to ask@ramsaysolutions.com and we'll be sure to take a look at those. And maybe yours will get featured on the live stream.

It's a free live stream this Thursday, the 11 April on YouTube. And you're going to get, how do they get signed up for it?

You can actually, you can't sign up for it ahead of time, but you can go onto YouTube and hit the, remind me, it's like the little bell.

There on the Ramsey network.

Yeah, that's right.

On the Ramsey page on YouTube. Okay. That's what does it. All right, perfect. Very cool. Very cool. Open phones here. Triple 8825-5225 Wilson is with us in Daytona Beach. Hi, Wilson. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi. How can we help?

So me and a few of my friends wanted to start a business, and we just had questions about what we should do in order to get the money to start it. We have about, like, 25,000 saved up, but that's not going to be nearly enough to completely open it.

What kind of business?

It's a rock climbing gym.

A rock climbing gym? Okay. Yes.

How many of you is it?

It's five of us.

Okay. And how old are you guys?

We are all between 22 and 24.

Have any of you run a business before?

No.

Okay. And what's it take to open a rock climbing gym in terms of dollars?

So in terms of dollars between the people I've talked to, because I'm pretty good friends with two gyms that I go to around here, it's around 200,000. If you do it like yourself, like, you build the walls and you pretty much do everything yourself. Around 200 to 250,000. If you get it professionally done, it can be a lot more. So I don't think we would want to get it professionally done.

We'd PRobablY somewhere around $200,000 short.

About. Yeah.

And it's not like, it's not you buying a franchise of these, it's you starting from the ground up, building the facility.

Yeah. And we probably rent this area. Like, rent the building so we wouldn't really need to build a whole facility. It's really just like the holds that.

You have to buy and $200,000 worth of rock wall. Really?

Yeah, essentially, yeah. It gets pretty expensive.

Really?

You'd be surprised.

Yeah, I am surprised. Yeah. I'm shocked in awe. I'm aghast.

Yeah.

Yeah. No Way. Okay. We coach through entre leadership. I do a podcast also, where I answer small business questions on entreeleadership.com. Okay. And you can tune in that podcast once a week, but been coaching small businesses. We coach about 10,000 small businesses across the nation. I love small business people, so I love your entrepreneurial zeal, and my job is to not be a dream killer, but I love killing nightmares.

Yeah.

And what you're describing has two major, three major faults to it, and you're walking into a nightmare. Okay. None of you have any business doing this together. The biggest disasters I ever get into, coaching or partnerships, and that's with two people, much less five guys in their early twenties who climbed walls together, drunk beer together, and decided, now we're opening a business together. And that's all the more thought they put into it. It's a bad idea. Okay. You're getting ready to destroy relationships. Uh, of the five, four of you aren't going to squat. And I don't know which four it is, but it's going to be awful, horrible. The only ship that won't sail, Wilson, is a partnership.

Okay.

Okay, number two. Number two, you have. And I don't mean this, uh. I don't want this to sound, uh, disrespectful, okay, but the ability. But I've run p else on businesses. I run about 15 businesses inside this one, plus a couple other things I'm involved in. The chances of you getting a return on investment from individuals paying you to climb a rock wall of $200,000 is almost. There's no way this RoI.

Yeah.

There's just no way. That one you might overcome, and I might be wrong on, but the partnership you won't overcome and the fact that you're $200,000 short. And here's the problem. If you go borrow this money, you're absolutely. You borrow this. Here's the thing. Two things are going to cause this business to fail. Three things. Borrowed money, a partnership, and a bad pro forma, a bad business plan where the return on investment is not there. The third one, I might be off on, but the other two, a hundred percent, are going to doom this endeavor. You ain't going to make it. I'm all about killing your nightmare here. Don't get into this. You're going to get in a nightmare. Now, let's figure out another way to scratch the entrepreneurial itch. You know, finding someone that has a gym with rock walls. And how can I go in with them? Become the promoter, own a piece of the action with them. That's a bit of a partnership, but maybe we can have a joint venture here. And you get out there and learn how to run the business in a gym of something as nuanced as rock climbing.

Okay.

And get in there and get your. Get some chops, man. Get some. Some calluses. No pun intended, some. Some mental calluses to, you know, to figure out how this whole world works, because you guys are standing back watching it, and it looks like to you, looking in from the outside, that these guys with these 200 or $500,000 rock walls are making bank. I don't think they are.

Yeah.

I want you in the inside of the beast looking at the details.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate it.

Yeah. So what are you going to do?

Uh, I want. I mean, obviously, I was curious of what you thought. I mean, like, the. To me, it's similar to, like, opening up just a regular gym. And it is, like, one of the fastest growing sports, like, in the country. But I definitely hear what you're saying about you know.

You know what the failure rate on gyms is?

It's pretty high.

Yeah. You have to look at. You ought to look into that. And this is a nuanced piece of a gym.

Yeah.

Not a whole gym. And so it's an add on to a gym. That's what it is. So you need to learn everything about the gym business. It's like the restaurant business. It'll scare you to death. The failure rate is astronomical. It's one of the beauties of the crossfit thing is they don't buy nothing. They just open up a place and you go in there and sweat. They don't have any equipment. They don't have any equipment. You're the equipment. You know, that's one of the reasons that thing's working. This is the Ramsey show. I saw some recent financial statistics, and there was some pretty troubling news. When families were asked how long it would be before they faced financial hardship if a spouse died, nearly one third said they'd be in trouble immediately. Another 44% said they'd be financially drained within six months. People. It does not have to be this way. Term life insurance plans are just plain cheap. And companies have made it even easier by not requiring exams. In many cases, there really is no excuse to leave your family in this situation by not having life insurance. This is why I talk about Zander insurance every day.

They're committed to protecting families with the only products that I recommend. And their team keeps the entire process simple and affordable. Go to zander.com for quick online pricing or call 803 564282. This has to be a priority if your family is in this situation. You need to get this done. Jade Washaw Ramsey, personality, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. America. Open phones at triple A, 825-5225 Nicole is in Philadelphia. Hi, Nicole. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me.

Sure. What's up?

So my question today is, how do I proceed in moving forward in the baby steps when my husband does not want to be involved whatsoever?

How do I. Can I rephrase that and see if it's still correct? Sure. How do I proceed in building wealth if my husband doesn't want to include me and talk about money? Is that still correct? Yes. Okay. So it's not really getting to do with the baby steps, is my point. It's that you're trying to figure. You're trying to figure out a way to move your old life forward financially, and he doesn't want to be involved yeah. Why?

It seems to overwhelm him every time we talk about it. Our, you know, we've been married for seven years together.

Why does it overwhelm him? Grown up people do it all the time.

I mean, I've tried to talk to him about it many times. I don't understand why it overwhelms him.

Do other things overwhelm him? Yes. Like what?

Getting. Getting a job. He's currently home with our two children right now.

Is he depressed?

I don't know how to answer that. You know, we've tried to go to therapy. There was a big event that happened this year for us that kind of decided, hey, why don't you stay home with the kids for a little bit? Try to figure out where you want to work and what you want to do. And, you know, this is just kind of a symptom of what? I'm not sure the bigger issue is.

But you can't get them to go to. You can't get them to go into counseling?

No. Okay. Big events. Pretty vague. I don't want to put you on the spot, but it sounds like a guy that I learned a lot of this stuff from 30 years ago. Used to say, money problems are not the problem, they're the symptom. And so him not wanting to be involved in this is one of many things he doesn't want to be involved in. And all of those not, I don't want to be involved, or I'm overwhelmed or whatever phrase we want to use is due to a problem, and those are all the symptoms. Does that sound accurate?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, so we can't solve the symptom until we solve the problem. So now your question changes to, how do I get my husband to address his issues? Because until he addresses those, hes not going to get a job. Until he addresses those, hes not going to feel robust and have a swagger to go enjoy life and take life by the horns. Until he addresses those, hes not going to feel ready to draw his sword, pull his gun, or whatever metaphor you want and attack the world alongside his wife to go build wealth and have a great future together. This guy is hiding because hes scared, because stuffs happened and hes feeling pretty broken right now. Am I missing something? Right.

No. That's very specific to conversations we've had. We've talked at length, and that was very close to a conversation we've had recently.

So I. We're. We're. I mean, doctor John Deloney is our guy that talks about relationships and emotional health. He has the PhD in counseling. I have a PhD in dumb because I've done stupid stuff half my life and tried not to do the same stupid stuff over again. So that makes me older and wise now, but I'm not qualified to help you with this. But all I can tell you is, just as the old guy here and you can speak to, if Sam was this, if this was happening with Sharon or if this was happening with me, I can tell you what Sharon would do because she's pretty freaking proactive. I mean, we would create a different crisis and define the crisis and say, we're going to address this problem, whatever it is, and we're going to find a solution to it. And it sounds like that involves. If it's in. If it's in my world, it's meeting with a therapist, with a counselor, and getting very involved with your pastor at your local church and having a spiritual approach and a psychological, emotional, relational approach to getting to the bottom of whatever's going on so that he can have a wonderful, sustainable life going forward.

Oh, and by the way, that's going to rub off on you. Does that sound right? It does. I'm going to create a. I'm going to start throwing grenades around there until we're in counseling and sitting down with a pastor and in church, and we're not going to hide at home with the children and call that nurturing instead of addressing my crap. Is that too blunt? Does that mean.

