Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Our goal here is to completely indoctrinate you into a whole new way of thinking called common freaking sense. We want you to join the cult, drink the Kool-Aid, or whatever other negative crap you've heard. Jump in. We'll help you. It's what we're here for. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Of course, the phone number here is triple-888-855-225. You have stepped square in the middle of a Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour. What that means is we're going to take questions from millionaires this hour only. We always have to help folks with that because people are apparently confused. They took economics from their Karl Marx indoctrinated college professor, and so we have to explain to them how this wealth thing works. Here's the way it works. Networth is how you become a millionaire. It's not your income. You can make a million dollars a year and not be a millionaire. A millionaire, by definition, it is an accounting definition. It is notyou don't get to make up your own definition.

This is the only definition is what you own minus what you owe, assets minus liabilities equals your net worth. When that number is greater than a million dollars, you are a millionaire.

Well.

I don't care how you feel. It's not a feeling. It's a math entry. I don't think anybody ought to have that money. It's not a moral construct. A million dollars is not enough. It's not an economics lesson. It's a number called net worth. When you reach that, you are, by definition, a millionaire. Now, we can discuss the other parts of that if you want. But in the meantime, let's talk to people who actually achieve the milestone of becoming a real millionaire because people out there inquiring minds can want to know. They do. They do. Phone number, triple-eight, 825-5225. We're going to talk to real millionaires, not your broke brother-in-law who votes wrong. We're going to talk to people who really did this stuff. Mike is in Woodstock, Georgia. Mike, what is your net worth?

Eleven million. Boom!

Wow!

Give me a little breakdown on that dude.

I've got about five million in real estate. My split of the business I own is about five million right now, roughly. Then I've probably got another million in rough assets between cash and I don't really do stocks or anything. That's the rough numbers there.

Very cool. All right. How old are you? Twenty-eight. Holy. Wow! How much of this did you inherit?

None.

Zero. You did this from nothing but 28 years old.

Yes, sir.

Okay. What's been your range of income since you started working to your best year?

It's hard to judge, but I would say starting at 18 was probably my lowest year, around $80,000. Then my best year would probably have been last year, it was a little over two million.

Okay, good Lord. What do you do?

I own a property restoration company specializing in water damage, mold remediation, fire damage, construction.

A lot of it, too.

Yeah, a lot of it. We have two locations, so.

Wow, you guys are doing some volume. Good for you. So are you a college graduate?

I'm not. I'm a drop out loud and proud.

Hey, I'm with you, Pratt. I'm with you.

Okay, so you were in college, though. What were you studying?

I was studying whatever made my momma happy.

She.

Was first to graduate of our family.

So I was- Now momma is not happy. You're just highly successful, Zol. Oh, well.

We're past that now, but there's multiple years of, You're not.

Going to make it. I love it. Okay, so what was your GPA? Do you remember in high school or in college?

It was always above a 3.0. I'd say average is about 3.5..

Okay, all right, very good.

All right, cool. Floating by.

Okay, so there's an 18-year-old out there listening that shows us over TikTok today. He might actually get some real information from because you actually did this from 18-28 in 10 years, went from $80,000 to $2 million income with an $11 million net worth, removing mold and mildew and water damage and doing a lot of insurance work, I suspect, on volume. What do you tell that 18-year-old the secret to your net worth is? Where did it come from?

Well, it came from my stepdad, who was actually a gigantic fan of you. He put this in me at a young age. So when I hit my successes, my big focus was I don't know how long this is going to last. I need to pay off debt. I need to get ahead. I need to make sure that I set myself up for the future. And it's addicting. And it's just like you talk about. And when you knock it out and you put it behind you, it really allows you to do a lot more investment-type things like I've been able to do with real estate. But I would say the biggest thing is you don't have to have a college degree, you got to have a work ethic, and you need to make good choices, choices that will help you in the future, not punish you right now or punish you later.

What good choices? What does that mean?

When I started my business and took a risk, I took just enough money to pay my bills and pay my mortgage and my car payment and all the normal stuff.

Okay, so your good choice was you didn't consume everything you made. You plowed it back in.

Immediately. I got my first distribution and I put it all down my house, the house that I bought when I was 19, and I was able to have it paid off by the time I was 23 years old, 24 years old.

Fantastic. I want to ask a question on choices. You're 3.5 in high school. You've got obviously intelligence. You didn't slack off, but you dropped out of college. At what point did you realize that you wanted to do the work you're doing now? Did that play into you dropping out?

