Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollars Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show where debt is dumb. Cash is king and 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 Timoney Ramsey personality as my co-host today here on the air, open phones as we talk about your life and your money.

The phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five. That's triple eight eight two five five two two five.

Katherine is in Indianapolis. Hi, Katherine. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? I had a question for you guys. So my husband and I, we just welcomed our first child two weeks ago. Thank you. We're really excited about it. So we're starting to plan ahead for the future. We're currently working through the baby steps on four, five and six. Good. So we've considered setting up a 529 plan, but we've also talked through what we consider a money market mutual fund savings account.

We don't want it to just sit somewhere for 18 years and earn no interest. But we also don't know that we want to lock it into just being able to be used for college. Our question is, how do we decide between a 529 plan and all the other options or a little bit of both? A couple of them? Well, how do we determine how much to contribute?

Start with your limited on most 529 stuff. Ten thousand dollars. And that's not making a decision.

You're not saying, oh, we're stuck if they don't go to college, I mean, 10000 is not gonna kill you, OK? If you put one hundred thousand dollars in there and then and you don't do anything else, then maybe you're making a decision.

Higher education is an absolute now in the 529 is not actually an investment. It is actually how the real investment is treated for tax purposes.

So just like an IRA is not an investment, you put you can put a bank account, you know, inside of a savings account, inside of an IRA, a money market inside of an IRA or a mutual fund inside of an IRA. So you choose the type of investment that goes in there. So what you want is a 529 in good growth stock, mutual funds.

But the only difference is you can buy the mutual funds and the kid's name or you can buy the mutual funds or the kid's name in a 529. The only difference is they grow in the 529, 100 percent tax free. So when that ten thousand dollars turns into 40000 dollars, that extra 30 that it made, by the time they get gets to college, which is about what it'll do, is not taxable.

So you're saving on that scenario and that one investment, you're saving 10000 thousand dollars worth of taxes by putting it in a 529. So I would do the 529, you know, have to fully fund it. But whatever you want to put in there, I'd get one started. Sit down with one of our smart VESTER pros, quick smart investor at Dave Ramsey Dotcom. They'll show you how to do it. But what you're doing is you are selecting a 529 plan with one of the states, their state plans that allows you to invest in mutual funds.

And you picked the mutual funds and they don't move unless you move them.

That's the kind of 529 you're looking for, some of them automatically move the funds around as the kid gets older, some of them lock it in and it never can be moved. You don't want any of those. You want basically a mutual fund investment wrapped in the coat of a 529 for tax free growth. Does that make sense to you?

I think so. So you're saying really stick with the 529 and get the mutual funds that focus on that. Don't focus on any other. Yeah, I would not do anything else this far out. Not this day.

Now, if you if you look up and you got 150000 dollars in there someday and you go, OK, I don't really want to put more than that in there until I get a track on the direction this kid's going to go, I'm just going to save some money in the kid's name for them to do other stuff with. That's called an Ottmar Uniform Transfer to Minors Act UTM, a which all that means is, is that people who are not 18 years old are not allowed to do contracts in America.

So you can't open a mutual fund, you can't open a bank account, you can't open a checking account. Your mom and dad or somebody else that's an adult has to open it in your name and they are the custodian. And so you're in charge of it until they're 18 or 21, depending on your state.

And so that's how, for instance, back when my kids were saying we were saving for our kids to go to college, there was no 529, there was no SS. So we just opened up mutual funds and our kids names. And I was the custodian. And if they were doing cocaine, they would have had a hard time finding the money, even though it was technically theirs. I would steal it.

OK, because I'm going to have to look into that. I'm that kind of dad, so I'm the dinosaur dad. So, yeah, that's the thing. And so then you get to do that.

So, John, with your our audience maybe just joining us for the first time or first time when you've been on the air with me with a Ph.D. in higher ed and you spent many, many years in higher ed, and this year has been the perfect storm for higher Ed Koch.

You know, it was to start with, we had the wake up call of the epic student loan crisis, which was kind of pointing out that some portions of higher ed over charging a wee bit. Right. And no kidding.