No, no, not at all.

What's his reason when you've said to him, hey, listen, you need to go to counseling. You need to go therapy? What has been his reason for decline?

It's not for him.

So sitting at home with the kids and doing nothing and hiding and hurting is for him? Yeah. Not okay with me.

Yeah, I listen.

So I want to deputize you to love him well enough to create a problem.

That'S. And that's, you know, Dave, that's what I've been trying to do.

I don't. I don't know how to do that.

I mean, I've been praying. I've been. Well, I've been praying, and that's good for months. And, you know, for October. Since October. And then it was funny because he sent, he was the one who sent me something from you guys, a real. On Facebook. And I was like, oh, gosh, like, maybe I should start listening to these guys. And I've been binging everything since the end of January, and I've got. I've gotten very intentional, you know, he's been on board with some things and thinking I'm crazy on others. And I sold my car a couple weeks ago.

Wow.

I've got hundreds of stuff on Mercari and selling a bunch of stuff.

But you're. You're lonely. You're lonely. I'm sorry you guys are facing this. Well, I. Yeah, I just. You go to counseling if he won't, and talk to the counselor about a proper way, because I'm not qualified to tell you to draw him out and to create the crisis that leads him to healing because you're not going to lead him to healing if you go fix all the financial stuff. It's not gonna fix this.

No, it's.

And I understand you're just gonna be wealthy, dysfunctional people. Yeah.

I've been in counseling since October.

Okay. Yeah. Well, ask the counselor how to give you language and how to properly draw boundaries and timelines on your demanding as his wife, who loves him more than anything, how that he start making progress in these areas, and it's not progress. And the symptoms progress in what's going on inside of him because these other areas aren't going to fix until that does. I've been doing this a long time, and I've watched that. So, I mean, you would. You, Sam and you. I know how you. I know how you and Sam work.

Listen, I'm holding my tongue a little bit because I'm not a doctor and I'm definitely not a counselor, but I can tell you what I would do.

Well, what would you do?

I'd make.

You're a wife.

I would make life more uncomfortable with him not changing.

Yeah.

So that it's more comfortable for him, too. It's like you have to, like, flip the script a little bit and be like, okay, you're not gonna change. Life's about to get real uncomfortable.

I'm not gonna go over here and try to do life without you. And be lonely.

Yeah.

And fix all the money stuff while you sit home.

Yeah. There's ultimatum.

And judge my actions.

Yeah.

You twerp. Yeah. Come on.

Listen, Mama will put out the ultimatum in a second, so.

Hey, it's.

Is it right or wrong? I can't say, but it's worked for me.

Yeah.

You know, we're going. We're gonna do that. This is not okay. You know, and it's clear communication. And it's not an act of anger.

No.

An act of love.

Well, there's two people in the relationship, and she has as much validity to have happiness and have health in her life as he does. And if he doesn't want to contribute to that, then she has choices that she can make. That's all I'm saying.

Ooh. Ooh. See, that's what would happen at my house, too.

Oh, I can hear you.

Except it would be choices, choices. It sounded like passive aggressive southern Sharon is my girl.

I already know that.

And I'm telling you, this is the Ramsey show.

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Jade Washaw Ramsey, personality, is my co host today, best selling author. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. Thanks for joining us. We're so glad you're here. Hey, we appreciate all the word that you've been spreading out there. We know you are because our numbers are up ridiculously on YouTube. Wow. I mean, bizarre how many downloads on YouTube we're having in a single day. The number of hours listened is the number of downloads. Over a billion and a half. Now, that's bizarre. Same thing on the podcast, over a billion. We were the first. We were number four podcast of all time to hit a billion downloads on Apple, and some others have done it since then. But that's where we've been. Where we've been. You guys have been keeping us up in the top 12345 on the podcast list and way up there on the YouTube stuff. And talk radio numbers are. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So continue the help. Spread the word. Click the follow or the subscribe button. It makes a big difference if you do that. Thank you for doing that. Watch the show. Listen to the show however you do it.

Click the share button if they have one, or cut a link out and send it to somebody, say, hey, listen to these crazy people. They're helping people because we do. We are helping people. And people are entertaining, too, if you didn't know. So just listen to the show if you don't believe me. And the, you know and of course, leave a five star review. If you ain't anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So, Jade, you know, talking about the trolls?

Yes.

The newbies. We had new people start at Ramsey every other Monday. We have a new batch come in, and the newbies, I always meet with them. Their first ten minutes on the job, the CEO shows up. And so I go in, sit down, answer questions with them, talk to them, and one of the guys is like, how do you put up with the trolls? And I'm like, it's really easy. They're irrelevant. They're irrelevant. The comments, what about the negative comments? They're irrelevant. Here's what I know. Here's the numbers. On Twitter as it exists today, they call it x. 10% of the members of Twitter do 80% of the posts.

Wait, say that again.

10% of the people that have a Twitter account do 80% of the posts on Twitter. Wow.

Oh, wow.

And Twitter is a sewer hole right now. I mean, it's just about all trolls. So that tells you how irrelevant the trolls are. And when I was a kid, we read a story about Billy goat Gruff and the trolls. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what trolls was. Not something when I was a kid that you were proud to be called. You did not want to be called a troll. Now, it's like a badge of honor for some of you who don't have a job or something. But what we have figured out is you're statistically irrelevant.

Yeah, it's kind of sad. I always.

How many times have you written a negative letter to somebody?

Never. Never.

Or comment.

Dave, you have to be. You have to have a lot of free time on your hands, and you have to have nothing better to do with your time, and you have to feel so negatively about yourself.

No, no. Self righteous or self righteous.

But I think at the core of.

It is, yeah, the only time I ever wrote a letter, I was 23 years old, and I wrote a letter. I was a brand new Christian, and there's nothing more phariseitical than a brand new Christian. Right? So I was a total pharisee, and I wrote a letter to the local movie theater because they were playing some movie that our church said was a bad.

You thought it was bad?

Yeah, it was a bad. Was bad for people. I just dressed the movie theater general manager up and down. And, you know, later, years later, I found out how movie theaters are run. The general manager had absolutely nothing to do with whether the movie played or not.

I want to know what movie it was.

Oh, man. It was. Well, I mean, it was 40 years ago, so it had to be some kind of real deep blasphemy. I don't know, but. Yeah, but that's the only time I've ever done it, though. I've never written an. I don't write a hate mail.

I don't think I've ever. I can't think of a time.

I just don't have time. I'm too busy.

That's what I'm saying.

Doing things. Luke is in Nashville. Hey, Luke. How are you? Good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. My question is, my wife and I make about 65,000. We have no debt. We've saved up 20%, and we're looking to buy our first house. We're renting right now.

Wow, look at you. How old are you guys?

I'm 27. She's 31.

Way to go, Luke.

Thank you.

How much did you save up?

We have about 75,000 right now.

And you saved all that making 65k?

Yeah. I've done pizza delivery on the side.

You're amazing.

A couple years now. Thank you.

How long did it take?

About. We were doing it before we were married, too, but between both of us, about four or five years.

Way to go.

How can we help? You're doing great.

Thank you so much. Basically, we're looking at our first house because we don't make a lot. It's scary to see this money go away into a down payment. So I guess we're just trying to make sure that this is a good investment where we are currently at in life, I guess.

Awesome. Okay, so you're not using the money to live. Correct. So there's no fear that your life is going to be affected negatively in terms of living, because you're used to living on less than you make. Right. So you don't need the money for that. So that's not where the fear is. The fear is doing something you've never done before. A huge purchase. That's a good fear. That's wise. If that's where the fear is. What else would you. What else would the fear be? Tell me. I don't know where it's coming from.

I think because we don't make a lot of money, it's, like, a lot of hard work. And whenever I kind of see that we have that much saved up, it's a great accomplishment just seeing it dwindle down to, like, an emergency fund.

Well, it's not dwindling there you go. That's what it is. Exactly. Take it. Yeah.

It's not dwindling. You're investing it into a forced savings account. That's what you're doing when you're buying a home. It's an investment like anything else.

You're moving it from one investment to.

Another and it's still gaining. I mean, I think people are used.

To, Dave, gain more than it is now.

Exactly. People are used to investments being, like, in the stock market and compounding interest. But real estate is very similar to that. You're putting that money over there. The money is yours. It's in this forced savings account, and it's growing in equity month after month, year after year. So it's. You're just switching it, like Dave said, from one savings vehicle to another savings vehicle.

So the area of town that you're thinking of buying in in Nashville, what area of town?

My wife works in Mount Juliet, but because that's kind of expensive, we're trying to go toward Lebanon because it's a little bit cheaper.

Okay. And where did you grow up?

I grew up in Pittsburgh, but, yeah, I work from home now, so I'm kind of flexible.

Okay. Is she from the Nashville area?

She's not either. We're both new here.

Okay. All right. Go to ramsaysolutions.com and pick out a realtor under the Ramsey trusted real estate agents. Okay. Okay. Not a realtor, but a real estate agent. Okay. And pick out. And then when you're interviewing them, interview at least one of them that's old and ask them the house that you're looking at in the Lebanon area, what it sold for in the year 2014 when you were 17. Okay, and then what? You're going to have to pay for it then you're going to see what an investment looks like.

Oh, yeah, no, I've seen some of those before.