It certainly played into dropping out. I realized I had a good gig coming out of high school. I started at the very bottom at a restoration company at 16 years old, and I found it fascinating. It seemed like the owners did really well, and I wanted to be in that position. I worked my way up to project manager, general manager, vice president, so on and so forth. I was doing really well. I told my mom, I'm doing great. I want to jump out. It was the greatest decision I ever made. If I wouldn't have had that there, I may not have taken that risk, but it was a calculated risk.

For sure. Do you love what you do? What emotion would you attach to your work?

I love what I do, and it consumes a lot of my life. My biggest struggle is making sure that I have a work-life balance because I got a lot of people that look up to me to lead this ship, and so I have to be good every day. That's a good pressure that keeps me going. But I very much enjoy helping people and I very much enjoy being able to take care of the ones that support me and support this business.

Mike, you're an American hero. Small business is the backbone of America. 28 years old with an $11 million net worth. That's fascinating.

He's exhibit A, the study, the largest study of networth millionaires ever done by Revenue Solution said that 96% of these people like Mike love their work, and he loves what he's.

Doing for people. I hate my job, I hate my boss, I hate my company, is not a formula to wealth. That's right. Hello, this is The Ramsey Show. I say it all the time, dead is dumb and cash is king. But when it comes to life insurance, cash value is crap. Cash value life insurance is a high-cost product with little to no return on your so-called investment. The main benefit is fat commission checks for your agent. Term life from Xander Insurance is a much better way to protect your family's future. Xander shops the top companies to find you the most affordable term-life rates. Then you can use what you save compared to those cash value premiums to really build wealth. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282 to learn more today. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality number one best-selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, the career expert around the Ramsey personality bunch, he's my co-host today. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. We're talking to real millionaires, not broke people with an opinion on TikTok, real millionaires. What did you do? Who are you? We want to learn about you so we can be one of you.

That is what America is saying to you. If you're a real millionaire, call us at triple-8-825-5255. Marcia is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Marcia, welcome to a Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour. What's your net worth?

Hi, Dave and Ken. It's so nice to talk to you both. My net worth is $1.29 million.

Good for you. Give me a little breakdown on that.

Sure. I've got $740,000 in retirement between 401(k) and a Roth IRA, $350,000 in equity in my house. The balance is made up of just liquid cash and other non-retirement investments.

Good for you. Well done. How old are you?

I just turned 45 last month. Cool.

How much of this did you inherit?

Well, the only thing I've inherited so far is just some knowledge and good old fashioned walking around since, but there's been no money.

No money. Okay. You do have an advantage, just the same, because if you got walking around since, it's more than most people got. There you go. This is true. Your range of income, your best working year to your worst working year.

Yeah. When I first came out of college, my first big girl job was making $31,000 a year, and I'm currently making between 165 and $170,000 depending on how that bonus is and profit sharing worked out.

What do you do? What's your career?

I am an insurance claims professional. I work in a technical space for a commercial property and casualty insurer. I'm currently in a leadership role leading other claims professionals.

Four-year degree?

Yes, a four-year degree in finance.

In finance, okay. Your GPA when you were in school?

It was probably about a 3.0 or a 3.1. I've put that behind.

Me, Dave. Yeah, I have tried to forget mine because it's a 2.97, and I'm really pissed off about that 3.100 point still, 40 years later. But I think it has something to do with beer. I don't know. But anyway, yeah. So way to go. Way to go. You're single, it sounds like.

I am. I've never married and never had any kids. I am a.

One-woman band, Dave. I love it. Good for you. Well done. What do you tell a young version of you, 25 years old that's listening, Can she do it in America today? And if she can, what should she do if she wants to be you?

Yes, she absolutely can. If she wants it to happen, if you want it to happen, you can. I think one of the biggest things is finding discipline. That was something that was difficult for me in my early 20s. Who do you want to be? Decide who you want to be and follow a proven plan and a process to get there. Also finding contentment, just enjoying and being happy with what you have. You don't have to buy all the big, happy, shiny things. Those will come in time, but just to learn contentment with what you have. And also I think a big thing, too, is discernment, learning discernment with the company you keep. You are who you hang around with. So if you want to be a fool, hang out with fools. If you want to be successful in life and live a rewarding life, find those that are successful and have a rich, rewarding life and keep company with those people.

Wow, that's really deep. I think a lot of people listening in are wondering, What did you do to be intentional in that last statement to put yourself around the right people? Who were you seeking out along your way?

