Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the 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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. That's triple eight eight two five five two two five. Rachel Cruze Ramsey personality best selling author four times over is my co-host today because we're announcing today The Wall Street Journal lists her brand new book, No Yourself.

No, Your Money is number two in the nation.

So very well done.

Good stuff. All right. Let's start off this hour with Brook and Spokane, Washington. Hi, Brooke. How are you?

Hey, doing great. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I was looking for some help to try to decide whether it's smart for me to reduce the amount I work, I work as a schoolteacher and I currently work full time and I'd like to bring that down and still be on track for retirement. And and. Yeah. How much do you make now, Brooke? I make seventy five and you can live on less than that, obviously.

I do, yeah.

I spend quite a lot of money. I mean, I don't spend excuse me. I pay off my house at quite a quick rate. I actually the house I just purchased, I also rent out part of it as well. So I guess I should include that in my income as well. So I guess I make that seventy five thousand and I make in terms of monthly for rent, about two thousand a month. Mm hmm. So what is your goal here?

Well, really, like my dream is to work at like 60 percent of what I work right now and I'm forty three, so I've got another many years of working, another 20 years of working. And then I played music on the side. So I, you know, not right now because the covid but that's kind of my dream is to work less at school and play more at night, basically.

So you just want to back down your hours now. To play the game and play music. Correct. And you can afford to do that. I think well, yeah, in terms of like right now, I spend about two thousand a month on my expenses and then all the rest of my money, all that other stuff.

I mean, I got tons of room in your budget. So what's your concern? I guess I'm just worried that if I go back down, that I won't be paying off things as quickly. And when I get to the retirement age, which is quite a long way from me away, I will not have saved enough money.

Basically, if you'll say 15 percent of your income between now and retirement while you're paying down on the house, you'll retire with dignity if you're putting it in good mutual funds across four types growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international and Roth IRAs and four or three be at your school or whatever.

If you've got a Roth there, that's a good thing. And if you get a match there, that's a better thing. If you're doing all of that at 15 percent of your income, even if with a slowed down income, you're going to be just fine. As far as having enough for retirement, you're forty three. I would say you're tracking to have the house paid off in under 20 years, even if you slow down, aren't you.

Yeah, with what I was what I'm paying right now, it's like seven years. Yeah, but you're not going to stay on that track. You were going to slow down, right? Right. For sure. And I guess if you slow down, what is it, 14 years maybe. Yeah, probably. Yeah. So you're fifty seven and your house is paid for. Yeah, OK, OK. OK, yeah, well, that's that's what I needed was waylaying my apprehension.

Yeah, I mean, it's just the thing is, you're it's what is going to give you the least apprehension, a little slower work on the thing.

But the you know, I mean, you know, slow down a little bit or what are you going you're going to feel better about doing that or are you going to feel better by getting the house paid off?

And, you know, it's OK either way. Nothing you're talking about here is wrong. A great. Yeah. And I just think it's it's a little bit of a different mindset because I feel like we live in a world where hustle is glorified. Like the more I work, the more I work, the more money I make, the more money I make. Right. Like that's like that's the American mindset. And people feel that. And so I could kind of hear in his voice, it feels weird saying, hey, I'm going to back off work at forty three and not work as much so I can kind of do this hobby that I enjoy and I love.

And this is my passion that it's kind of it goes against a lot of the cultural norms of what you hear in America today.

So therefore it's just kind of a different way of hustling around idea you're not doing what you do because there's that side.

And then even like the fire mentality is in my head, the financial independence retire early. It's not all that's bad and there's elements of it. I would have questions for people that are on that track, but like, it's a little bit of that, hey, I'm going to work hard and do smart with my money early so that when we change, people live like no one else. Later you can say, yeah, I mean, that's kind of you're in baby steps four or five and six and just slowing down the pace of that a little bit to have a greater enjoyment of your time.