It's mind blowing. One lousy decade from now, how much money you will have made is going to blow your freaking mind. You're going to love it.

And the good news about moving this money into a home, for the most part, is it's. It's harder to get at. Like, we're going to teach you all the time, hey, don't take out a home equity line of credit. Don't borrow against your home. We're going to tell you that all the time. But there's something about it being tied up in your house where you're like, okay, it's over there. It's safely growing, as opposed to sitting in a savings account with no purpose behind it. You see what I'm saying?

I think you rang the bell on doing savings and you said, hey, I just accomplished a big goal. Now, when you put it on the house, ding, ding, ring it again. You accomplish goal number two, which is a step up from where you are. Your next goal is a better goal than your first goal. And so you get the sense of accomplishment. You move on, because you can say, ten years from now, that house is going to be worth y. I'm only paying X. And, oh, my gosh. The difference in X and Y is how is where people become wealthy, people like you who learn how to control themselves. At 27 years old, you're amazing.

And by the, you're going to make more money, too. You guys make 65,000 now. But that's not the be all, end all. As the years go, you're going to make more money, too. So you don't have to be afraid like you thought you were.

Man, I love it. Luke, I'm excited for you. For goodness sakes, go buy you a house. And if you're not a little bit scared when you're doing brand new stuff that's big, you're a fool. So of course you're a little bit scared. First time you got behind a wheel of a car, I was scared to death. Now people drive with their knees, put their makeup on, and need a big Mac and text. 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. Our phone number is 8888-2552 225. Jade Roshaw Ramsey Personality number one bestselling author is my co host. Today, you jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Kenneth is with us. Kenneth is in Amarillo, Texas. Hi, Kenneth. How are you? Hi.

Thank you guys so much for taking my call.

Sure. How can we help?

So I feel like I made the dumbest financial decision in my life. I bought solar panels with a solar.

Loan, and I want to know how.

To get out of the loan. I know the obvious answer is to dig deep and pay it off.

But.

I wanted to know if it was as simple as just telling them to come and take the solar panels and we'd be done with it.

How much did you spend on this?

It is a $41,000 loan over 25 years.

What's your household income, man?

We made 105,000 last year.

When did you do this deal?

Two years ago.

Okay. What happened that made you rethink it because at the time you did it. Obviously, you didn't think it was dumb.

Yes, sir. Well, they. I guess I thought about it some more. They had an 18 month spent of where it was a lesser payment, and then after the tax credit thing, they wanted us to submit a tax credit, and we get a refund, and we send it to them. But I did not read the loan. I just signed away and did not know that. So now my loan has increased my payment, and I'm paying double in electricity than before solar panels.

Why are you paying double in electricity?

No, he's not. He's not. He's paying double what he was paying in electricity.

What's your payment? Just curious.

$200 a month.

All right, so you missed a tax credit because you didn't ask for it on your tax return? Is that what you're telling me?

No, I'm saying that I did turn. I did turn it in as a tax credit. We got the credit.

Oh, you just didn't apply to the loan?

Yes, sir.

I got you. Okay. All right. She got a $41,000 balance on the loan. If you don't pay it, they will hypothetically repossess the solar panels, which I doubt they will actually do. It's because there's not exactly, like, a big repo market. I mean, they don't have a lot where they sell repoed solar panels, so doesn't happen like it does with a car. So they may or may not repo them, but they will sue you for the $41,000 plus or minus whatever they get out of the used solar panels if they did do a repo. But they'll probably just sue you for the debt. Okay. Now, you are in Texas, and so they can't garnish your wages in Texas, and they can't take a lien against your home, but they can do a lot of other stuff. And by the way, you signed a contract and made a promise, so you need to honor the promise. So we're gonna take 104,000, and we're gonna say we went and did something stupid and put $41,000 on a credit card. Now we got to pay off a credit card. In a sense, that's what we did. Right? So let's just put this in your debt, snowball, and let's get after it and get it paid off.

And if this is the dumbest thing you ever do in your life, you're probably pretty smart.

All right, well, thank you guys so much.

I appreciate it. Please go get it. Knocked out?

Yes.

You have a. You have a pattern in this conversation of not dealing with crap. So I want you to deal with this head on. I want you to get on a beans and rice budget and get this crap cleaned up yesterday, because every time you write a check, otherwise, you're going to feel stupid. So I want to write as few of those checks as I can feel, because I don't like feeling stupid every month. I don't like it, and you don't like it. And don't do that. Get it cleaned up. Get it out of your life ASap. Hey, I'm not against solar panels, boys and girls. I am against borrowing for them. And there is the reason why. Okay, number one, people don't watch what the flip they're doing. They buy the wrong thing. They buy too much. They overpay when they borrow. Now, solar panels in some areas of the country are very efficient. The technology has improved dramatically over the last several years, and some of you can actually do very well. I've got a good friend that's doing 40% of his house on, and it's a big house on solar panels. Now, he's in an area of the country where he gets plenty of sun.

Obviously, that matters. And. But, but the, you know, it's efficient. But he paid cash for him. And then you just look at a break even.

Well, you would think that there's a situation, especially with the caller, where you've. Okay, you spend $41,000 on solar panels, you change your mind, you realize you're not getting the value. You would think that similar to being an upside down in a car, that you could sell it off, pay the difference and be done, that you could sell them to a real estate.

There's no market for you.

There's no market for that.

Used solar panels, take them off the top of your house, leave a whole new house. I mean, it's. There's nothing worse than new solar panels except used ones. I mean, it's like. So now we're. Listen, I endorse a couple of solar companies around different areas around the country, and I'm not ashamed of that at all. But the way they sell that crap. The way they sell it is crap, is what I should say. The way they sell it is. Here's your payment. And your payment is going to be less than your electric bill. You heard him say that, right? And now it's more than the electric bill, because I didn't follow through and do the thing I was supposed to do, right. But the idea being that, you know, you're going to end up saving, and then when it is finally paid off in 25 years, give me a break. Yeah, that's crazy. Then from then on, you have free electricity. No, no, come on. You're going to have mechanical dysfunctions and malfunctions. We're not going there. But anyway, can they break even? If you can run a situation, run a scenario where your solar panels break even in five to seven years, you may want to look at that.

If you've got the cash and you're out of debt, your baby, step seven. I'm fine with it then. But if you don't have that level of break even, then they're there. My house is in the woods. No chance. Yeah, and I ain't cutting the trees. I like my trees, so I like the woods. And woods usually comes from trees, so I like my trees. So there you go. But, no, we're not going to get that. But, but if you can get a break even and have free electricity, like my buddy did, you know.

Yeah.

Essentially, he's got about 40% of his big old house is operating free.

It's like, at what point, though? He said he's paying $200 a month, that, which is now double what he was paying before. He's paying more. And I'm like, when I lived in south Florida during the summer, that AC bill could be, like, 3350.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's just part of living in south Florida.

Yeah, well, I mean, but if you could. The idea being, if you paid 250 instead of 350 and that was a payment on the solar panel, you're still saving money monthly. And from the end, you're helping the environment and all. Yeah, right. All this stuff. Right.

Means to an end.

It's just, it's. It's a way of selling it. It's a crappy way of selling it. The proper way to look at it is break even. If you put out $10,000, how quick do you get back $10,000.05 to seven years? If you want to do that, that's fine. I've not chosen to do that. Not against that way of doing it, financing it. It's Kenneth. The dumbest thing Kenneth ever did is. That's what he said. That's what he said, said. And if it is the dumbest thing he ever did, he'll be all right. This is the Ramsey show. Jade Washaw Ramsay personality is my co host today. Today's question of the day comes from Carmen in South Carolina.

She says, my husband is 79. And I am 77. We own our home, which is valued at $330,000. There are repairs and improvements that we need to do, but we do not want to take out a loan because we're debt free. We plan to stay in our home until we pass away. All bills are paid off each month, and we put about $500 to $1,000 in savings every month. And currently we have $10,000 saved. We have no investments. We are considering taking a reverse mortgage to provide money to work on our home while we continue to build up savings. Is this a good plan? No, it's not a good plan. My first thought is, you've worked so hard, you're debt free, and you've decided that you want to live a debt free lifestyle. In many ways, this is you taking on debt by basically saying, okay, we're going to take the equity out of our home and have them loan it to us at a very, very high interest rates with lots of fees. And if you're saving $500 to $1,000 a month, my thought would be, well, why can't we just save up and make these repairs?

They don't talk about exactly what the repairs are if it's, hey, we need new carpet or if we need a new roof. But my thought would be, I'm not going to go into debt after I've come this far. I'm not going into debt, period. So I. I would not do that. I think it's a terrible plan act, actually. And with reverse mortgages, honestly, you're putting your. If they have heirs, they're putting them in a bad situation, too, by taking out the value in this home.

Yeah. You know who falls for scams? The most? Old people. And you scam artists that feed on old people ought to be ashamed of yourself. And so the reverse mortgage is a horrible piece of crap. Stay away from it. The most they will loan you is up to 65% of your equity. And if you do not stay current on the taxes, the repairs, and the insurance, they will foreclose on you. Among regular mortgages, fha va conventional fannie Mae mortgages, the foreclosure rate in America today is 1.6% of those get foreclosed on. Among reverse mortgages, 8%. Almost five times as many houses get foreclosed on with reverse mortgages. What does that tell you? It tells you how bad they suck and what a scam it is. The interest rates are higher, the fees are higher. The process of putting you back into debt after you've worked your whole life to get out of debt is just abysmal. And look at where they're advertised. Where do you see them advertised?