Well, I wanted to find people that lived a life that I aspire to have, not unlike a lot of young 20 people, single people. I like to go out and have a good time. I was running with a crowd that was just living day to day, having a good time. I decided this is not who I want to be when I grow up, so I need to find other people. I sought out people who were successful in life, not only with wealth, but had fulfilling life and decided that I want to model myself after them, see what they're doing, and be that.

What's the biggest money mistake you've ever made?

Oh, man, how can I count the ways? I would say the biggest one was probably when I purchased my first home, it was, I think, around 2006 or 2007. I was not financially prepared for it at all. I didn't have any money. I had debt. I took out one of those subprime loans in 80, 20 %. So basically, yeah, the high interest, the 20 % loan was variable, so an interest rates went up. But I fought through that. I paid it all off myself. Probably another big mistake I made was purchasing a new car. But you live, you learn. I think part of life is learning grace to give yourself grace. Allow yourself to make a mistake. Just don't make that same mistake twice.

There you go. I like that. Trying not to compound the dumb one, Joe. I love it. Well done. Wellplan Hero. Proud of you. Melanie is in Las Vegas. Melanie, what's your net worth?

Hi, Dave. Absolute honor to talk to you. My net worth right now is.

1.8. Cool. Give me a little breakdown by category on that.

It's a mix of retirement accounts between my husband and I.

It would be how much? Then you have.

A retirement accounts. Oh, goodness. Mine, I actually break it down every six months. Mine in July was about 307, 1,000. My husband's is about 266,000.

Okay, so about 600 between those two. All right, what's the other 1.3?

We have college accounts for our kids, about $180,000 and $529,000 for them. We have property valued about 900,000. That's our main house, and then we have a rental property as well. Then between bank accounts and other taxable investments, it's about 200,000.

Okay, very good. How old are you?

I'm 44.

Good for you. Okay, and how much of this did you guys inherit?

We actually own a business on the side, which I don't count in my net worth currently, but the money that we use to open that was inherited from my mother-in-law.

How much?

I don't know.

It's a restaurant. How much did you inherit?

It was about 200,000.

Okay, all right. That helped you guys in this net worth. Although that particular use of that is not calculated in this 1.8..

No, sir, because I don't know exactly how much the business.

Is actually worth. Got you. Okay. Your best year of income and your worst year of income since you started adulting?

Well, I am a service member, so my worst year of income was when I first came in about 25 years ago, so maybe 30,000 a year, if that.

I.

Would say the best is now between my husband and I, we make about 250.

Good for you. Good for you. Which branch do you serve in? The Air Force. Thank you. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. It's my pleasure.

You got a four-year degree?

We do. My husband and I both have MBAs.

Okay. What was your GPA in your MBA program?

Mine was probably about a 3.6, my husband probably about.

A 4.0. Okay, very good. Well done. Well done. Thank you. What's the biggest mistake you ever made with money? The dumbest thing you ever did.

I actually have two things, actually. One was really big, one was really small. When my husband and I were first starting out, we were first married. We didn't have a lot of money, and we had saved maybe a thousand dollars, which was huge to me. We got taken by a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, and we ended up paying $1,500 for a set of encyclopedias, which I have had.

For 25 years. You're not old enough to buy door-to-door encyclopedias. You must have been 12.

You wouldn't think so. A lot.

Of people don't even know what that is.

Wow. I still have them. Oh, I bet.

They have.

Made many moves with us. They have made many moves with us. Yes. The other money mistake was we purchased a home in California when we were stationed there, and we had some, I wouldn't say it was bad advice, but we trusted some folks that were older and had money and we thought they were smart with money and they told us to weather the storm. We bought our house in California in about 2004, and we moved from California to Las Vegas in 2007. It was right around the market crash. We should have just sold the property, but we decided to weather the storm. We held on the property for about a decade, and we took a huge loss on it over the years. We couldn't rent it for what the mortgage.

Was.ouch, that hurts. Bad real estate deal. Number one mistake. Good job, Melanie. Way to go, Hero. Ken Coleman, Dave Ramsey, it's a Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour. What we teach at Ramsey boils down to taking control of your life. It's all about personal responsibility, and if you own a gun, that's even more important. I recommend becoming a member of the US Concealed Carry Association. You'll have immediate access to liability insurance, education, and training to protect your loved ones and defend your rights in the most responsible way. Go to usca. Com/ramsey and join today. That's usca. Com/ramsey. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. We started doing these theme hours, which led to a research project, the largest research project ever done on millionaires in North America. We ended up studying with airtight controlled research technique over 10,167 millionaires. We came to some very interesting conclusions from that research. It informed us some things we thought we knew that we didn't, and really had some numbers that were mind-blowing when we got into it. We did that, and we started this hour because I kept hearing from all the Hope Stealers, the angry leftists, that America is dead.