There's not there's not a problem with that. Yeah. You're still going to retire with dignity. You'll still have plenty of money and you still have the house paid off. Now, if you were going to retire broke because you did that or you were going to retire with a house mortgage because you did that, then I would say no. I think you're down a back too much. Yeah, I would encourage, you know, and you can always turn the hours back up if you want, and that's how it goes.

So that's the direction. Good question. Thank you for joining us. That reminds me, we always talk about baby steps one, two and three. One is a thousand dollars to his debt snowball pay off everything but the house with great intensity. Smallest to largest three is finish your emergency fund. When you're in those three, you're on fire. You're going crazy. I mean, you're completely focused.

You're Gizelle intense like a gazelle running from the cheetah trying to stay alive.

You are running once you break through and you've got your fully funded emergency fund and you don't have any debt.

But the house, you go from intense to intentional. And four is 15 percent of your income in retirement, five is is kids college and six is pay off the house early. You're doing those three simultaneously and you're doing them more of a marathon pace than a sprint pace. It's intentional, but you get to do some other things. And that's really what the discussion with him was about. That's right. We're just going to slow that down just a little bit and turn the work back to work back a little bit and enjoy the rhythm of life a little bit.

And you never know. You know, you don't get to play in some music. It might turn into some serious money there, too. Sometimes when you don't have to make money with music is when it best works. I've seen that a time or two around the music city here. That's it. So. Oh, man. Way to go, guys. Way to go. That's good stuff. Yeah, go. You know, when you're in baby steps one, two and three, you're not eating out.

You're not going on vacation. It's intensity. You're running like your hair's on fire. You know, you're busting it bust. Busting it, busting it. Busted it. But when you got an emergency fund and no debt except the House and a pandemic hit, you're in a lot better place and it's worth the sacrifice to get there. Then when you get there, you get in a rhythm. And so it's almost like doing like interval training or something.

When you're when you're training for a long race, you can do some sprints and some slow runs. So splints, sprints and some slow runs. And that's really what you do. You're sprinting in the first three, you know, slow runs in the other. That's simple. Good question. Thank you for joining us. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. So this is the time of year when everyone starts setting goals, going to the gym, quitting smoking, losing weight.

Good for you. But what's equally important is making sure your family is taken care of by having term life insurance. Look, I've heard all the excuses, and I'm telling you, it's not expensive. It's not complicated. And you need to do this right now. So stop whatever you're doing and go to Zanders website right now and get your family protected. It's an absolute necessity.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show, Rachel Crooge, Ramsey personality is my co-host. We're taking your calls at eight eight two five five two two five. We're working on a special new podcast and we're looking for stories from you.

And if you have a horror story about using online tax software, we want to hear it.

Maybe you thought you were saving money using software to sell file, but didn't realize they were hidden fees or you owed a lot more than you thought you were going to go after you use it or they signed you up for one of their credit cards or their loans to cover your tax bill, or they hounded you and spammed you and spammed you and spammed you after using their online tax, which is actually what they do with a lot of it. So any of this stuff, if we want to hear from you, we're hearing some real problems in that space and we want some stories about it.

We want to hear your stories of how you were surprised when doing your taxes online.

And we want to fight back at these companies that are trying to screw people over. So e-mail us at Dave on air at Ramsey Solutions. Dotcom put tax story in the subject line. And put a little bit about your story in our gang, I'll get with you and collect your story and make it part of this new podcast we're putting together. We're going to start. Going behind the scenes on some of these industries and stepping on them, some of them are screwing new people over and we don't think that's OK.

So let's hear from you. A horror story about online tax software. Send it to Dave on air at Ramsey Solutions. Dotcom put tax story in the subject line, please. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. Karla is with us in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Carla. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? All right, so I started the baby steps last January and I got all the way through baby steps one, two and three as of right now.

Awesome. No, I don't know where to go. I own a business. And so I have two hundred and ninety six thousand dollars and business debt. Do I Gizelle intensive business debt. Or do I continue four or five and six and just pay the business that as its due, my Lord?