And then now with this, they send kids home and are still trying to charge them the same amount and they're just doing it on their computer and are going, I can take computer classes a lot cheaper than you're charging me higher. Ed got a bit of a crisis going on.

And basically what it's done, though, is it's kind of shaken up and made people go, well, maybe I'm not saving for college like I would have. I don't want to trap this money because a kid might not go to college as college as we know. It might not be the same. That's right. And so we're going to see a difference in the savings patterns, I think because of this.

That's the most common question I get is the fear of locking up money for 18 years and the assumption that the government is not going to change their mind over 18 years, that that money will even still be there in 18 years and more importantly, will college as we know it. Will it still exist in the way that we've come to know it in 18 years?

Right. And especially at its current inflation rate, it's going to cost eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars right now. Will we even have enough? And so we all know that in eight years, colleges are going to look different. And so, yeah, that's the most common question, I guess. Should I lock this money up or not? Yeah, and I think most people don't. It's hard to have that money sitting in just your checking account.

Right. And not spend it.

Yeah, well, you do need to lock it up. Right. And you do need to put it in tax free growth.

The worst case scenario is higher ed completely turns on its head or your kid just says and you say this kid's not going to college and you pull the money out, you're just going to be taxed just as though it was in a regular mutual fund, right?

Yeah. And you're going to have a penalty on it, but you're not going to lose all your money. Right? It's not like if you don't go, you know, the accounting evaporates.

And is isn't it correct that that money can be used for any sort of educational endeavor? Right. So technically, yeah. Yeah. So they want to go to tech school will be a diesel mechanic. Yeah. That works if you want to. And it actually can be used for private school. Right. For your kid in high school. Oh OK. I'm going to now and your siblings can use it, not affect any family member can use it.

Mom could go back to using your 529. Right. So it can, it's not going to get stuck. OK, you're going to be OK and you do need to let it grow tax free and you do need to park it in such a way that you keep your own grimy hands off of it because we all have these temptations.

Right. Good question. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. You jump in, huh? Dave, I've heard you say kids don't get a vote.

Is this true? At any age? We're looking into moving our family into a different continent in Africa for a volunteer and our teenagers are not on board. How do we approach this? Oh, I'm going to come back to that one after the break, because we are about ten seconds out.

That's a big one. Yeah. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. As we continue to face challenging times, I hear that a lot of you have been calling Xander Insurance to see if term life plans are still available. The good news is that the insurance companies are starting to loosen up the restrictions. So if you haven't dealt with this yet, do it now. Let this crazy season motivate you to get your priorities in order and check the big things like life insurance off your list.

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Dr. John Delany Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Kevin is on Instagram and says, I've heard you say before, kids don't get a vote. Is this true at any age? We're looking into moving our family to a different continent, a small village in Africa for a year of volunteer and mission work. And our teenagers are not on board.

How do we approach this? Well, first, I need to answer the question a little more carefully. Our portion of this set it up. Kids don't get a vote. What that means is, is the parents are in charge.

Right? It doesn't mean that I don't admit that my children have desires and feelings about things in some cases that are valid. But and I take those into consideration. But I make a decision that is best for the overall family and for that child. I meet too many people where their children are in charge of their house and the inmates are running the freaking asylum. And so that's what that the kids don't get a vote comes from. It doesn't mean we don't take their feelings or their desires or their best interest into consideration in any major decision.

We got to talk to him. Right. And they're worth the conversation. Before we get to the answer to extrapolate on what you said, to continue that, understand that when you put your kids in charge, when they get to make decisions that taxes them, that destroys a child, they don't have the wisdom or the strength to carry your family.

Right. That's harmful to a kid. And not only is it not helpful, it's harmful to a kid to expect them to be the kid that decides, are we going to church, what building we're going to, where are we eating? Where are we going to live? What neighborhood that a kid can't it doesn't have doesn't.

We used to come out of church and when we went back after we finally got a little bit of money and could go out to eat, we would say, where do y'all want to go out to eat? And it would proceed.

You know, that four of them, my wife and my three kids, would argue for the next few minutes until I would just decide, because, you know, you're right, it just it didn't work. Right. Dadgum inmates running the asylum. And so I look at Sharon and go, OK, man, you're about to decide this because I'm tired of them in the back seat. Those people in the back seat get getting brains, right? So we're going to just decide.

