Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the car rental studios. It's the Dave Ramsey Show that is. Cash is king in the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Boloney. Ramsey, personality and newly minted best selling author is my co-host. Today here on the air, open phones, a triple eight eight two five five two two five.

That's triple eight eight two five five two two five.

Just announcing today that Redefining Anxiety, John's first book, it's a Ramsey quick read, 84 pages or whatever, what what anxiety, what it is, what it's not, and how to get your life back. Redefining Anxiety is a has hit the bestseller list last week, so he is officially a best selling author to add to his many accolades.

Pretty cool. It's very cool. Very surprising, but very cool. I actually thought my boss Jimmy there was planning a Thanksgiving trick on me there. A Thanksgiving trick.

Yeah, we're big known for Thanksgiving tricks. The thing. Who knew that? Yeah. Hey, man, that gang around here is pretty brutal, so they will mess with you. That's true.

Open folds, a triple eight, eight to five, five to five. John's in New London, Connecticut. Hey, Jon, how are you?

I'm great. Thank you guys for taking my call. I really appreciate it. Sure. What's up? So my parents what's your financial piece like two years ago and I watched them start talking and it was great. It was really cool. But I was 18 at the time. So, you know, I'm I'm just just about twenty one. And I really wish I had paid attention because I was I was deployed in twenty nineteen. I actually joined the National Guard right out of high school and that was great.

But I was looking like impulsively and just buying things and stuff like that. But anyway, so I'm at UConn now tuition free with a Veterans Week and I have access to the post 9/11 GI Bill on top of that tuition waiver. And I guess what I'm wondering is what you guys think of this, because I'm thinking about using this benefit and taking that money now and saving it and investing it because it's better to start earlier than later. And I'm trying to get my foot in the door with that, or I can save it and transfer it to my kids.

So I just want to see what you guys saw a situation.

I'd save it and transfer it to your kids. You think so? Yeah.

You run the risk of the which I think it's a slight risk. I hope it's a slight risk of the of Congress at some point changing the G.I. Bill. Right. And taking that away from you. But I can think of nothing that might be worse politically for them to do that.

So, yeah, pick on the veterans, other places they can. But yeah, that that would be a bad idea.

So thank you for your service. And of course, I don't I just I every time I try to.

Quote, Take advantage of a loophole, unquote, it comes back to bite me, and that's kind of how this feels.

You don't need the money. It's laying there for your kids. You're not you don't have any kids, I take it. No. OK. I don't mean girlfriend, but some someday when you're married and have kids, that'll be there and that will enter into your long term financial planning and will enable you if you don't have to save as much for your kids college because that's laying there, you know, you'll be able to use that money at that time out of your income to build more wealth.

But.

Right. And it is transferable. So I can put it to more than one kid. You know, if I have got to I can do a certain number of months. I can do a lot to keep the peace. You will have, I think.

Yeah, the peace you will have. Raising kids, knowing that that's taken care of is I don't even know if you can, but you you can't put a dollar amount on it. But I don't know that you can't put a true dollar amount on knowing when you hold that kid. Know, that part's taken care of.

That'll be such a gift. Yeah. Yeah.

And I just, you know, you pull that out, you put it in an investment or something goes sideways, you end up buying a bass boat with it. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff happens. And so I like the idea of it just sitting there waiting for its proper use, which is education, not investments.

When I when I'm using the wrong tool for the wrong job, it always throws me off. And because, you know, if you're literally doing that, you'll bust your knuckles.

Right. Right. And you come, you know that I'll slip off and you'll hit your hand.

So in the financial world, it's not a lot different. So, you know, sometimes people say, well, you can use a Roth IRA for your kid's college.

I'm like, yeah, you can. But that's the wrong tool for the job. It's a bad idea.

It's the same kind of category for me, you know. No, I would not do that. I hope that helps open phones at eight eight to five five two to five. Jenna is in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Hi, Jenna.