Are you going to SBA loan? I've got a business loan from where I bought the business. I have a warehouse loan from where I built a warehouse and have a car loan, but if I stay on track right now, I can have all paid off in six years.

OK, the they are tech.

They are business that in your mind, but they're all technically personal that you signed for every one of them. Exactly. Yes. And so these are personal debts. The car loan goes down in your baby. Step two.

OK. The real estate loan goes in your baby. Step six. OK, you can put the business debt wherever you want.

How much of it is that?

The business loan where I purchased the business is one hundred thirty three thousand. OK, and what are you netting on the business a year? About 60. OK, here's what I would do on that. Is this your only income? Well, last year was rough and I was Gazal in 10, so I did this and I did Hooverism in the evening.

So I mean, in a normal world, this business is your only income and are you single income? Yes, I am. OK. All right. So here's what we tell small business people in Ontario leadership. We we work the business debt a little differently inside the business itself. And I'm going to address the hundred and thirty thousand. We're going to put the warehouse up with your house and baby step six. You got that? OK, we're going put the car down and baby step two, it's a car loan.

OK, OK, you got that now. So the business that we're going to put that on the books over here in the business and what we tell folks there is take a living wage out of the business. What does it take you to live? And not not beans and rice, but just have a decent income, it doesn't it sounds like that that's maybe sixty thousand dollars.

Well, I've only been taking like a living wage of about 30 and then keeping the rest in the business to make extra payments. OK, all right.

So what I tell folks to do is take a living wage out and then whatever is left over, we're going to call that profit. And so let's say we took 40 out as a living wage and we leave 20 in the business as a profit. OK, OK. As an example for my formula. Now, then what I want you to do is I want you to take some percentage of that profit.

Most of it and put it towards the dead. OK, I want you to put some the other percentage in retained earnings inside the business, savings inside the business to keep the business operating. Right. Because businesses don't need to run with no cash like you can run with no cash at home. But you don't need to do that. You've got to single income as businesses. You're sure you're saving grace. It doesn't make money. You're screwed. You're doing our job right.

So we want you making money in the business. So I would set your living wage about 40 because now you've got to pay this car off. Right, and then whatever your profit is above that, apply a percentage to it, something like 80 percent of that profit goes to the debt and 20 percent goes into retained earnings, business savings.

OK, OK, so we can build up a little cushion inside the business itself and pound on that hundred and thirty thousand. And then, of course, as you make more and more profit, your living wage is going to stay fixed and more and more money is going to apply to that 80 20 rule. Right, right, or whatever my concern was, I could get everything paid off in six years, but then I'm going to turn around and be 50 years old with only the retirement that I have now for House.

And I paid for warehouse and I paid for this, right? Yeah, that wouldn't be too bad.

But you may still get there anyway, but you may just get there a little different, a little different way because we'll knock the car out and we're going knock the business out inside the business with the formula we just talked about. And then when you get money, you're going to throw it over on baby step six. You're probably gonna pay your house off before the warehouse and then you got to pay off the warehouse, OK? And so you're going to get there eventually.

But it may be seven years. It may be I don't know. You know, if your business blows up, it could be five years.

Yeah, I'm a saver, so it's hard for me. I want to say Gazal the whole time, but I don't know if that's feasible.

No, no, it's probably not. You need to you need to get into the marathon rhythm rather than the other. So good question. Bill's with us from Boise, Idaho. Hey, Bill, your question for Rachel and me.

Hey, hey. Hey, Rachel. How are you guys? Good. How can we help? Well, I have a question regarding managing my kids 529 plans at their current age is their current. One of them is in college. The other one is a senior in high school. So be in college in the fall. And I currently have both of their plans invested in very aggressively, which I, I, I know I probably need to scale back, but I just wondered how far back to scale that and then any additional money I contribute to those plans.

Why would I put that in the same category, what I continue to even put it in that plan to take advantage of the tax savings? How would you approach it?

Well, there's no tax savings except on the growth, and it's not going to be in there long enough to grow.