And that's the joke. But the the you know, the truth is that I think you and I would take these teenagers feelings into consideration. It doesn't mean I won't do it right.

But and they don't get a vote per say, and they're never you can't expect a teenager to understand what living in Africa for years is going to be is going to do to their hearts and minds.

And I can't understand it because I've never done it. That's right. And so, you know, no teenager is going to be on board with, hey, we're going to leave everything, you know, go to another country away from your friends, your family, your community, your church, all of that. We're going to start over completely for a year.

Your Instagram is going to get totally screwed up. It's everything's going to be messed up.

Right. So go into it with a different mindset. But no, they don't.

If you and your wife think that's the best interest for your family, for you take them dragging, kicking and screaming.

I would I would think there is something wrong with my teenager if they're not kicking and screaming, OK, because they don't know any different. Yeah, right. They don't know it unless they just you've you've trained them to have a robust sense of adventure right now.

If you're living out some fantasy and this is against the best interest of your kids, we're all going to I'm going to sell the house and we're going to move to Tennessee to pursue my songwriting career. We're all going to live in a one bedroom apartment. I'm not going to have any money. And the kids say that's a bad idea. Right? There have been more adult than you are.

Right? Right. Right. But yeah.

So. But I wouldn't expect a teenager to be fully invested because they wouldn't understand they don't have the wisdom to look down the road. They don't have the wisdom to understand that my innate discomfort is not going to pay off in massive ways down the road.

Yeah, I agree, I'm trying to think. About when our kids were there, if we had wanted to do something like that, what would have happened? They would have objected. Absolutely no question about it. But I also would like to think we never did it. So I really don't have a test case. But I would like to think that some other times that I had challenged them on something and said, you know, you didn't wanna do this, but we did it because I thought it was a good idea.

It worked out then. You know, maybe I'd made some deposits. There you go in earlier before I get to this decision. So if only deposits you've made, if all you've done to make withdrawals up to this point and dad's constantly going on an adventure and it's constantly putting everybody in peril and the kids are tired of the emotional upheaval for dad chasing this weird adventure thing he's got, then.

Yeah, you know, I would give them you know, I'd give their voice much more credence. But if all you've ever done is make sure that they're OK and other times you stretch them and it turned out good to their benefit and they smiled. But they didn't think when you went on that vacation it was going to work out. And now this is another one. Then you've earned the right.

To force their hand, those relational deposits, yeah, and my hope would be that this isn't one of those things that someone was driving home from work and they thought, I hate my job.

It's time for me to do something drastic. My hope is when you're going to make a transition like this that's been incremental and welcome in your family there before for a week or two, you have shown them videos and pictures and you've met families from there.

And you have it's a part of the fabric of your life, right?

Exactly. One of the best things we did with our teens was send them on missions, trips. But they were a week long, right. You know, or whatever. And or they went you know, Sharon went on several trips with them because they get out of the prosperity bubble.

Right. And she she real world poverty. That's right. And she people that are happy in spite of living in a cardboard box. And so it redefines happiness. It's not based on stuff or electronics or screentime. It's reset and bust the bubble, you know. And so it was very valuable in that regard. This would be a bigger version of that. Right. These kids could come home changed, transformed forever.

Right. And that's where I say again, a teenager can only feel in right now. They're not fully developed. That's why we don't give them car keys. That's why we don't give them the ability to vote or to fill in the blank. Right. Because we have all decided they don't have the maturity to handle some of that because they live in the right now in the what is going to keep me comfortable and keep me engaged in my community right now.

And they wouldn't have the wisdom to see beyond that. But I love what you said, man. There's got to be some relational deposits along the way.

So if you're going to make life transitions, I don't feel guilty about forcing it if I'm not being your response. Absolutely not. And if I have made deposits. That's right. If after that they're throwing a little hissy fit and they'll just have to do it. And I would expect them to their kids. I know. But I mean, I'm just saying that's part of the equation. But I'm OK. I'm not going to be going over in my child's life because they actually are going to say, you've ruined my life.

That's actually a phrase.

They want to hate you. You're killing me. You're ruining everything. I loved that boy. All the stuff.