How are you doing? How are you? Good. How can we help? OK, so I am concerned the question, should we pay off debt or should we hold like we've got nineteen thousand dollars in savings and thirty three thousand in debt. However, my husband lost his job due to a medical condition and we are still sorting through doctor's bills and doctor's visits to figure out what is going on with him and get a diagnosis so kind of in limbo and would like to go to what we should do.

Yeah, I'm sorry. What's wrong with you? They are thinking of muscular dystrophy, but haven't got a confirmed diagnosis. Ouch. How old is he? Yes, twenty eight, OK.

No, you are not working the baby steps, OK? Period. The only thing you're going to do is on a budget and your job is pile up cash.

OK.

A hurricane has hit your house and you put the plywood on the windows and you batten up for the storm and you put the canned goods aside and the bottled water and the generator. Right. In other words, you're in the middle of an emergency and you need piles of cash. That is your survival. And so you don't pay any extra on that, you don't pay any extra on anything, you don't spend any money anywhere, you pile up cash till you get this solved because we don't know how much it's going to take.

We don't know how long it's going to be before he goes back to work. And we don't know what the diagnosis is going to be and how expensive it's going to be and what the prognosis of the diagnosis is.

Right. Right. Yeah, so let me just tell you, you have if you got a little bit of that and you have piles and piles of cash, you got a little piece while you work through this storm.

Now, when the storm is over, he's back to work.

And you figured out what this is and you found out it's X, Y or Z. And it wasn't it wasn't bad then. And you're able to start your life again. That means the storm's gone by, right? Yes, that makes sense. Janet, do you have. Do you have some people that are walking alongside you during this process? Yeah, we got do we have a very supportive family, so we are very thankful for that. I'm talking about you.

You switched pronouns on me. You guys together do. I'm talking about Eugena. Do you have somebody you can reach out to at 2:00 a.m. and say this sucks and it's not fair and I hate this? Yes, OK, good. I want you to promise us that you will continue to stay plugged in to other people as you walk alongside your husband during this journey.

I promise I will continue to do that. Yeah. If you're if your friend was in trouble and you called them and they called you and said, I just need to talk, you would be blessed by that. Yes. So you're on the other side of that right now. Plus someone by letting them walk with you, ok? OK. Bless you, kiddo. You call us if we can help. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, it's Ken Coleman.

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Dr. John Boloney, Ramsha personality, best selling author of the book Redefining Anxiety, is my co-host today here on the air. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. Samantha is with us from Austin, Texas. Hi, Samantha. How are you?

Better than I deserve. Good. How can we help?

So I'm a first year teacher. I started in January and I got six weeks before this pandemic struck. But I'm actually doing quite well myself with finances. I was able to find a place and everything settled down. I don't have any student debt. I own my car and I have like thirty five thousand dollars. But I'm not sure what to do is look at you. And yeah, I get about like a thousand dollars a month in my increased paycheck.

Some say prorated it back when I started in January. So I'm living below my income means. And so I was just wondering if I should do something with a for three deferred tax option. My dad suggested stacking these mutual funds. What would be the best thing to do for someone that's twenty two years old?

Way to go. Wow.

So you you grew up in a household where they taught you how to do this.

I listened to you as a kid from my dad. Oh, financial peace, baby. OK, very good. Well, I'm honored. I'm so proud of you. Well done. I love meeting twenty two year olds who are so unlike me when I was 22.

I swear to you, you're making my heart just swell with a girl saying she's wise.

I'm saying that sometimes sometimes in these current times it's easy to get down on the world. My kids inheriting and when I know there's Samantha's running around up there, we're going to be all right. Hey, man. Good for you, Samantha. Hey, man.

You're a rock star, kiddo. Very cool. Very good. Thank you. Well, we teach a thing called the baby steps that you have heard of.

And I'm going to walk you right through that. I mean, you've got your emergency fund out of the 35000 that you set aside in the money market account, and that's three to six months, including the emergency fund.