So any I would stop funding the plan. Any money you've got for college, I'm just going to pay for college with and then I'm going to pay for the rest of the college out of the plan. What do you mean by aggressive? Within the plan, the options I have is the Idaho 529 plan, so is the aggressive growth portfolio, I think is what's called the probably 80 percent stocks, 20 percent bonds, I would guess, know a plan like that.

What a plan like that calls aggressive. We call a normal good plan. OK. And I think I misstated the tax savings, what I meant by that was in Idaho, when I contribute to that plan, I it's a write off on my taxes. Oh, you're Idaho. Income tax.

Yes. Oh, well, you may want to run it through the plan then. OK. Yeah, but you would be fine leaving it in what they consider aggressive growth and then discontinuance. Okay.

Yeah, I think when you look inside of that you're probably going to see funds that look a lot like the four types we talk about growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. Our kids plans stayed in that the whole time they were in school. Outstanding. I really appreciate it. Hey, thank you for the call, brother. Open phones, triple eight eight two five five two two five. There we go. That's it for this segment.

And I don't think you said a word. I'm I'm listening. I'm learning business that. It's all right. It's all right. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Start the new year off, right, cook healthy at home, butcher box delivers high quality, 100 percent grass fed, beef free range, organic chicken and heritage breed pork to your door for only 129 dollars a month and shipping is free. Plus, new members get the ultimate Kaido bundle when you sign up today.

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Rachel Cruze Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones are triple eight eight two five five two two five. Eric and Beth are with us in Hartford, Connecticut. It says on my screen, you guys are debt free. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you.

Cool. How much have you guys paid off? Ninety thousand nine hundred and twenty four dollars.

Why did it go? How long did this take? 18 months.

And your range of income during that time?

One hundred and sixty nine to one hundred and eighty four thousand dollars. Whoa. What are you going to do for a living? I'm a lawyer and I'm in health care management. Good for you. Raising great careers. What kind of debt was the 91000 credit cards, cars and student loans?

So what happened 18 months ago? They got you on fire?

Well, 18 months ago we were we were just dating at the time. I was following this coupon lady online and she mentioned something about cash envelopes and Dave Ramsey. So I got interested and did some more research and found you bought the Total Money Makeover and got really excited about it. So I told Eric about it and he thought the idea was great. He read your book as well. So then we started doing our separate debt free journeys and during Baby Step to Eric, Cash flowed my engagement ring.

All right. We we opened a joint bank account for our big wedding that we were going to have in our nice honeymoon in Hawaii. The cash flow that but then covid happened that cancel both. Oh, so we had a very small wedding and realized that all the money that we had saved up for the wedding would be enough to pay off our debt. And we started our life as a married couple that free.

Wow. Well, that's the good end of the story. Yeah. Except for the lack of Hawaii part.

Yeah, we're still talking about that. We hope to get there this year for sure. For sure. Oh, wow. You guys, that's incredible. OK, so what would you say was the hardest part. I mean I guess you were saving for a wedding. It's kind of a different story. But what. Yeah. What was what was hard about it?

I think it was just the initial decision to jump in head first and then convince my fourteen year old daughter to do the same. That was probably the hardest.

How is she? It actually was really, really good about it, actually. You know, we sat down and explained to her why we were doing it, you know, and she was all in as well. Yeah, that's good. It wasn't that bad once we started it. Yeah. Like, you know, going out to eat or, you know, the Dunkin Donuts or fast food. But she was a great sport and now we get to enjoy that stuff.

That's awesome.

Oh, it is. It ends up being a family affair, right? When you decide to do something, it changes your lifestyle, but not just yours, the kids. So I hear that from a lot of people having to have that conversation with their kids, that life is going to look a little different for a short period of time. Yeah.

And, you know, she's getting ready to work now. And she, you know, asked us the other night if we would show her how to budget. So, like, a lot of good. That's great. Oh, very good.