On the channels old folks are watching.

Yeah. I mean, when you pick out your investments or financial products from commercials, where they are advertising snuggie and walk in bathtubs and gold, this is where you know you don't want to. Well, gold's in that mix. You don't pick your financial products where they're doing walk in bathtubs and snuggies. This is not. This is not where you pick out good things to do. Okay? And guess who's advertising?

Montel Williams.

Ancient actors. Ancient actors. And who got paid to be an actor, not a financial analyst. And so sorry, Tom Selleck. And by the way, the company that Tom Selleck endorses, the Federal Trade Commission, just hit them about three years ago with a huge multi million dollar fine for misbehavior. Magnum PI. Well, more of late New York blues or whatever it's called. And, you know, and the Fonz, well, he's not the Fonz anymore. Sorry. Henry.

Henry Winkle.

I love Tom. I love Henry. I think. Not what they endorse. Okay. I just. We can't go there. I'm actually a fan of both of their work. I'm not. I've never met either one of them, but. But no, don't. Don't buy stuff because. And William Devane is the guy with a gold commercial. But the. Or whatever his name is. But, yeah. Oh, God, please, no. Please don't do this. Listen, we would never tell you to take out a mortgage on your house to do repairs, but that would be smarter than a reverse mortgage.

Yeah.

Lower fees, lower interest rate, much more generic product. Not as much scam around it, not as much foreclosure around it. And you're not even considering doing that because that scares you to death. Well, this ought to scare you. Triple X that. So please don't do it. No. Reverse mortgages. Awful.

I think the rate's even higher now for foreclosure. I think it's 10% now.

Is it really?

Yeah.

Oh, so my. My data is old. It's gotten worse. Well, I mean, it's not hard to predict.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just. It's, um. Molly's in St. Louis. Hey, Molly. How are you doing?

Good.

How can we help?

Okay, so I feel like my family's in, like, a big transition period. I just got back from maternity leave two weeks ago. We're currently on baby step two, and we've got a little bit of ways to go, mostly with my student loans, but I actually just got a job offer for a position that aligns more with my career path. Like, ideally. And the only issue is it's a further commute and, you know, being a new, new mom, it's my second baby, but, you know, being away from my kids a little bit more, you know, just the motivation that taking this job and more money I pay is the right. More money?

Yeah. Doing what?

Like, I'm a pharmacist.

Okay.

How much more money?

Like $27,000 a year.

Wow. What's your husband make?

Currently he makes 45.

And what will be your commute?

It goes from 20 minutes to 50 minutes one way.

And what about him?

One way he lives.

He works.

He's a funeral director, so he works locally in our town, so he doesn't have a commute.

How much debt do you have?

Student loans.

So about 220 in student loans. I have been working for a non for profit hospital, so I've been there for about four years, so I would only have six years left. I'm going to another non for profit hospital, so with the public student loan forgiveness, it would eliminate about half of my student loan debt.

Maybe, but you're maybe waiting.

I'm not banking.

I'm not waiting. If I was, that would be.

I mean, what about moving?

We have a lot of help where we're at, and we like where we live. Our in laws are only right down the road. My parents, and they are retired. A member in law watches our kids, and my parents live right across, you know, away from us about a mile. So it's really not an option. With his job, he has to live, you know, where we are because he's on call.

You know, if people were to pass away.

So I just wonder, what about a third option? Like a different job?

Yeah. Because my thing is this. I. You have two kids. I have two kids. I'm not saying that I feel the way you feel or vice versa, but I just know that at the end of the day, the difference between getting home at 530 versus 615 is big.

So I would be getting home about the same time. I work ten hour shifts at my current job, and this would be eight hour shifts. So, like, the daytime away from my kids is about the same.

So you're there for less time.

So the only difference is just, you gotta be on the road. Yeah.

Which, I mean, we live in the middle of nowhere, so we're used to. Our target's 45 minutes away. The mall is an hour and a half away. I mean, the nearest Walmart's 30 minutes away. We live very rural areas, so a commute is nothing that I'm not used to.

So you don't seem like you really have any objections to it. I don't.

It's a big, you know, just coming off maternity leave, and the only change.

Is just the drive. It's not even the time away. You're not away from your baby.

It seems like your hang up is more about changing jobs than the actual commute.

Yeah.

Is that fair?

I'm a loyal person.

Yeah, very fair.

I'm a loyal person and letting people down and then, you know, transition, you know, period of our life. My husband started a business at the beginning of the year, which is going really well, and we didn't have to.

But you're gonna be gone 10 hours a day either way.

Yeah.

Yeah, either way. So what's the difference in all that? I guess there isn't.

I just don't know if I wanted confirmation from somebody that wasn't, that didn't have any bias in my sensuous, her.

Problem is she feels bad that she's leaving this job. You said it was loyalty.

Oh, yeah.

And a very loyal person.

I feel like, yeah, I leave the job. I mean, you're breaking even on your time away from home.

Yeah.

And you're used to driving 50 minutes to everything, so that's not a big deal. I do it, I don't see, I don't see a downside. And I gotta tell you, the people you're loyal to, they'll remember you for 30 minutes or so. This is the Ramsey show. Jade Washaw. Ramsay personality is my co host today. She is the best selling author of the book money is not a math problem. One of our Ramsey quick reads the real reason you're broke and what to do about it. You can check that out, of course@ramsaysolutions.com. We have two new books coming out this month on pre sale. Actually coming out early May is Ken Coleman's new book, find the work you're wired to do. Now, this is a short hardback book that is designed to walk you through his get clear career assessment. The assessment is sold online at ramsey solutions.com, and about 100,000 folks have taken it so far. And so if you want to learn, you know, get clear on your career direction, what your strengths are, your passion, how to get dialed in on that. This is the best assessment out there on that. It's very inexpensive, very quick to take 27 minutes or so, and then this book will walk you through the results.

That's what it's for. So when you buy, find the work you're wired to do. Pre sale, you're going to get three codes for the assessment. One in the book, one comes with a book, one comes with the audiobook that we're going to give you as part of the pre sale. And one comes with the ebook, which comes as part of the pre sale. So you're going to get all of those delivered to you in May, and you can get that at Ramsey Solutions. Rachel Cruz has next week a new book coming out. Her second children's book. Her first, was a best seller. It was called I'm glad for what I have about contentment. This one's called I'm glad for where I am. Home is where the heart is. Fabulously illustrated by Lauren Gallagher. Lauren is an absolute world class at this. And these kiddos pictures are fabulous. This one, the other one's about contentment. This one is all about gratitude. But the stunning, just beautiful, beautiful illustrations and already been reading it to the grandkiddos. And the smallest one is Papa Dave. Papa Dave. Read. Papa Dave and I always want to read to the kids because when you're kids that are read to, they always turn out bright.

They always come ahead. They're always ahead in everything. Read, read, read, read, read. In a culture that doesn't know how to read and in a culture that doesn't know how to comprehend, you give them huge advantage when you do that. So whether it's Rachel's books or any, or the junior series or anything else you like out there, it's great. I've gotten pretty good at doctor Seuss.

Yeah, doctor Seuss.

I had put it down for about 25 or 30 years and I picked it back up. Now, wacky Wednesday. Another generation in. And here we go. Yeah, my kids. I do not want green eggs and ham, Sam. I am. I'm just saying. There we go. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 Tricia's in New York City. Hi, Tricia. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, how are you? Dave, thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So I am divorced. I have two kids. One is in college, one is soon to be in two years. I'm trying to figure out how to make an income of 200,000 per year based on, I guess, my assets right now, which, the first one would be my home that I currently live in. It is paid off and the rest would be just really? The money that I have in the bank. So I feel like I'm at that point where I'm not sure if I should sell my house and where to invest the money.

So what's your home worth?

My home is worth between three, six and four one.

Okay. All right. How long have you been divorced?

Two years.

Okay. And how much money in the bank?

About 760,000.

Okay. And where do you live in the city? Manhattan.

I'm actually right outside the city. I'm at the Jersey Shore.

Oh, Jersey Shore. Okay. All right.

Yeah.

All right. And what do you do for a living?

Well, I was. I'm in DC. I was buying and selling homes, renovating them. I've done that for the past 15 years. With the market the way it's been with the interest rates, it's kind of been a little difficult this past year and a half. So I'm just trying to regroup to figure out if I, like I said, whether I sell my home and use that money to reinvest in properties or put it in the market. It's kind of where I am. I'm at that standstill of, like, it's kind of a now decision to make.

So I'm just.

Is $200,000. It sounds bizarre to say this out loud, but I am hearing someone that's living in a $4 million house and has almost a million dollars in other assets. So, I mean, you've got approaching a $5 million net worth. You've only been divorced two years, so that tells me you guys have been living a pretty luxurious lifestyle for probably quite a while. Am I missing something?

I would say. I mean, I think it's all relative.

Oh, it's all relative, but that's. That's way above most people. Would you not agree?

Yeah, I agree.

How much is it going to shock your system to move down to only 200,000 a year?

I think that that is my goal. I actually am very content with that number. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Yeah. How did you come to that number and be content? The number is not content unless it represents something that you're content in.