Who are you, Samantha? I don't even know this girl. Who is this? I don't know. Is this woman all right?

And so now you take the 35000 and you I'm going to earmark it for a future down payment on a home, and then I'm going to take 15 percent of your income and start investing that in 403 B 401k or Roth IRAs or some combination thereof in good mutual funds that have a long track record. First, does your 403.

B have a match? But it does not have a match, and that's why I haven't started it. I would actually do a Roth IRA through my bank instead.

Now, you should go to Smart Mr. Pro and get your Roth IRA because banks are sucky at investments. And so we want good investments. And you want to go into good mutual funds for your Roth IRA. And what are you making a year?

They just kept it to 50. OK, so we need to do 7500. So you can do 6000 and you're off, OK, so that's easy. And then you could put like 100 bucks a month on your 403 B if you want to in some good mutual funds or 200 bucks or whatever, and then just do your Roth IRA and that'll get you there. That'll have you where you need to be as far as 15 percent of your income above that.

I'm going to continue. If you want to save even more, I'm going to just continue to add to the 35000 as the down payment fund for your future home.

I'm going to guess and say it might be three years for you buy a house.

And given that I might put thought about it, yeah, I might put that up in areas. Ridiculous.

Yeah, I might put that in a mutual fund with your smart Vesterbro as well. So go to Dave Ramsey dotcom. Com click Smart Vestor and it'll drop down a list of the smart investor pros in your area, the people with the heart of a teacher. And believe me, they will be as excited to meet you, Samantha, as John and I have been because you're, you're just you're inspiring. You're amazing. For 22 years old. So sit down with them, they'll help you get a Roth IRA started, maybe even take your four or three B options, they'll help you pick some of those.

You have to go back to your school system to actually do the investment. And then in addition to that, they can help you place that 35000 in a mutual fund or funds to grow it for the next three years or four years for a house fund.

And that's a good way to do that. And, yeah, they'll help you do that in a way that doesn't eat you up with commissions and also allows you to, you know, invest in something with low turnover so that you don't have a bunch of taxes on it or anything. Wow. You have got an amazing head start.

If you keep on this track and you don't marry an idiot, you're going to I mean, you will if you don't screw it up by doing that, right? I mean, you're going to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Should be a millionaire before she blinks. Yeah. Yeah.

And everybody listening to this. You can do it, you can grow up, Samantha, you can do it. It's possible you can all your children do not have to misbehave. No, you can grow up. Samantha, it's possible. I've done it. I got three of them. You've got three, Samantha. And how do you know I've got to Samantha's in training.

One of them's a long way. One of them. I can see it happening in one of them. Well, the interesting was the problem.

Child became an Remzi personality, a strong willed personality. Big spender. That's right. Yeah. We wrote books about her spending habits and now she writes books about her spending habits and tells me, you know, so go figure. But, yeah, it's she's authentic. I think they say, yeah, right. Yeah, that's what it is. So there you go.

But I mean you can do it. You can do it. And Kudo's hats off to dad and mom and dad. High five to them to you want to change your family tree.

You cannot make enough money or invest enough money or build enough net worth to change your family tree if you don't teach the next generation to handle it.

And they are watching everything listening, not what you say, what you do.

More is caught than taught. Rachel Cruci says much to her.

How do you act at Thanksgiving? How do you act at Christmas? How do you spend how do you talk about gifts that you are happy about, not happy about?

They're absorbing all of it and that's the person they're becoming.

Yeah, you can you can give a long speech and one eye roll call it all done. That's right. That's it. Michael is with us in San Antonio, Texas. Hey, Michael, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, John. It's a pleasure to talk to you both. I'm a big fan. Thanks. How can we help? Yeah, so I have a lot of stuff upcoming in my life in twenty twenty one.

I'm getting married in January. Yay. And Yeah. Yeah. Doing that.