So what do you tell people? The key is to getting out of debt now that you've done it. I think having an accountability partner helped that we were both doing the journey at the same time and, you know, same thing, having to say no to things and being OK with it. Yeah, that instant gratification is just something that needs to go away. Will you ever go back, do it? No, no. You're done. Done.

I love it. Very, very, very good. Good for you guys.

What a fun way to start off your life, right? Yeah. You're not married. There's no payments.

Are there such freedom in that it's a horrible thing to have to lose your wonderful, big, beautiful wedding. But it's a beautiful thing that ended up the way it did.

Yeah, the silver lining. Yeah. If we could go back and do it over, I wouldn't change any of it. We still had a beautiful wedding. It was just very small.

Yeah, absolutely. Well done, you guys. Very, very proud of you. Congratulations.

And so we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you every day. Millionaires', that is the next chapter in your life for sure. After debt free. Now you move on Bill Wealth and become outrageously generous. So and you're in a great income position to do that with no payments. So very, very, very well done. All right.

What's your fourteen year old daughter's name? She's sixteen now.

Our name is Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Eric and Beth in Hartford, Connecticut.

Ninety one thousand dollars paid off in eighteen months, making one sixty nine to 184 count it down.

Net zero debt free scream three to one. Well, yeah. Excellent job, well done, well done, well done.

Open phones, triple eight eight two five five, two, two, five. Eugene is in Canada. Hi, Eugene. How are you? Good, thanks, David.

Rachel, thanks for taking my call. Appreciate it. Sure. What's up? So I'll make this quick. My wife and I have a second property that we are currently renting out. And basically the situation is, is the amount that we take. And from monthly rent, we are losing about three hundred dollars a month, our shortfall on it. So what we're trying to figure out is if we should sell the property, but if we do, based on the closing costs and everything else, we would take anywhere between a ten to fifteen thousand dollar head on it, or if we should just wait it out and see what happens at that point.

Well, this piece of real estate is not a blessing no matter what you do. Yeah. If you keep it, it loses four thousand dollars a year and if you sell it, you lose ten.

Yeah. So it sounds like about two year break, even two and a half year break even. Right.

Correct. I'm selling it. OK, and should I just use it up for my savings account or. Yeah. Yeah. OK, you got the money to write the check for the difference, right. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you end up in a rental property that you owe too much on?

Well, before my wife and I met, she lived in this condo. Oh OK. And we, we got married and then we still had that place. Didn't know what to do with it. So that's why we went to out.

OK. All right. Cool. Very good. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. All right. Fine. Yeah, that's that's exactly what I would do. I'd get rid of it. Excellent stuff. You.

Yeah, that's it's it was not really a rental property was a became a rental property but was an expense.

Right. So it's just something to get rid of. It's just a problem. There's no blessing anywhere in it.

It's just a matter of you know, the other thing you'll find is that, you know, you know, you're you're kind of paying some of your losses in advance by paying eight or ten thousand dollars to get rid of a four thousand year loss. But what you're going to get back is all the time and worry and anxiety and crap.

You've got all over this as also, say, the amount of head space, even just for a rental that works and you actually make money. There's still that level of head space. So to have that with with it, the rental not working and losing money, all of it. Oh yeah. It's like just just get rid of it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right. Open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five. Hannah is on Twitter. We need your help. My husband and I have been saving for a down payment on a house, and we took that money aside to make a large part of our savings and pay down our debt. We paid off everything but one student loan. Twenty three thousand. Do we start saving again for the down payment on the house repay?

The student loan officer did pay the student loan off before you buy and then get that emergency fund in place, Hannah. And then you start saving for that down payment because and I get that we get this a lot. There's a lot of people there itching to buy a home because when you buy a home, you feel settled. It feels like a good investment. It's the American dream. It's just what you do. But when you do that, when you have no money, when you have debt, when you don't have savings, it just creates this mess.

And it does. We said all the time here. But it's true. It ends up being such a curse rather than a blessing. And homes are expensive. One of the easiest, cheapest days. It feels like owning a home is the day you you buy it. And then from there on, it is upkeep and it's wonderful. But a lot of money goes into it. So, again, putting not having that stress on your life is so worth it when you don't have money, but when you have no debt and a savings account and a good down payment, that's when you buy.