Yeah, well, I think it's a matter of the past few years doing spreadsheets and kind of seeing what my budget is. And it looks like, you know, I've been spending between 170 and 185 per year.

Okay, that's a good number, then. All right. All right. I like that. I like that approach, rather than. I just picked a number that I ought to be able to live on. I'm used to living on three times that, but I picked a number. That's what I want to be careful of. Okay. All right. So if you sold your house, what would you live in?

I don't know. I was thinking maybe I would either rent something because my youngest son will be in college in two years, or maybe buy a house that more around a million dollars, but I'd rather really maximize.

Where's your youngest son in school if he is going to be there for two more years. Public or private? Your youngest?

Public? My youngest is in public.

So moving school districts, you can do that a million dollars and not, not get out of that school district?

Yes. Oh, I can stay in the district? Yes.

For a million bucks?

Yeah.

Okay, so you have a million dollar paid for house. We cleared three, give or take, and we've already got seven, so now you got three. Seven. Well, that'll generate more than 200,000. You can generate a lot more than 200,000 doing flips with that money. Yeah.

So would you. Would you say it would be better to do the flips than to put the money in the market?

How many flips have you done?

Oh, probably 17, maybe.

How many were profitable? How many scared you to death when you were doing them because you were.

Afraid you got stuck, maybe from the ground up? The one new construction one scared me to death.

Okay. All right. So you know what it looks like, because it sounds you got enough experience under your belt. So how much can you make doing flips a year? Well, I'll give you a $2 million budget.

Okay.

How much can you make if you got $2 million cash and you're flipping it?

Okay, 2 million. I would say you ought to make.

A lot more than 200k.

Between two and 300 better b, three.

Better be making more than 10% on this money doing flips. You're taking too much risk.

Okay.

You got a better margin than 10%, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have a 20% margin or you shouldn't be doing a flip.

Okay.

What'd you make on your 17? What was your margins?

Um, I mean, they're. They're so different. I never.

I know, but you should be averaging your business model out, kiddo.

I know. I don't have a business model. I just kind of, like, did them and then put the money in the bank of whatever I made.

And then how do you know you made money?

Well, because I know what I put in. I used my own money for the investment.

And you took it back out and you ran a spreadsheet on each job, right? Yeah. Go back and run your margin. Go back and run your margins. If you're not making 20%, you need to be doing something else.

Okay?

It's not enough. You can't. You can't take that kind of risk for seven or 8%. You put a stick at high yield savings and not have to go through all this trouble and taking the risk. Okay? So you need to be making 20 or not doing them. And if you make 20 on 2 million, I've still got a million seven sitting over to the side, and you're making 400. So sell your house, move into a million, budget, some amount to do flips, put the rest of it with a good smart vest or pro in some mutual funds, and you're gonna easily have more than two hundred k to live on. Wow. There's a lot going on there. This is the Ramsey show. Hey, teachers, let's be real. Your influence on students is massive. And during financial literacy month, we're celebrating you and all your hard work. We want to send you on a well deserved vacation. That's right. You've earned it. Heroes. This April, you can enter the Ramsey teacher appreciation giveaway, sponsored by Ramsey Education. One teacher will win a $5,000 vacation to wherever they want to go, and two more teachers will each win a $3,000 vacation.

There's no purchase necessary to win. The giveaway ends April 30, so enter now. And if you're a teacher, go to ramsaysolutions.com teacher. That's ramsaysolutions.com teacher. Big wash. Our Ramsey personality is my co host today. She is author of the book money is not a math problem and bestseller from Ramsey Press. So let's do some finance 101. All right, a couple of things. The first thing they teach you in finance class, one of the first things they teach you is what's called risk return ratio. The more risk you take, the higher return you should get. So when you put your money in an FDIC insured bank, no risk virtually, but they pay you almost nothing.

Fair enough, right?

If you move it around a little bit, mess with a little bit, you could put it in a good high yield savings account, which will sidebar on that for a second. We were talking about this off air a little bit. We'll come back to my risk return ratio in a minute, but let's turn left for a second and park there. A high yield savings account is exactly what it says it is. It is a savings account at a bank that pays a better rate. Ding. Ding. That's it. Okay. A CD. A certificate of deposit is a savings account at a bank. And they give you a certificate.

Yes.

And you have to, like, perfect attendance. You remember that one? Yeah, yeah.

But you can't touch that one.

But you can touch it. But you won't get all of the high yield. Okay. The high yield savings accounts, fully liquid, pays more than CDs do. Right now, CDs have just about been run out of the. Out of town by the sheriff. Okay. Ten years ago, we didn't call them high yield savings accounts at the bank. We had a savings account at the bank that the bank labeled wrong. But they did it for marketing reasons. The bank called it a money market account at the bank. It was a savings account at the bank that paid a higher rate. Like a high yield savings account does. Same exact thing. The savings account that paid a better rate. That mimicked real money markets. But the bank did not sell money markets. They had a savings account called a money market account. That had an interest rate that was similar to a real money market account. A real money market account was only available through. And still is only available through something like a mutual fund company. So you could go to fidelity or american funds or whatever and open an actual money market account. Now, you can have money market accounts with those that have check writing privileges.

Even a debit card attached to them and those kinds of things. But the high yield savings account has, as a marketing methodology, it's a better marketing, actually, than money market. Because it says, I'm gonna give you more money. Yeah, it says, I'm gonna. Higher interest savings account. That's what it says. It is what it says it is. Actually in the money market account was just a misnomer. Yeah, but it was all for marketing. It's all banks selling their wares. So high yield savings account, simple savings account, little better interest rate, but almost no risk. So back to the risk return ratio. If you want to double your money, you know you're pretty much going to leave investing and go to gambling or speculating. Now, some people call speculating investing, but it's really not. Speculating is where I want a short, quick return on my money. That's speculating. Day trading stocks is not investing. That's buying and selling stocks on a daily basis or a weekly basis. That is speculating. When you build a. When a builder, a home builder builds a home that does not have a buyer, he. They called spec houses speculating. They're speculating.

They're building an unsold piece of inventory. They hope to sell now, they're not investing for ten years when they build that house. Praise, they pray. They're not investing for ten years. They hope you're going to buy the house when you. So that's why they're called specific houses. They're speculating. The builders are speculating. That's not investing. It's right next to gambling. And you can make a lot better money speculating, but you're taking the ultimate high risk. It's kind of an all or nothing play usually. It's why I don't buy commodities like gold and wheat futures or whatever, because it's all speculating. It's short term plays with a gain. It's why we don't do bitcoin. It's a short term play with a potential gain. And it's got a no track record. The only track record it has is filled with fraud and go to jail. Do not pass go. Right. And so it's just a mess. So the whole, the whole marketplace is high, ultra high risk speculating. It's not even investing. But along the spectrum of investing, the more risk you take, the more money you ought to make. So if you put money in mutual funds, I've got a mutual fund that opened in 1934.

It has had like, in that 80 or 90 years, it's had like, I don't know, ten years. It lost money out of 80 or 90 years or something like that.

Not consecutive.

Not consecutive years, but in the entire time.

Right.

Ten different individual times. Individual years. No, never back to back. Not a single back.

And they're always major occurrences. 911.

Something.

Yeah, something crazy.

Since 1935.

Yeah.

Okay. And it's averaged 12.2% since 1934. Okay. Now if I can make that investment by simply pushing enter on my computer, all I got to hit push a button. There's no, I don't have any effort to go with it. Then. If you're gonna do, if you're gonna flip houses, that's speculating. All right. You're hoping to make a quick buck, you dad gum better. Well, make more than 12% on your money. You ought to make 20%. At least. Ought to be your margin. It ought to be more, but at least a minimum of 20%. Otherwise you're taking too much risk versus the twelve you could make with. No, with a 1934 historical track record. Okay. Yeah. You gotta. The risk ratio on that is way different.

And where does the effort play into it, too?

Yeah, and effort. And the effort plays into it. And the worry because all speculating involves jumping in and out and involves a level of fretting over it and wringing your hands over it.

Mental calories.

Mental calories burning. Investing, even in high risk things, doesn't involve the same level of calorie burn that speculating does. But where you guys mess up sometimes out there in the TikTok land of finance, is they confuse speculating with investing. Investing is always long term. Speculating is a quick gain, but a higher, much higher risk gain at best. And then past that is actual gambling. I mean, when you're specking on a house, flipping a house, or you're speculating even on bitcoin, it is not the same as playing the roulette wheel. It's. It's less risk than the roulette wheel because you know you're going to walk away from Vegas, the house wins a hundred percent. Okay? House wins. Bellagio did not put those light fixtures in there. Uh, you know, they did not put those $10 million light fixtures in there with anybody's money but yours if you were in Bellagio, okay? I mean, it's. Vegas is built on the back of losers, people who lose money. That's what I mean. And that's how the math works. So I'm not saying you physically, personally, are a loser. I'm saying you lost your money there. You're a loser.

So, yeah, you lost your money. So that's it. So that. But that's the spectrum, okay? You go all the way from savings account with no risk, no effort, no calorie burn to the roulette wheel, all the way to the roulette wheel. And the more risk you take, you should make more money. If you're not, you're missing on the very basic tenet of finance 101, risk return ratio. More risk should always equal more return. If it doesn't, that's dumb. Don't do that. So our last caller doing the flips, she needs to be making 20%.

And it didn't seem like she was.

She don't know. She might be, she might have made 30%. She didn't know.