And you don't sound real happy Michael. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. I'm just really nervous. All right. That's okay. You get one of those.

It's okay. We won't tell her.

And so yeah we're not getting married. She's bringing in about two hundred thousand dollars in student debt and she'll be graduating the year after. So I'm just trying to get a sense of how should I plan for all those new responsibilities and at the same time, I'm cancelling a master's run.

She just can't do that. No, shut up. She's going to be a surgeon. She has a doctorate in physical therapy. For 200 k, well, 150 to 200 now, it's a little bit of a living expenses. It's a private institution. Yeah.

You think for me to make 80 grand. Right. Hmm. OK, what is your master like your masters in.

Real estate finance, why do you need a master's in real estate finance? What is that? I'm hoping it'll help me along the road. We don't road go sell houses or buildings instead to commercial real estate. Yes, I'm currently an analyst in the firm right now. OK. Indeed. To learn essentially. OK. All right. Well, that does make sense. Yeah.

My degree was in real estate specialization in finance. So I didn't do a masters but I did. Yeah I just an OK so.

What do you make I make twenty three. You're an analyst and a commercial real estate firm, you make twenty three thousand dollars, I pay to learn and essentially 12 to 16 months I switch over to the brokerage side.

That's a little bitty spoon to dig out that big old hole y'all are in. Well, that's I am talking. OK, so what you've got to do is we have to work on what's called the shovel to hole ratio. The shovel is your income. The hole we were in, it's 200 K and the two of you together start planning how you're going to make enough money to pay this off. And the more money you make, obviously, the faster you're going to pay it off.

And I'm sorry, Michael, but that's the system. That's how it works. So I can't predict your income as a commercial broker in this world particularly. Yeah, this is scary. Scary. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

Dr. John Deloney Ramsey, personality, best selling author, Redefining Anxiety is my co-host today, Michael, going into the break from San Antonio, is getting married in January.

His fiancee has 200000 dollars in debt for a Ph.D. in physical therapy, typically make about 80 grand. He's working for commercial real estate company making 23.

And when he finishes his master's in real estate finance will move into brokerage. He's want to know, figure out how to pay off the two hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt as they get married. And that's how we left him at the break. Does that sound right, Michael? Did I get all that correctly? That sums it up. OK, cool. All right, so let's go back. I want to get I want to dig down a little bit deeper into the actual steps and what you guys should do and shouldn't do.

How old are you to. We're twenty three. OK, and when does she finish school? May 20, 22. So she's got a year and a half left. Right clinical is the last year.

OK, I'm unfamiliar with clinical in the sense that she get paid.

No, she does not. She pay for that. Living expenses. OK, well, we got that covered. You're married and so OK, and you're making 23000 for how much longer? And I want to say about eight to nine more months. OK, that'll be commission only and then you'll be straight commission commercial real estate broker.

Yes. When will your masters be completed? May twenty twenty two as well.

And your cash flowing that how. I'm with this money that I make for living at home with my parents, and you plan to do that on going after you're married? It's not ideal, but that's just how it happens. OK. All right.

Because here's what I hear in the math, and I'm. That's disturbing, you're going to have zero income. For approximately the next two years. Within I mean, you're out of 23000 until you start your full time brokerage and then you're going to make nothing until you sell a piece of commercial real estate and commercial real estate. I've been in real estate my whole life is not rabbit hunting. It's elephant hunting.

There are many of them. And when you kill one, you eat well.

But it takes a while and you better have your bullet in your gun when you get there. So 23 years old to close a 10 million dollar property, 24 years old is it can be done. I did it at that age. But but it's it's it's hard.

It's a very, very hard track you put yourself on and, you know, if you if the market booms in San Antonio, Texas, and you're able to move three or four pieces of property, by the time you're 25 or 26, she lands on 80000 on of position, you guys can begin working your way through this. But I hear two or three years of almost no income.

That's just not cool.