My Instagram is going to go dormant. That's right. I'm going to lose all my followers. Yes. All the super tragic stuff. Right. Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's all over for when that happens. Oh, you know, you're going to your ability to do a reality show later is going down the tubes and so. Darn right that's awful. I hate it that that happened.

Rebecca is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Hi, John. Thanks for taking my call this afternoon. Sure. What's up? So my husband and I just got started on your whole process. We're on baby steps to cool. And before we were introduced to you, we bought a car on a lease. And so we're trying to we want to pay it off, but I'm not sure if there's any penalties or fees associated with paying it off early. I talked to Nissan and they said that there aren't any fees or penalties.

There aren't.

As a matter of fact, you will save money for doing a Nissan lease can be paid off early. It's like paying a regular car loan off early. You save the interest for the years that you don't have it.

And in a lease, there's not technically interest, although that they obviously charge a cost of funds. This is what's built into it. That equates in most cases to about fourteen percent. So it's not a really good deal, as you found out.

So you call you get the early buyout figure from Nissan. Did they give that to you? Yes, we did. OK, what is that? It's twenty three thousand eight hundred and eighteen dollars and twenty three cents. OK, and what is your lease payment? Our lease payment is three hundred and thirty nine dollars and sixty nine cents a month. And how many months are left on the lease at 24.

OK, so if you multiply 339 times 24 plus what you were under contract, you can put your contract out and look at it. What you can buy the car for at the end of the fleet, you will find that is 5000 dollars less are more than 23000. It's going to be about twenty six to twenty eight thousand dollars. So I'm going to guess and say when you do the math that by paying it off early you are and you can only do it in one lump sum.

They won't take extra payments, but by paying it off early, you're going to save three to five thousand dollars. That's my guess. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. At Takeover's, we believe a great pair of cowboy boots should be comfortable right out of the box so you can stand with confidence no matter what the day throws at you. We believe in the enduring quality of handmade boots and we believe that your hard earned dollars should go far. So we only sell direct to, you know, retail markups, no middlemen to deal with, just amazingly handsome cowboy boots for men and women.

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Well, we all know that budgeting is key to your future goals, and a lot of you know that have been following our Remzi stuff for several years, that we teach grandma's old envelope system. So for some of your expenditures, you set aside money for groceries, cooking up an envelope that says groceries on it are eating out. You have an envelope that says eating out on it. And you don't spend more than is in that envelope. And that will get you going.

The envelope system works beautifully. Years ago, we created an envelope system that started selling it, and Rachel Cruze and classic Rachel Cruise style decided that it needed to be upgraded for her name, of course. And so we give her a hard time about this multiple times, and she's a good natured about it. So she created several years ago an upscale wallet, a very nice Rachel Kroos wallet and.

The place we bought them from put cheap zippers on them and the zippers kept breaking and we would see it on Instagram, my zipper broke and then they would send it in here and people were nice about it, but way too many. I mean, because there's nothing worse than a broken zipper.

I'm just saying so. Oh, my gosh. And you know, and you paid good money. I mean, this wasn't a cheap item. It was in, you know, forty dollars or something. A stupid zipper broke and man, it got to the point that I'm getting.

As the owner of the organization with a broken common name on it, I'm not happy with this. And so we don't we don't do this kind of stuff around here. So we ended up working with the vendor and they would not fix it. So we basically refunded everybody and through the stupid things in a dumpster. And so that then they brought it in about 18 months ago and they said, we want to revive the radio craze. Well, I said, oh, the one with the broken zipper.

You won't do this again, do you? What are you people crazy?

So we had these discussions in our product teams and they found a way to source the things in India where the people actually making the. And these are full leather wallets.

Now, the Rachel Cruze, while it is real leather, so it's got the smell to it and the people making them or someone that's come out of a difficult situation off the street or out of trafficking or out of poverty or something.

And actually in each of the new Rachel Cruze wallets, which has the envelope system built into it, is the name and and the picture signed by the person who made it. That's cool.

And so you're doing good when you buy it. And there I can tell you this.

This has the best zipper in the entire world.

There is not there is not a wallet, not a purse anywhere in the entire world.