Exactly. Exactly. You clean out because then you're going to have the house as a blessing instead of a curse. And when you move into a house with no money and a bunch of debt hanging around your ears, you're asking for trouble. The heating air is going to go out. The washing the hot water heater is going to go off, the roof is going to leak and you're going to get yourself in a pinch. Don't let that happen to you.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture, the day Proverbs one five, let the wise hear and increase in learning and let the one who understands obtain guidance, John F. Kennedy said leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. Darren is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Darren.

Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Play defense for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Well, I can tell a lot of time to become a millionaire, but I've got I'm forty eight and I'm trying to decide if I should take my savings up to 60 and put that down towards the mortgage, or if I should save some of that and put it towards my retirement right away and then have a goal to pay off the mortgage in like two to three years.

How much do you.

And your mortgage? About 220 oh, so you could just pay it off. Yes, what's your house? What's your house? I know, I know. What's your household income? I met about 140 then you have nothing in retirement other than this money. About 25000. And this money is not in retirement. Correct, where they come from. I had a career transition in the last two or three years, and I've just been saving like crazy.

Good for you. OK. OK, so the good news is you have learned how to shave. Yeah, I was going to say, Daryn, you're not going to have a savings problem because you're pretty good at it, considering how much you save in such a short period of time. So you almost could pay off the house today. Continued that savings habit for a them build up your retirement and. Yeah, you'll be back there.

You'll be back there super fast because you built that muscle and you don't you know, with no payments in the world, what I would do is pay it all off. I would set aside an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then I would load up every possible retirement account. You got a 401k at work? No, I'm looking into getting this because I'm self-employed. OK, you've got two young employees. Not yet. OK, Sepah, work great until you have employees you want to do a Roth, you might look into the simple IRA.

It's a 401k for small business. In addition to that, you can do a Roth IRA. Are you single? No, Mary, okay, you can go to Roth IRAs. Does she work outside the home? No, I was thinking about hiring her to do book work, selling it, not worth it. Yeah, it's not worthy that way. You could do the you can do a Roth IRA for her anyway. You don't have to create an earned income for her to do that.

And the taxes that you'll pay, bringing her in on payroll and everything else won't make it make sense. So don't do that. I looked at it. I almost did it several times when I was your size in our business, and I just couldn't ever get the numbers to work out. But you can do two Roth IRAs, one for her, one for you, 7000 each at your age. And then you can. No, I mean, you're 48.

No, I mean, when you turn 50, you can do seventy six now.

And then you can do do the 401k, a simple IRA, which is a four one K for small business or do the sep either one, do all those, load them up. And then in addition to that you're just saving in the wild wild west out in mutual funds. I'm probably just using a, you know, some good growth stock, probably the S&P 500 or something like that. Sit down with one of our smart investor pros. They can help you map all of that out.

But I think when you run the numbers out without a house payment, you max out everything in retirement and you save over and above that invest not just save, but invest over and above that. You're going to be right back where you are in about 20 minutes. That's going to scare you. How quick you got back to 240 and you will have had a paid for house all that time, which adds adds to the net worth as well.

Big time. Yeah, big time. Two major components to retiring with dignity, a nest egg and a paid for house. And we found those in every virtually every millionaire we found in the millionaire next door are not millionaire. Actually everyday millionaire study millionaire next door, of course, is Tom Stanley in 1992, then inspired all of us, by the way.

But the yeah.

That that the study that we did, we found the typical millionaire with one, two, three dollars million net worth. About a third of their net worth was are paid for house. About two thirds was their loaded up retirement accounts. And that that, you know, so you've got a million and a half ton, net worth five hundred thousand in the house, million dollars in mutual funds or for one case. Yeah. And that's where you're going to be pretty easy.

And your incomes great therein as well. That's going to add to that. So, yeah, you'll be. Yeah, you'll be good. Excellent, excellent.