I think we need a different and living with your parents, trying to keep a new marriage stable, trying to pay off. Would you say 160 grand in student loan debt for her?

Well, it doesn't kick in for 18 more months till she gets out.

Right. It's a big number. And, you know, I'm looking at it in the future.

Well, what I'm looking at, man, is two years living with mom and dad. Two years.

If you're going to figure out a way to go from making 23000 dollars a year, getting a master's and making less, and then you're going to be two years into living at home, two years into a new marriage, two years in not making any money, two years into her, finishing writing out clinical, which is a tough medical clinics are hard and they take a lot of your heart, mind and soul.

You were just adding stresser on top of stress are on top of stressor and for this fragile new marriage, living at your parents house for 24 months, 36 months.

And that's a tough way to get shot out of the cannon.

Let's pretend there's not two hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. OK, what's your prescribing or what? You've lined up with almost no income for 24 months and living in your parents house in your first year while she's doing clinical in your first year of marriage. There's a lot of stress there. A lot there's like five layers before we get to the student loans. And it's all related to a lot it's all related to a lack of income. And so I'm not sure you're going to be able to stay on the track, you're going to have to stay on and keep your young family and your marriage healthy emotionally because you're going to be doing it with almost no income.

And it's somebody else's rules, right? I mean, you talk to the brokers in your in your who are you working for which which company Cushman Wakefield know or out of Austin Equitable Commercial Realty. It's a it's a small firm, but we primarily do office leases. So it's not just, you know, building sales, primarily leases. Yeah. Which is a little a little quicker than full building sales. But, you know, you still got to work it out plus or minus pandemic.

Right? Right.

Two years from now, after two years of zooming under our belts, it's going to be a very interesting proposition for the home office space, you know, and leasing the leasing, you can close a lease and you can start getting some money.

And if that's where you're making most of your money, and I would sit and talk to your broker and say, in the current environment with this product line, when do you see me actually making money?

When I go to brokerage, don't hype my. But tell me what the typical guy in here does. And I'm 24 years old at this point trying to do this.

Can I do it now? Hey, man, I was selling real estate at your age residential while I was in school, I was younger than you at 20 21 and interest rates went to 17 percent. The market was impossible and I still sold some houses.

But it's just cause I worked all the time and I you know, I sold houses in spite of the fact that I was 21 years old with a Magnum P.I. mustache wearing a disco suit, you know, and people still bought houses from me.

Right. Because all I did was just outwork my youth work by stupidity, outworked my ignorance your way sharper than I was then, but I kind of had the same dream. That's why I wanted to talk to you a little bit further, because I wanted to be a commercial real estate guy is what I wanted to be. And first job out of school was I did syndication deals, which they don't do anymore.

But so I'm I'm worried about your lack of income. If you can get more comfortable with your income as soon as she kicks in, let's say you start making 100 a guy doing what you're talking about doing in a normal economy.

After a little bit of time to build up some credibility and build up a pipeline, you can make 100 a year doing what you're talking about, you could make 200 a year doing what you're talking about. She's going to she should make in the 80 range. And so if you're making 100 to 200 thousand dollars a year, you can pay off to thousand hours in student loan debt.

Student loan is bad. It's horrible, but it doesn't scare me for you guys like this thing where you make zero money.

So you need to sit down, talk to your broker and get some realistic expectations and then start figuring out is there a side job or is the is the brokerage thing a side job while I get while I feed my new wife and we get a household? Because I got to tell you, she's going to be living with her mother in law while she's doing medical clinical.

I don't care how great a woman your mom is, that's a hard that's a hard prescription. That's a tough one. It's a really 90 percent of the households. It's beyond tough, right?

You know, occasionally you have the I've got a friend whose mother in law is her idol, but you know how unusual that is.

You know, so and it may be that you put your your commercial real estate dream on hold and get little bit to feed your young 30 or 40000 dollar your job, get an apartment and you'll grind it out. She's got a year and a half left. And then when she starts making money, it's not a bad idea.