It has a better zipper because there may be something else brake on this dadgum thing, but it's not going to be the zipper. So, you know, this is a pain you go through when you're on a stupid business. Right. So, anyway, this thing is fabulous. Now they've redone it and it's even got a little a little leash on it so it doesn't get lost. Right. The little hand, they call it a wristlet, a pallet.

But it looks to me like a wallet leash. So that's what I'm calling it. And that's such a bad joke.

But yeah, no, I love it. And here's the thing. If you're a guy and you are listening to this and you were thinking I still Christmas is coming up.

Hey, listen, I tell you, if you have the Rachel Cruise fan in your family, you want to buy this phone, even if you're they don't know Rachel is when I heard them announce it there and they showed it the collective four women in the hundreds of women, over a thousand people on our team and staff meeting, there was a gasp.

It was a and I thought it was I thought I should get one of those. This thing's going to sell. It's it's my wife. Does it listen to the show. I may just get one for Christmas and she won't even know it's coming. It's legit. It's the real deal.

Oh, there you go. There you go. That's how that works. All right. So there you go. Go to Dave Ramsey Dotcom. We did not get I mean, getting the shipments from anywhere in the world right now is difficult. If you haven't heard the supply chain screwed up, there's a little pandemic thing going on. So we've gotten a bunch in, but we're not going to have enough to make it our way through Christmas. So if you want one, the new Rachel Cruise wallet, Dave Ramsey Dotcom, hit the store or call Ramsey concierge before they're out.

They've got the the classic brown leather look. And I think the other one is black, if I remember. Right. And so they are I think they're like sixty something dollars or whatever. But really, I mean, if you compare this apparently to other women's wallets that are a hundred and fifty or something that I wouldn't, I don't I mean I did my money from my front pocket folded over, so.

But what do I know about this stuff? I'm just a redneck. But but I do know the zipper won't break.

It will not break. I'll give you my personal guarantee on that.

I love it. Oh, Britney is where us.

Britney's in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, Britney.

How are you? Hi. Good. How are you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I have watched both of you and the YouTube channel and my husband. I just hope not just we have a seven month old baby and we're budgeting and doing all the baby steps. And we were having a hard time, I guess, being a couple aside from like parenting in money. So I was wondering how you recommend, like, not separating the two because there really is no separation, but just we're kind of like roommates, I guess.

So is this your first kid?

Yes. Excellent. So here I'm going to give you a story and then I'll I'll I'll tell you what I would recommend you do. I remember sitting by a guy in grad school and I've been married for a year or two. I was a terrible new husband. I didn't know what I was doing and I was looking at him and he had been married for a while and he had three or four kids.

And I said, I don't know how that's humanly possible. And he gave me a line that has stuck with me for fifteen, sixteen years now. He said, Remember when you were single? And it was kind of awesome. I said, yep.

And he said, Now you're married. It's a different kind of awesome. And then he said, I've got four kids, I don't sleep, I don't have much money in my account, but it's awesome. It's a different kind of awesome. And that phrase is cheesy and lame as it is a different kind of awesome stuck with me. And so here's what I, I noticed couples try to do is they try to drag their dating life through their first couple of years of marriage.

They have a kid which is super disruptive. Right. In all the good ways, in bad ways in your seven months by. Way, if you're not feeling like you will never sleep again, if you are not, everything doesn't make sense right now. I want you to know you're exactly where you're supposed to be. You're actually did string your sentences together. I'm impressed. Super impressed. Whatever meds you're taking, keep taking them because they're working good.

But I did a really good sleep.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So they try to drag their marriage before kid into their new world. And what I want you to do, I heard this this analogy given to the folks who were coming back from any sort of marital difficulties, any sort of major changes, major moves. And here here it is. They could never take all the dust and glass in metal and steel that was the Twin Towers and collect it all back and rebuild those things after they fell.

It's different now. Right. And this is a beautiful thing, not not coming after, you know, an affair or something like that. But you're they have to excavate everything and rebuild something stronger and beautiful and with sentiment and with meaning. And so what you guys have to do is be intentional about building a new thing. And it's already got a great platform. You already love each other. You're committed to each other. So you don't have to start from scratch, but you have to reinvasion.