You can't become a millionaire in America today. It's impossible. We must have anarche. We must have Karl Marx sitting on the throne of communism because the little man just can't get ahead. All millionaires today in America have inherited their money. You've heard that, right? All millionaires have some privilege. You've heard that, right? It's basically victim-speak from hopeless people. It's really, in one sense, it's angering, but because it's defeating other people with hope. But in the other sense, it's sad. It's pitiful to live a life that thinks you're stuck and you can't win no matter what you do. People like me, we can't get ahead. The neighborhood I grew up in, you're always going to have a car payment. You can't be a student without a student loan. Eeyore is my spirit animal. I mean, you know how these people sound. None of them sound excited. There's never any crispness or sparkle or passion in their voice. It's always like somebody's dragging them around behind a car when you're talking to them. Oh, it's bad. And all the rich people and all the people in the other area of the country and all the people that are a different color and all the people that are a different sex and all the people...

Oh, shut up. Really? That's just wrong. The data proves it's wrong. That's why we started doing these to introduce you to real millionaires because they're from every area of the country, every age group, every level of education, every color, every background: Cajans to Hillbillies to African Americans to Chinese immigrants. I don't care. You just name whatever group you want to name. We find millionaires in them, and we find victims in them, and we find hopeless people in them. I never forget, Ken, the first time it blew my mind, when I first started doing this years ago, I got a speaking gig in New York City. I had never spoken. I mean, I primarily spoken around the south, so pretty much Goemer Powell goes to New York to speak. And so. Well, golly. Well, golly. But you look at all them people. I couldn't help myself. I go up to New York, and I'm in this huge ballroom, and I speak to this group of about 2,000 people, and I had books, and I'm signing books at the end. It looked like the United Nations. Of course, New York City is a melting pot. You got everything.

It looked like any possible background or mix of backgrounds. I'm signing books, and I'll never forget this lady came to me. She goes, You don't understand. What I don't understand? She said, Well, people like me, all my people buy new cars. I'm like, That's like everybody. What are you? She said, I'm Puerto Rican. I'm like, That's not a Puerto Rican disease, baby.

That's not unique to Puerto Ricans. But she had figured out that Puerto Ricans all had to have new cars in her mind because she was Puerto Rican. Isn't that funny how we do that stuff? That's why we do this hour is to defeat the mythology, the tapes that we play in our heads that give us an excuse to not go leave the cave, kill something, drag it home, and freaking win. No excuses. Catewon is with us. Ket1 is in Houston, Texas. Hey, Catewon, what is your net worth? Right around.

2.1..

Good for you. Okay, and give me a little breakdown by category. How much retirement, how much house, and so on.

Retirement, probably 650. Mutual funds and other investments outside of retirement, probably 600. About 60 and the 529 for my kids, real estate, right about $700, and then another 70 or so in angel investing.

Cool. How old are you?

I'm 40.

Good for you. How much of this did you inherit? Zero. Zero. And your best working year income and worst working year income?

Best right around 300. Then worst was when I first started out of college, about 32k.

Okay, cool. What do you do for a living?

I'm a solutions architect.

Okay. What architect? Solutions. Solutions. Like as in digital?

Yes, as in digital.

Okay, digital architect. I work for the Kyle Space. All right, cool. You got a four-year degree? I do. In what? Information systems or something? What? Yep, and information systems. Got it. Okay, and your GPA?

I think it was 2.5. Okay.

All right, good for you. All right, cool. Can this still be done? The 20-year-old version of you poking around on the whole digital space, lots of opportunity there. Can they become worth 2.1 by the time they're 40, or is America dead?

Absolutely, they can. Probably even faster. There's so many opportunities out.

There for sure. I agree with that. What would you tell them the secret is? Just really having a.

Plan, budgeting and understanding where you want to go, and driving towards those goals.

Yeah, I'm curious, was there a fast-forward button at any point for you in this journey?

I think the only fast for thing was any time I did get a bonus, I never spent it. I just use it as.

Opportunity to invest.

Wow! How many times would you say that you did that over your career? Got the bonus and then compounded it by investing it?

I probably have done that over the last 10-12 years for sure.

Wow! That adds up quick, doesn't it?

For sure. That's like living on what you make and throwing the bonus to the 40. Yep, there you go. I like that plan. That alone will stack up cash, obviously. 2.1 million by the time you're 40. Congratulations, man. Thank you so much. Did you grow up around wealthy people? We were just talking about the different people groups. What would be your tribe be?