Then you go if that's still what you want to do, right? Yeah. Go get your license and start selling residential real estate for a couple of years until you can. And you won't lose anything by that.

No, you can make your move and you got a better shot of selling houses, you know, but it can be done.

It can be done. I mean, I would you're just you're just stacking the deck against your new marriage. You're stacking the deck against you're just trying to think the cost from a customer experience standpoint. We released officers. Winston Yeah. My son in law, you know, we're the customer. And so would we sit down with a 24 year old and do a lease deal?

Yeah, as long as you know his stuff. Right. I'm not all his age against him, but you better know your dad gum stuff.

Are you going to get laid? But I also would want to know, does the folks in his firm if if Dave Ramsey calls and says, I want to do an office deal, are they gonna let the 24 year old go run out and do that, or are they going to keep rolling you back to the bottom of that pile?

That's a good point. I mean, you were on your own, Dave. When you work for a firm that's first in gets this, that the stuff that fall to the marketplace, please study the income side of this equation in the housing side of this equation and try to lower the number of stressors. As long as you guys get your incomes moving about 25 years old, I think you're going to have a hell of a two hour thousand, maybe easier than some of the other stuff.

That's what scared me for you, young man. And we want nothing but good things for you. I can tell you that this is the Dave Ramsey Show. Whenever folks know they're debt free screams, I always ask them what the key was to making this happen, and they almost always say how you get out of debt, the budget.

Well, that's because a budget puts you in control of every dollar you bring in every month. You tell it where to go instead of wondering where it went when you started Ramsey plus membership, you'll follow a step by step plan where you budget.

You learn how to money, manage money the right way, and you get fired up as you make progress on your debt free wealth building journey. That's why we include every dollar of the best budgeting tool in the world.

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Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality best selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at eight eight two five five two to five, John. We have a ton. Millions of young people, 18 to 25 years old now tuning into this program with YouTube and some of the other technologies we're using to deliver the program, it's become wildly popular in that age group.

Half the calls I get these days are from 25 years old and under.

And regardless of your age, whether you're of that age group or you're 35 or you're 45, we have a tendency.

I do it to. On. To overload our lives, Ms. That guy in the last call, he had a lot of stressors you were pointing out and, you know, any one of those things would have been a tough thing when you start stacking things five deep and they were all a choice.

The correlation between that and damage to your personal. Self damage to your finances, damage to your career, damage to your relationships. Is really, really high and it's kind of a Superman syndrome. My wife, she she'll say, you don't need to do that. That's Jesus's job. Stop being the Messiah. Hmm. You can't you can't do everything.

You can't be everywhere. You can't do all this. You're stacking this too thick. That's Jesus's job. Only he can do that. You got you're taking responsibility for things you can't fix. You're taking responsibility for too many things you can fix. And it's getting too thick. And the the camel's back is going to pop with one more straw. There seems to be a business, an efficiency, maybe it's maybe it's the iPhone culture.

Well, we we have a cultural pathology, if you will, like a psychological issue, which is you solve things by adding to you solve things by getting another planner, going to get more candles, having a warm bath, yoga. And we never think that I can solve things by taking things away, by stopping things. That's number one. Number two, we have a cultural addiction to busyness. That is our bread and butter.

Right? If you do heroin, you do cocaine that will put you in a rehab program or put you in jail. If you are addicted to busyness and it's the same chemicals addicted to busyness, we'll give you a million dollars. We'll give you a doctorate degree. We will applaud you. It running from the same stuff. We're trying to prove that we're worth something by achieving return to trying to prove something by how much we can get done and show, show, show.

And Dave, whenever I find myself stacking things on top, on top, on top, usually I've got a friend or two that will call me and say, I don't know what you're running from, brother, but you got to stop and take inventory.

Well, that was kind of our we were the friend for that last guy. Mm hmm. So there's too much talk today.