What this is going to look like and it's going to take more intentionality, more, hey, we have to put some stuff on the calendars that used to come naturally to us. We used to be able to just run out and go have fun and run to Taco Bell. And now we have to plan the Taco Bell, run for every other Saturday and and fill in the blank. Right. But I want to.

Good Lord, please. Something else. Your baby was someone else.

You got to practice. How do you what how do you get over the anxiety of leaving your baby with somebody else? Yeah. You've got to practice. Yeah. You got to practice. And we're in the middle of a pandemic and you've got a seven month old. Cut yourself some slack. This is a weird one. You picked a weird moment in history to have a baby. Right. Congratulations. But you got to practice.

Give yourself so you know the way I delegate anything in my life, including things here in the business, including things like a baby sitter is I do not delegate to someone, particularly the care of my new baby, if it's especially my first one, because I'm scared about this. I'm anxious about this is I delegate one. I can trust someone's competence and their integrity.

And so I'm not leaving a brand new baby when I leave for the first time with a 13 year old or someone you found on an app or somebody that you found on Craigslist.

OK, so I think it like my mom will be OK. Trust her. You can trust her competency and her integrity because you're alive.

Don't beat yourself up over anxiety. It's normal, right? It's OK.

And here's the thing. You don't have to go out for five days. The first time. You got to go out for an hour, right?

Yeah. You're going to realize everything's fine and good. And then when you come back, your mother is going to be happy and the baby is going to be happy and you're going to want to go out for another hour or so.

Just take a little short run with somebody you trust a little bit longer run.

And, you know, by the time our youngest came along, the oldest was watching them. We were going to get out of the house right here. That's right. Just just don't kill them while we're gone, you know? Oh, you get a little less anxious as you go along. That's right. They found out they're not as breakable as you feel like they are. They're hard to break. They really are hard to break. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it, Jesus, his words and Luke, 14 28 are scripture of the day. Tony Robbins said setting goals is the first step to turning the invisible into the visible. Very true. Abby is with us in Flint, Michigan. Hi, Abby. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. My honor, how can we help? So I am wondering which baby step I'm on and I'm wondering whether unbe baby step two or four. So a little bit of background. I am in college right now and I'm in my first year of community college and I have enough saved for my second year plus a couple of extra thousand. Good for you and I. Well done. Thank you. So I don't think that I want to get the entire four year degree.

I think that I'm just wanting to get my associate's degree and then go into the military.

But I I'm just not sure whether I should start investing or if I should keep piling up the cash. In case I do decide to go to university.

You should keep piling up the cash in case you decide to go to university. Once you've made the decision, you can decide if you decide not to go, you have a pile of cash. OK, that's not there's no downside to that strategy, the baby steps you really are for you're in the middle of your education process and the baby steps are really for after you get out of education. When you graduate and you're working a job, then you work through the process of building your emergency fund, getting out of debt and starting to build wealth in your retirement and paying off your house.

But you're right now. You have you have really one goal. Finish your education if that's a two year or a four year. OK, that's your only going be like with all my extra money, just just let it sit on her account. There's nothing wrong with having a pile of cash.

When you are ready to make a decision, it helps you to make the decision. If you're broke, you make a different decision than if you're not broke. You know, you might go into the military kind of sort of not wanting to because you need the money to eat. Or you might go into the military to serve your country on a very noble thing because you have a complete choice, because there's thirty thousand dollars laying in your account. John, what would you coach own 100 percent?

Yeah, there's no downside. Your goal is to get out of whatever education endeavor, debt free, and then you can make other decisions later. The challenge you're going to have is you're bored and you're smart. And so community college, a first semester is boring you. And so you're trying to figure other things to be doing and just be at peace with where you are right now.

Knock your classes out, learn a lot if you can get an internship, if you can get a job in the field where you want to be learning, go for it.

But just follow the plan B slow and enjoy your time. If you're going to go to the military, life's about to change in a drastic way. Or if you go to a four year degree and graduate, then life changes.

So enjoy where you're at. OK, have some peace, you're doing it right, you're kicking, but you are way, way, way ahead of the game, Abbi. Well, here's the reason, the main reason you're way ahead. Not only are you accomplishing these goals with cash and you're building up some cash, that's impressive.