Excellent. Very, very well done. Proud of you man. All right.

Zach is in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hi, Zach. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi. How are you doing? Great. How can we help?

So I wanted to know if I made the right decision to go back to school. So a little bit of background is I'm twenty four years old and I had left school due to some addiction issues I had. I went and handled that. And my grandfather seems to think that I'm an idiot and going back to school doesn't make any sense. And it's going to cost me 40 grand to finish my degree. And I have one hundred and five K liquid assets and I wanted to know if I made the right decision to come back to school.

What are you studying? On finance. OK. What do you want to do? I want to work in a bank and help people with their investment accounts and really grow and become financially independent. What was the nature of your addiction? So I had a cocaine issue. OK, and how long you been clean? Two years, way to go, Jack, that's very powerful. That's very powerful. That's a very tough one to kick. And you've been clean two years.

That's a beautiful thing, brother. Proud of you.

My dad. Oh, no, I'm so sorry. Yeah. So your grandpa your grandpa's opinion means a lot then. He was, you know, after my dad, I got to the same drugs my dad died from in, my grandpa was my dad growing up, and he meant the world to me. Yeah.

So why is he calling you going to school so? Because in the past, I wasn't focused on school.

So he didn't he doesn't think I could do it. Right. So it's more an environmental thing that he's worried about, less about the education. Exactly, yeah. He's worried about the cocaine on campus. Yes, and no matter how many times I tell them that I haven't spoke to those people since before I went and got sober and no part of me ever wants to go back to where I was, he like he still sees all the mistakes I made, all the false promises and everything else.

Yeah. And, you know, he runs my trust fund because I had won a lawsuit when I was younger and I'd spent so much money, wasted so much money and, you know, and I wasted a good amount on school.

OK, let's clarify here for a second then. Your grandpa doesn't think you're an idiot for going to college. He think he's afraid that you're going to get hooked up with the wrong crowd again. That's what he's worried about. Yes, in the way he expresses himself, might be more might be more like me, but OK, that's fair. So I think you talk to him about what you could do to grandpa in what situation? I think education's important to do what I want to do.

How can I go about getting that education in a way that you would endorse maybe a different school? Yeah. Yes, or even small things living off campus or you know what I mean, a living situation that's different. Do you live with your grandma? Oh, no, I actually just moved out, and so that's during my addiction, I was living off campus and what I decided to do this time around was live in the on campus apartment. Yeah.

Oh, there you go. It's the opposite. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's good. Well, I think you just talked through with him some of the things you're doing to protect yourself and ask him if he thinks there's anything else you can do to protect yourself. He's he's lost a lot of people to white powder.

So I don't blame him for being sarcastic and blame him for being worried, worried, fearful, a lot of fear.

And so I don't blame him for that. I don't necessarily think he's right, but I don't blame him for doing that.

Well, on the on the financial side, Zach. Yeah. Taking that hundred and five. Yeah.

And going and spending 40 and getting your degree.

Yes, I would do that, which is great. Yeah. The whole trick is to do that and navigate and the post addiction mentality and that's where you need to be. So I'm proud of you brother. You call us any time. We'd be honored to help you as you walk through this. You're a sharp young guy, Rachel. Good job. Good job. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. That puts us our The Dave Ramsey Show on the books.

Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Zach Bennett, filling in for Kelly today. I am Dave Ramsey. Your host will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial piece, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace. Christ, Jesus. Hey, guys, this is Kelly, associate producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 16 million people listen to the Dave Ramsey Show every week and a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country and find a station near you.

Dave Ramsey Cogo. Hey, if you've got questions about retirement investing or becoming an everyday millionaire, go bigger and broader with my man Chris Hogan on the Chris Hogan Show. I am excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to focus on your calls and it's going to focus on building wealth investing and how to become an everyday millionaire. Subscribe to the Chris Hogan Show wherever you listen to podcast.

Hey, it's James, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you've heard about during this episode. Thanks for listening.