That's true. She didn't know.

She didn't know. But you gotta know, number one. And then number two, you need to be making that. I mean, a good residential builder is gonna make 20 plus percent most of the time, depending on what type of property they're doing, if they're doing specs, and if you're not, you're setting yourself up for problems because you're gonna hit these slow times when it takes a little while to sell a speculative piece of real estate. You are speculating. You are a speculator. Look it up in the dictionary.

So is this what we can expect from your investing?

Yeah, I might go on the same rent. I might put it in there in the investment livestream investment event. Yeah, I'm gonna do that. What is it? May 2122. I'm doing 2 hours each night. 2 hours of it will be on real estate. I'm gonna go a whole lot deeper in the real estate for sure. And I. But I'll probably put this rant in there because I've kind of been noodling on it. I think it's a problem that people misidentify these things and they call speculating investing when it's not. This is the Ramsey show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Washaw Ramsey personality number one bestselling author of the book money's not a Math Problem. Our Ramsey quick read about 70 pages worth on how to put together your life and the real person, the real reason you're broke and what to do about it. She's my co host today, triple 888-825-5225 Ashlyn is with us in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Hi, Ashlyn. How are you? Hi.

I'm good.

How are you? Better than we deserve. How can we help?

Okay, so my husband and I are both struggling entrepreneurs. Right now. We have a yearly income of $49,108 a year, and we have debt of about $111,582.

What kind of debt is it?

So.

Sorry, I was just running. We have 38,000 in my husband's truck, 14,000 in my car, and 54,000 in a camper, which was. Yeah, that was our attempt of living in the camper to save money and pay off things, because rent is very expensive.

But are you living in it now?

Well, it's been in the shop for the last two and a half months, which is very unfortunate.

Well, where are you living now?

We're living at our in laws house, and our plan is to sell the camper and sell the truck and stay with our in laws and pay off the 14,000. Oh, and then we also owe 5000 in student loans. So to pay off my car and the student loans.

Okay, that sounds like a good plan. How can we help?

Well, I guess that's a good question.

My.

You also need to make more money. Let me throw that in there, too.

Yes. So my struggle is that we need to make more money. It's hard to track it. I'm a hairstylist, and so my money kind of fluctuates quite a bit.

Why is it hard to track it? If you're keeping track of it every month, you'll be able to look back and say, this is what I made over the course of a year. And then after a couple years, you'll be able to say, and this is average for me to make each year.

Very easy to track a six, a 6th grader can do the math. I don't.

I guess I don't.

You haven't been tracking it?

I have not been. I switched to an online or I'm making all my people pay card because a lot of people will pay me cash.

Okay.

And that just doesn't work for me. I can't manage that.

No.

Very well.

Manage it. You can manage it it, but you won't.

So the problem is not. The problem is not that you're tracking. I mean, that is a problem. But tell me more about the problem, because whether you're tracking it or not, you've just told me you make $49,000 a year combined between the two of you. And you've told me that you had some failed self employment ventures.

Yeah.

Okay. So what does your husband do?

My husband works for his family's construction company, and they. He was working for someone else in the past. They laid him off. And so our family kind of took him on and was just paying him as a contractor just an average pay of like 800 a week just to do random odd jobs while they asked him to run a lawn care company to help them run a lawn care company, and that he would be 20% share in that.

So what I think. I'm just going to interrupt. What I think is, I think your husband needs to figure out what he wants to do as opposed to just taking whatever someone will hand over to him and say, hey, why don't you work on this? Or, hey, why don't you go do this? I think that's thing one is him figuring out what he wants to do long term, and we can get him hooked up with Ken Coleman's career assessment to figure that out. And I think for you, doing hair is great, but if it's only making you 20 or 25,000 a year, you've got to add something to it or figure out a way that that's actually giving you a sustainable income.

Your math's wrong. Yeah. Your math wrong.

Yeah.

That means your husband's not making $800 a week.

Well, he is but after tax, I'm so sorry. We set back money for taxes. So a month, he's bringing in 200 or, I'm sorry, $2,720 a month after tax. Is that more accurate now?

Yeah. Okay, so. And how old are you two?

I am 24. He is 27.

Okay, so here's what I'm observing. You all make a lot of decisions based on what it's going to feel like next week instead of what it's going to feel like ten years from now. Sure. And so you jump from one thing to another. You jump from a camper to the in laws, and wherever you jumped out of, into the camper, and then you jump over here, and then you jump over there and there's. There's a lot of chaos. And what I would pray for you guys, what I would want for you, because I love you, is for you to calm down and become very disciplined and very focused on a long term goal, both of you. And then the series of steps that will take you to the long term goal in your careers. So. And then that'll cause you to say, oh, my long term goal demands that I handle whatever money comes to me for being a stylist, whether it's cash or card, because I have to make this money behave to achieve my long term goal. Instead of, thank God it's Friday, oh, God, it's Monday. And. And then that. That person has trouble keeping up with cash.

Right?

But the person who's, who's, who's hell bent on a long term goal, zero. Laser focused on a long term goal. They can, they can keep up with cash. They don't have any trouble keeping up with it at all. Cash is not a problem for them. They don't care how you pay me. Just pay me, pay me off and pay me a lot because I'm going for this baby. I got a game plan. I'm doing it. I'm stepping, I'm going to. And when you're getting that and you're moving towards a ten year play instead of a ten day play, then it's going to keep you, because you guys got a lot of fits and starts. You start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And every time you do that, you lose not only focus, you lose momentum in your income, in your wealth building, in your career aspirations, all three. And it's very stressful. There's a lot of anxiety with that much chaos. And it's not. It's stress. It feels. It's just like I'm laying awake at night, crap running through my head. Like, what's it doing? What am I gonna jump to next? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Instead of like, there's a plan, we're the tortoise, not the hair. We're executing the plan. Hang on. We're gonna give you two of Ken Coleman's get clear career assessments. Take them both. They're our gift to you. Sit down carefully and say, who do I want to be in ten years? What are the steps to get there? And how does lawn care and hairstyling fit into that? This is the Ramsey show. Hey, friends, it's Ken Coleman, and I've got some big news. The get clear career assessment is now paired with my new book, find the work you're wired to do. Every book comes with access to the assessment, so you can discover who you are and how you're wired. Then I'm going to show you how to use your results to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. Pre order. Find the work you're wired to do@ramsaysolutions.com. Store and get the audiobook and the ebook free. Go to ramsaysolutions.com store. Jade Washaw Ramsay personality is my co host today. She will be among the speakers, the Ramsey personality speakers, which includes Jade and Rachel Cruz and George King Hamill.

And I will be talking about money stuff, of course, Ken Coleman, Doctor John Deloney will be with us as well. Who am I leaving out? And all the Ramsey personalities. We're going to be doing a huge weekend event, the total money makeover weekend. And it is May 10 and 11th. There are still some tickets available. We would love for you to get one before they're gone. Otherwise you'll experience fomo. Don't miss this. It's a day and a half, two day event. You'll leave fired up and wired up and knowing exactly not only how to get out of debt on a budget, but how to become wealthy. Ken's going to talk about increasing your income from a professional growth standpoint. Doctor John Deloney, our expert on relationships and emotional health. He's got a PhD in counseling. He's going to be walking you through the relational aspects of this whole thing, and you're going to have a total money makeover. So bring your reluctant spouse, but be careful what you wish for because they may turn into more zealous than you. And bring your crazy friend who thinks you're crazy, and they will leave crazier than you, the person that's making fun of you for doing the Dave stuff.

Bring them. Bring them and buy them a ticket because they'll believe me by the time you finish. Spend the weekend with us, you're going to not only believe that you can become wealthy, but that you should and could and can become wealthy. So it's going to work May 10 and 11th. Get your tickets@ramsaysolutions.com. Dot it's on the hill here at Ramsey campus in our Ramsey event center. Come in a little bit early on Friday and watch the show happen. We'll be doing the show live on the glass. We do every Monday through Friday from one to four central time. And I invite you to drop by and hang out with us a couple. About a week later, ten days later, I'm going to be doing the first time ever Dave Ramsey's investing essentials, where I'm going to go into the basics of investing, which I've done many times, but also what I do with investing. And so that includes not only mutual funds, but other things I'm going to show you and help you understand some really basic tenants, the principles of how you choose investments, the way you analyze an investment. And I'm going to go deep into my real estate playbook, how I look at real estate, and I own several hundred million dollars worth.

I'm not on TikTok and living in my mother's basement trying to sell you a real estate course. I actually have done this, hundreds of millions of dollars worth. So come join us. I'll show you what to do. And this is a virtual event, and so you're going to watch it from the comfort of your home. George Camel is going to help me with it, and it's going to be incredible. So you're going to really walk away with not only more knowledge than you've ever had, but some really to do list of what to do with your investing. And then Rachel Cruz and doctor John Deloney will be doing their money and marriage getaway, October 24 and 26th air in Nashville. It's a whole weekend of money and marriage. It's fun and funny. Believe me, if it's those two, it's got to be fun and funny. They just don't do it otherwise. Ramsey solutions.com events for all these tickets, be sure and check them out. Austin is in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Austin. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Thanks for having me.

Sure. What's up?