But what's most impressive is most people just do not do life with any sense of intentionality. And you're just being very intentional.

And that's really weird for most people don't do it, most people just kind of wander along and then wonder why they're broke. They wander along and then wonder why they got a degree and left handed puppetry that's useless.

And they wander along and they go, well, I got this degree and, you know, Gothic poetry and, you know, and then I can't figure out why I can't get a job because there are no little woods fairies hiring. That's the problem. And so. Oh, my God. You know, it's just the kind of stuff. Right. So that actually did happen the other day.

But there's actually got the guy who got a minor in Gothic poetry, so it did happen. Higher Ed is an industry.

Listen to me. You're doing it to yourself. Stop. That's all. That's all. Just stop.

If you don't offer that degree, we won't make fun of you anymore. Stop. I'm trying to help you from the inside here, man. Stop. You do it yourself as an industry. Yeah.

So you yabbie you are not doing any of that stupid stuff. You are being very smart, very intentional. I meet people who kind of life happens to them until there are 35 or 40 and then they decide they have to be intentional and happen to life. And so you are, you are way ahead of the game.

And by the way, you have more the options on the table than are more options that you could choose than the ones you put on the table. So the options will continue to unfold for you and you'll continue to make great calls. You are a sharp young lady. Heidi is in Wichita, Kansas. Hey, Heidi, how are you?

I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I'm a little nervous, so hopefully I can get this out. But we are in a situation. My husband and I, we're fifty two and forty seven, and both of us have basically been self employed most of our lives. He is a freelance artist. I am a groomer. And he has actually and they are now taking a job in Philadelphia that is an art based government job.

We are trying to make sure that we are making the right decision and making this move, if that's what we end up committing to is doing over there, testing it or he took the job.

Did you already make the decision? Well, we decided he could take the job. We haven't sold the house. I'm still in Kansas. And just to make sure that it was a good thing before we sold our house and all of those things, he took the job.

I wasn't sure of it. Right. Well, you know, being self-employed, he has he has done, you know, production type jobs.

OK, so how can we best help you?

Just, you know, we're in baby steps. We're six and seven. We have no children, but had just actually finished baby step three just as a pandemic hit, basically. So your program has been ultra important to us. But, yeah, just struggling with, you know, moving from our house. We all know about 90000 on it. So what did what did he used to make as a freelancer?

Sculpture. No, I'm sorry. Money, how much money? Oh, OK, money. Last year before expenses was one hundred and eighteen for sixty one, OK. That was for both of us. That was about about what did he been. You know, I think that was fair, but that may have just been the business total after expenses was seventy seven seven four nine he made he made seventy thousand dollars in sculpture's net profit.

I think that was both of us. OK, I make 45. So he made thirty five thousand dollars doing sculpture.

OK, and how much is left of them and how much is that you're going to get your numbers straight because it's going to matter. All right. What's the what's the government paying him?

One hundred and eight for sixty one this year, and then it'll go up to one hundred and fifteen. So suffice it to say, he more than doubled his income.

Yeah, except that you're also dealing with higher cost of living thing, different world and so forth, and then the next question is, do you not want to live there because you really don't sound like you want to leave Kansas to me.

I have a sister and a one year old niece that lives four blocks from my house. That a yes or no? It's an unusual answer. I would rather stay here with them, but I am open to the the benefit the move gives me is getting to potentially change careers. Grooming is what I've done for 25 years and it is very hard on them.

OK, so what I'm going to tell you is nothing is forever and it doesn't have to be forever. Right? If you go to Philadelphia and two years from now, it's not an adventure. It's a nightmare. Go home.

You're both self employed and smart and good. You'll figure it out. Go home, go start again and you'll be fine. I just I think you're making this too permanent. You're acting like this is a death sentence. Are you going to jail and you can't get out or you're going to miss that niece.

Once you take, you can fly back over there. You have four times more money. Yeah. So buy an airline ticket. But he's already taking the job. So at this point, I think you have the sale thing going. Yeah, I think I think you're second guessing after you've already done your decision. Right. I put this out of the Dave Ramsey Show on the books, thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

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