There's what do you do? And he's trying to solve this problem by doing this and then trying to solve that one by doing that. And suddenly he's a couple hundred thousand dollars in the hole, making zero money, living in his parents house and indefinitely. Right. And it does the math doesn't add up the psychological and spiritual math and the the calculator math. None of it adds up. And you just got to sometimes start from ground zero.

Some of it does come from. Even a generation before mine, and I'm old, yeah, it just took longer to solve problems which provided for space and wisdom and margin margin.

Right now, if you want anything, you pick up this little square thing with a glass on the front and you tap it three times and stuff shows up at your door, right. Like freakin Santa Claus is alive 24/7. That's exactly right. Donner and Blitzen work all the time.

All the time. We named him Jeff and Bezos. Right.

You know, and it's just. Yeah. And now it's not good enough that it comes in two days to come. Same day. Right. You know, and our efficiency, our productivity has gone through the roof and our peace has not increased.

In fact, it's decreasing. Right. You know, you would think that if you got better at stuff, it's easier to do things that you could chill a little bit and your piece would increase.

And if you don't leave that emotional margin, your adrenal glands get burned and fried and other stuff starts to fall apart and you really can't function.

That's when you get into the diseases of despair, right?

The organisms failures and the suicides and the addictions we're living.

We've got more than we've ever had. And we are living shorter, harder lives because we just stay constantly. Reft We put our foot on that gas, Dave, and we never take it off.

And sometimes he may. This young man that we just talked to, he may find himself in the exact same position.

But when I feel like I'm on a house of cards and it's teetering off, it's best to stop get somebody I trust in this case, his fiancee, go sit somewhere and just start from the floor up and say, what do we have to do? This is the second or third call today we've had where people feel trapped in this either or decision.

And none of the in the decision was good. No, and neither decision is an either or. Right. Yeah. We just shove ourselves into these boxes. Not necessarily.

Oh, it's not it's not filling out a registration for a new app.

No, man. Yes. In other words, if you're making decisions, No. One, you need to leave yourself some margin, some wiggle room, emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally. Or you're going to negatively impact the other things enough that it offsets any positive you did with the decision and you have to be prepared when you have margin. Dave, it's hard to be by yourself. It is hard to be.

I spent a few days out in the woods by myself this past week over Thanksgiving, and I got bored.

I got uncomfortable. I had and I had time to think thoughts I hadn't thought in a long time. I had time to write stuff down. I mean, it was uncomfortable, right? You got to practice being by yourself. But I don't even have to practice that as much.

I just need to practice not trying to solve all the problems in 20 minutes. That's right. Not trying to stack it so layered that there is just every ounce is squeezed out because one flat tire in the whole the whole shebang goes.

Yeah, right. Yeah. There's too much wood on the truck. I mean when I used to cut wood so far away when I was at college, we fill that truck up and be like, you know, the front wheels coming off the ground.

The thing's just dragging on the tires. And, you know, we've completely filled it up. But I mean, you know, you got the shocks are the tires are strained, the engine is strained, that the bed itself is dry and the cattle gets on the side holding the wood and we're straining everything.

One of those variables blows. The whole thing is going to look like a cartoon instead of just making two trips. Yeah, right. Make two trips. I tell my little boy that all the time.

Well, and then and now I've got to go the car in a few minutes and I should take two trips with all the crap I got to carry the car instead I'm going to have it all up. I'll be dropping stuff on the way. The car. It's the same thing, right? It's the same thing at my point. Bringing this up is not him, not the caller, because he's not doing anything wrong. He's a sharp young guy.

Yeah. And they're going to do fine. They'll be all right. But the point is that we can all take a lesson from that.

People who become wealthy are always the tortoise.

They're never the hare. They leave room for the plod along rather than the rush.

The tortoise always wins. Every time I read the book, Ugly Little Sucker. Every time, every time. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

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