Just to get to the point, I'm looking at, you know, getting engaged and married to my girlfriend, and she is coming in with a considerable amount of student loan debt. And I'm thinking about, is it a good idea to maybe sell the house that I have a bunch of equity in to kickstart the debt snowball plan and knock out a bunch of this debt and get it paid? Or should we stay in the house and just go all in on the debt?

Now, you said you're looking at getting engaged and marrying. Are you engaged yet?

Not yet, but, you know, I have the ring and everything.

Good for you.

When does that happen?

That should happen within the next month or so.

Okay. And then how long do you think before you guys would go through with a marriage?

You know, eloping is not off the table, but within a year or two, I would assume.

But you said eloping. That is not off the table. Okay, cool. How much student loan debt does she have? Or. You said it was student loans, right? How much?

Yeah, 400,000.

Ay. Okay, and do you have any debt?

What is she.

She just is graduating to be a veterinarian. She has a job, but yeah, she's that. I do also have some. A little bit of loans.

I have 13,000 to be a vet. Should have been half that. Yeah. Good God. Okay, that's a lot. And how much, what's your home worth?

My home is worth probably six to 650.

And what do you owe on it?

328.

Okay, and so. And you said you had some debt, too. What was your debt, by the way?

13,000 student loans and 30,000 car payment.

Okay, and does she have anything else besides the loans?

$10,000 car payment.

That's it. What do you make?

133 base.

Okay. What does she expect to make when she graduates?

133.

She's already getting paid? Yeah, 135.

Okay, cool. Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah. So when you guys get married, all of this is going to become both of yours, but not a day sooner than that. So up until then, you guys need to both make separate headway on your debts. It sounds like you're already living together. Is that true?

Yeah, she's moving in currently.

Okay. So just because you're living together doesn't mean you're married yet. And so for that reason, keep this very separate until legally you're married. And I would do that sooner than later because at this point, why wait? Right?

Yeah, of course.

Like, pick the next romantic time and.

Propose and then the next romantic time and get married. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then. Yeah, and then, yeah, after you're married, I would sell my house. You hear that real clearly after.

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Not before, because we've heard all the nightmare stories that people that do stuff acting like they're married before they're married because they think because they're shacking up, they're married. You're not married. You don't have any of the legal protections or anything else. And so, no, no, no, and no, you do not pay off anybody's debt, not a dime of it, until you are married to them. And as soon as you're married to them, now, you took on their debt with them, and now we're going to do everything we can to clean it up as fast as we can. So you're going to be making close to. You're going to be 100% debt free pretty quick, and then you're going to be saving up to buy a house.

Exactly.

Did you have any other money saved?

Yeah, I have $20,000 emergency fund and then 120,000 in my 401k.

Okay, don't touch the 401k. But the 20,019 of it is up for grabs as well for you clearing out your debt. So if I were you, I'd start working on my car and get as far as I can until you guys get married. And same thing for her, whatever. She can clear out before you guys get married, you guys need to keep working separately. And then when you get married.

Yeah.

Come together and do this house deal.

Wow.

And never go into debt again.

And look, it's not to pick on or shame somebody, but it should be noted that she paid twice for her degree. What she should have paid.

Mm hmm.

Yes, I have pointed that out quickly.

Okay, don't point it out again. Once is enough.

And a cautionary tale, because it's worth noting when we talk about people living paycheck to paycheck. A third of people who make $250,000 a year or more live paycheck to paycheck, which is crazy. I think what happens is you get this good salary and you're like, we're living the good life now. And before you know it, that lifestyle creep starts creeping up, and you're right there, living paycheck to paycheck, feeling like you make $80,000.

I think being a veterinarian is an excellent career track, but 400,000 invested to make 135 is not a good roI.

A girl called in on Friday. I was on with George, and the girl called in, she was a veterinarian, and she was already 250,000 deep. And she had two years to go. And by the time it was over, she's going to be 400,000 in.

Not necessary. You can get. You can get a dvm for 200. I mean, for God's sakes, you can get an empty for 250.

Yeah.

So, um, you know, it's just watch what you're doing, people. These schools will charge you anything, and you don't have to look at it because you're borrowing the money, so it's not necessary. But, yeah, I'm a big fan of the idea of being a veterinarian, but keep in mind, welders with a high school degree make 110 in America right now. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, guys, are you ready for the secret? To help you reach those money goals that you've been dreaming about? It's simple. You got to get on a budget. With our budgeting app, everydollar, you'll get intentional with your money and build the habits that will make those dreams a reality. And we'll be with you every step of the way from your first budget to that retirement home on the beach. Download every dollar for free on the App Store or Google Play. Remember today. Download every dollar for free on the App Store or Google Play today.

Jade Washaw Ramsay personality is my co host in the lobby of Ramsey solutions on the debt free stage. Chris and Angela are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hi. How are you?

We're doing well. Dave, how are you?

Doing great, man. Welcome. Where do y'all live?

We're in Reedfield, Maine, just outside of Augusta.

Ah, very cool. Good to have you in Nashville. It's a bit of a trek from Maine to Tennessee. A little bit. Yeah. It's a bit of a trek from Maine to anywhere, though. Really? I mean. Wow. Good to have you guys. So how much debt have you paid?

We paid off $157,000.

Oh, wow. And how long did that take?

13 months.

Good for you. And your range of income during that year?

We started off at 230,000 and ended up around 300,000.

Excellent. What do y'all do for a living? What do you do for a living?

I'm a finance director.

Uh huh. And what do you do, Angela? Angela? Hey, her headset's not working, boys and girls. Okay, are you hearing me? Can't hear me. Can, uh. Chris, can you hear me? You can't hear me.

Okay.

How in the world is he answering my questions?

He's a good lip reader.

Barely.

Very barely. Hey, turn up his volume to his headset, please. Okay. All right, so. I'm sorry. Technical glitch. Oh, that's never happened before. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so can you hear me at all? I can hear you a tiny bit. Okay. What does Angela do?

I work in ministry.

Ah. Okay. Now you can hear me, or. A little bit. Okay, good. All right, cool. So what kind of debt was this? 157,000.

Yeah, we had a smart car loan, a tractor loan in our house.

Ah. You paid off the house? You're weird people. Way to go, you guys. That's cool. What's. What's the house worth?

About 550,000.

Wow. Excellent. Excellent job. Okay. Very cool. And how much do you have in your nest eggs?

A little over 600,000.

Millionaires?

Yeah.

Baby step millionaires. Way to go. Way to go. How old are you?

243.

All right. 43. Way to go. Very cool. Congratulations. Excellent. Wow. So tell us the Ramsey story. How'd you get started on this whole thing? Yeah.

So. Well, 1415 months ago, we started listening to the podcast, started hearing all these debt free screams, and we started getting emotional listening to them.

We kind of got hooked listening to them. And we had this thought that that could be us one day.

Wow.

Yeah.

So we. We decided that, you know, it was. It was time to stop making excuses and just go for it.

So all YouTube sucked you in? What's that? YouTube got you in?

Yes.

That's what did it. Okay.

So did you just learn from YouTube or did you do total money makeover? Did you do financial peace University, anything like that? We did look at Financial Peace University, but really, we. We knew the baby steps already, and we just decided now's the time to really put them into practice and. And hammer it out. Awesome.

Yeah. Way to go. Congratulations, you guys.

Thank you.

How does it feel to be free?

It feels great.

It's great. It feels really good. It's really. It's a. It's a relief.

Yeah.

Peace, right? Financial peace.

It is.

Wow. Way to go. Way to go. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is 157,000 in 13 months? Yeah.

I would say your. What's next has to be more important than the what's now. To be content in what you have not to, you know, be jaded by the stuff right in front of you, and to look to the goal in the future and really have your eyes set on that and to work as a team. Team to get there.

Yeah, way to go. Very cool.

Absolutely. So you listen online, you know, the baby steps. I gotta believe that you started budgeting. What was the hardest part? Walking through this, what was the biggest sacrifice? What was the thing that made you think, oh, this might be too much? What was the hard part? Well, to be honest, I'm super cheap, I'm super frugal. And super conservative. So cutting back on things wasn't hard for me. Second nature. It was second nature. I actually have the opposite problem now. I'm still super cheap. He's like, but we can afford it. It's expensive. I love it, I love it. I love it. So house is paid off. Everything's paid off. You guys are baby steps millionaires. Tell us what's next. I can't hear you.

I didn't hear that last question.

What's the biggest thing you're gonna do now that you're completely free?

Well, we have a couple of things we want to do first. We want to travel and we want to do some repairs on our home. But the biggest thing that we want to do is now we're able to give like no one else.

Amen.

We really.

We have big plans for that. I love it.

Amen. Way to go. I love it very, you know, we.

When we first paid off our debt, we were both, you know, the first thing we want to do, we want to be, you know, we want to give like nobody else. I think we were. We were shackled by debt which impeded our opportunity to glorify God with our money. Now we're at ability to, you know, with God's will, we can glorify him and bless others the way he has provided for us. He's blessed us, you know, more than we deserve.

And we want to.

We want to be able to reciprocate that to others.

Amen. Way to go. Yeah. That's what it's about right there. I love it. Congratulations. Thank you. All right, bring the kiddos up and introduce them and give us their ages.

So this is, this is Manny. He just turned nine while we were here.

Happy birthday.

Manning and Warren is ten. We also have a 19 year old at home. She had too much college work, so she couldn't make the trip with us, but she.

Dave, cool thing about that, she's cash flowing her college. All right, that's.

Yeah.

Audrey and Brianna both paid cash for their vehicle.

Way to go, guys. Wow.

We're passing that along.

I love it. Wow. The whole family tree has changed. Yeah. Excellent job. Way to go, you guys. Very well done. All right, it's Chris and Angela, Manny, Audrey and Lauren from Augusta, Maine. 157,000 paid off in 13 months. Baby steps, millionaires house and everything. 230 to 300 income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. 3211. We're debt free. That's how it's done, boys and girls. Yes. Yes. That's amazing. They did an incredible job, man. That's just super. That's like having a superpower now. I mean, to be 43 years old, be millionaires, paid for house, $300,000 income. They can do anything they want to do. And like she said, they can be outrageously generous now.

Yeah.

Think about what you. How much you can give when you don't have any payments and you make 300k, as much as you want to give. I mean, it's like live like no one else, so later you can live and give like no one else. Right.

Wow.

I mean, they really are in a position to do that. It's a beautiful, beautiful position of generosity. And they caught that. That we're going to give God the glory and, you know, we are blessed that we can be a blessing. Like Abraham of old. Right.

Yeah. And you're seeing it drift through their family tree already with children going to college debt free, buying vehicles debt free.

Yeah. That's when, you know, the cycle's broken.

Yeah.

It's not just, we did it, but then the next generation does it, too. That literally is a. That's a literal representation of changing your family tree.

Oh, yeah. And this is. I mean, these are core memories for these kids. They're never going to forget what they saw their parents do.

We drove all the way to Tennessee and that weird guy and stood on that stage, and the microphones didn't work, and we screamed debt free. And that's right. It's all marked right there. I mean, it's pretty incredible, you know, so absolutely perfect. Absolutely amazing. Very, very well done. Doesn't get any better than that. So here's the trick out there. You could be 43, you could be 63, you can be 23, you could be single, you'd be married with four kids. You could have no kids. You'd be married with six kids. Every shape, size, color, background, history of family has stood on this stage now and done a debt free scream.

Yep.

So whoever you are that's listening or watching, you've got no freaking excuse. None whatsoever. You gotta do this, folks. You gotta do this. Well done. Chris and Angela, your heroes. We're proud of you. This is the Ramsey show, our scripture of the day, Matthew 626. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? George Bernard Shaw says, both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, and the pessimists the parachute.

That's good.

I've never heard that. That is a great quote. Oh, I'm a quote collector and I've never seen that one. Oh, that's fabulous. Very well done. Open phones at 888-825-5225 Jade Washaw is my co host today. AJ is up next in Denver. Hi, AJ. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, Dave.

Hey, Jade.

Thanks so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So thanks again. I have kind of a crazy thing that I'm thinking about doing and I wanted to call because I listened to this and I want to call before I do the crazy thing and I want to hear your advice. So I am an engineer right now. I work in dams. I've done really, really well as an engineer, but I am still pretty young. But honestly, I never felt like that was the Lord's calling for my life. And actually, since I started, I always wanted to do ministry. And as time went on, it's been about ten years now that I've been in this engineering job. It's given me a lot of opportunities to travel and do those things. But I've had a consistent vision to kind of start a christian coffee shop near campuses, to kind of help students with hard questions. And I don't know, I've just. It's been a burning passion of mine. And about every six months for the last ten years, I've panicked and thought, when am I ever going to do it? So recently I made the move and I just asked a campus ministry if I could join them.

They said yeah. And no more than a week later, someone approached me and said, hey, would you like to start a coffee shop below this place? We have a place. You can have it for free. Do you want to do it? And now I'm panicking and I don't know if I have the finances to do it. I don't know what route to take. And really, my question is, do I? Option one, I could start my own independent consulting thing and probably just for 10 hours a week, make really good money and keep my engineering job at a part time capacity while I try to do these other things. Or do I need to just be more bold and go ahead and go for it? My only concern is that it's time. So if I start my own thing, it's going to take a lot of time. And no matter what, I'm looking at starting my own thing. And if I'm divided, on one hand, if I'm divided, there's a greater chance it will fail. And on the other. If I keep this engineering thing, there's always this, for sure, lower risk income that I can keep.

So those are the risks that I'm balancing. And I'm really curious what you guys have to say.

Is it just you or do you have a family? Wife.

I have a family, yeah. I have a wife and two kids. My wife works at home, but has a little side gig that doesn't really bring in much income. And so I'm the only one that's pulling in income.

What do you make as an engineer?

Right now I'm making about 100, 3140.

And how does your family exist if you quit and do coffee?

Well, we can raise funds with the ministry that we're going to be a part of, or I can go drop. So basically, I work for someone else now, and I could try to work for myself. And maybe if I'm. If I'm lucky or blessed, whatever you want to call it, make the same. Working for myself, working 10 hours a week, and do these other things on the side. So those would be my options.

Okay. All right.

Without being lucky or blessed, but just being very intentional about doing consulting, how confident are you that if you said, look, I'm gonna go out on my own and I'm gonna do this, so that there's that and the. The coffee ministry.

The coffee shop? Are you gonna own the coffee shop? Are you, what you're saying?

Yeah, that's right.

So hypothetically, it could actually be profitable.

Yeah. And I think it will be a number of years. And that's kind of the other thing I'm kicking around. We have for the last ten years been saving. I mean, it's been our sole focus, but I only have maybe 60k put away, and I don't know that it's enough.

How are you going to end up owning the coffee shop? How does this work?

Yeah, so the space itself is another ministry called the Colorado House of Prayer. And they offered us a spot. So they basically said, if you want to come under our umbrella, it's yours. But the question for us is, do we even have enough? It's not just the space. It's also floating our family.

In the interim, I got the family part. What I'm trying to figure out is, so if you set up a coffee shop and you put your money into this space, do they own it or do you own it?

They'll own it.

But do you pay any rent? You don't pay any rent or anything.

Okay, so you're not. So you're not talking about opening up a coffee business. Coffee shop as a business and doing ministry in that setting. You're talking about going over to a ministry place and putting in a coffee pot and doing ministry, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's not a coffee pot, it's a, well, it's got other pieces to it. I didn't, I didn't want to take too much time.

Well, I mean, the bottom line is, is you're giving this ministry a bunch of equipment, right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can do a different model than this and still live your dream.

Okay. What do you think?

I think this could be a hoop. I mean, it could be a snare. The, I think you open a coffee shop and do ministry from it. There's plenty of people that do that in the christian world. You would not be the first by far.

I have a question. If you, the ministry that was giving you the space, once you were to put yourself materials in there, they own it, would you be able to have your materials back if you wanted to? Mike, what I'm getting at is would you be able to use that space to test, figure out, hey, like, this is doing well, and then if you, if you, once you're ready to move on and see, hey, I can really create a business of my own out of this. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

What could that be?

A good test?

That's actually the.

Exactly.

And that would all come down to like a contract with them, but yeah.

The idea, your contract with the ministry, that you own the equipment and it's yours to take with you when you do go to open your next deal. Okay, that, that's okay. If you want to do that as a little test market and then keep the other open. So, um, when I'm looking for, I run a business that I believe as a believer, as a christian person, that God owns it. And when I'm looking for his will for that, I get 5000 ideas in my head and lots of things that push on me just like you have with this. And some of them, five years later, turn out to be God. And some of them turn out to be last night's pizza. This one has been persistent enough with you over a long period of time that it's probably God. It's what it sounds like to me. Okay. I might be wrong too. You and I both might be wrong, AJ, but I think you're probably onto something now. But that does not necessarily mean just because it's God, it does not mean methodology needs to be sloppy because Jesus said, don't build a tower without first, counting the cost, lest you get halfway up and you're unable to finish.

And all who see you begin to mock you and say, this man began to build and was unable to finish. So a lot of people, in the name of spirituality, in the name of Christianity, do a lot of half cocked, half planned, impulsive crap and blame God for it. Don't be one of those.

That's good.

You're an engineer. You know better than that.

Well, that's exactly it. And that's why, for the last ten years, I've been putting it off.

I'm not saying it's wrong, though. I'm just saying do it in a way. Build the bridge and say, you know, you're an engineer. Build a bridge. Right? I mean, you're. There's a methodology here to opening a business, running a thing. And that would require that you pull the boat closer to the dock. You don't just jump and call it faith and hope. The boat pulls up. So, no, you keep your income from engineering coming in from some source, whether it's 10 hours a week over there, whether it's side stuff. And you. You may have to put in a lot of hours to make this dream come true. God's not above working you.

That's true.

And so you may have to. Because you get your first job is to take care of your own household first or your worst and unbeliever. Scripture.

Yeah.

So he's not going to give you something to do in a way that it violates scripture.

That's a good word.

So have a good plan. Don't do it in a way that puts your home at risk, your kids at risk. They're first. They're first. They're your first ministry. Then you can. So you walk into this very gradually and very slowly. But I kind of think it is God just talking to you.

And if you need a new. A good name for the business, you could call it Hebrews.

Oh, Hebrews.

Hebrews. Hebrews. Coffee?

It's probably been done, but I like it a lot. Same. Pretty cool. It's not bad. That puts us hour of the Ramsay 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. Hey, folks. Dave here. You want to hear even more life changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like. Like the Ramsey show, smart money, happy Hour, and the doctor John Deloney show, youll get real talk about life, relationships, money and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.