Probably lower middle class.

Okay.

Sorry, Dave. Go ahead. What would you say contributed to the mentality.

That changed you to be able to do this. You broke your family tree, man. Yeah. I think.

What contributed to it is just understanding that and thinking and learning about money in a new way. I guess it was always just an interest of mine, but just taking the time to learn about it, to understand how it works and how it grows really became an interest of mine. I dug deep into it and started doing everything that I needed to do to make that possible.

It's not really a big mystery once you dig into it, right?

Very true.

Sadly, it's very basic. Hey, man, good job. I'm proud of you, Hero. Excellent job. Robert is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Robert, your net worth?

1.4.

Million. Good for you, sir. Give me a little breakdown by category, please.

Retirement, 724,000. House is worth 350,000. Have non-retirement investments of 172,000. I have a health savings account, it's got $48,000, about 20,000 in cash. Dave, I've got about 140,000 of things with wheels, tires, motors, and jet drives.

Nice.

He's a gadget guy. I like him. All right. How old are you, Robert? 59. Good for you. How much of this did you inherit?

Well, in 2021, my mom passed away and our share was about 300,000. But I had just barely become a.

Millionaire at that time. So you were already a millionaire before you got this? Yeah. Don't let me put words in your mouth, but I think I hear you saying you did not become a millionaire because of inherited money.

Correct.

It enhanced the program after you were already there. Yeah, absolutely. You're the man. You're the man. Can it still be done, Robert?

Absolutely.

Just got to follow the baby steps. What's your career?

What it means.

I'm a doctor, I'm a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist, all right. Obviously, that's your degree. What was your GPA?

Well, Dave.

Undergraduate, not all.

Doctors are 4.0. It was 2.0..

I'm.

Sorry.

2.8. 2.8. 2.8. All right. You're right there with me, brother. Right there with me. I love it. Congratulations, sir. Proud of you, Hero. Another millionaire in the books. This is a Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour on The Ramsey Show.

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

Baby Steps Millionaires, theme hour. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co-host. Spoiler alert, guys. The research on millionaires, the airtight research, the methodology was so pure and so good on this research that if you disagree with the conclusions of the research, you're what's known as wrong. In other words, these are facts, database facts. They're not feelings from your Karl Marx-induced college professor. These are actual facts. 79% of America's millionaires inherited precisely zero. 5% of America's millionaires inherited a very small amount, like $5,000 from grandmother, but not enough to make them mathematically a millionaire. It was an insignificant small amount, but they did technically get an inheritance. Another 5% inherited money that was substantial, like that last caller or caller before... No, the last caller, after they were already millionaires, so did not become millionaires because of inherited money, but enhanced their wealth after they were already millionaires. So let me help you with that. 79-0, five small, five after. 79-5-5 is 89%. That's 9 out of 10 of the current approximately 15 million millionaires in North America became millionaires not because of inherited money. Do not let people tell that lie in your presence, because when they tell that lie, they are spreading hopelessness.

They are stealing hope from people. Because if you know that 9 out of 10 of America's millionaires started with nothing and became millionaires not because of inherited money, that should give you hope that you, too, can do this. Then the only question is how did they do it? What are the best practices? Well, a lot of them followed the baby steps. These days, I've been teaching this stuff 30 years. I mean, 10 million people have been through Financial Peace University. You'd think a few of them would get it and turn out to be millionaires. Well, a bunch of them got it and turned out to be millionaires.

I also want to mention that 96% of networth millionaires enjoy their work. They're not quiet quitters, Dave. I had Tim Smith, who did a lot of research, pull some more data for me. Of the 96%, so that's only 4% didn't enjoy their work, the 96% actually had a higher networth to the tune of 58 % higher net worth than those in that four % who didn't.

Enjoy their work. Oh, and he passed the data out.

Wow. Even more. What tells me that doing something you enjoy is the key to working harder and longer in that sacrificial time. More creative. You're getting promoted more. You're putting your best output out, which means you're getting rewarded for the output. So we don't want to miss that side of it. The baby steps, huge chunk. Living a lesson, you make the discipline piece. But you have greater discipline when you actually enjoy showing up. You also get better results when you enjoy it.

We also found, okay, what are the top 10 careers fields that people picked out? Number one, engineer. At the break, we met a baby steps millionaire's engineer. He's a baby step millionaire. I met him at the break at the commercial break just a minute ago sitting here in the lobby. Engineer, 45 years old. Okay, that's it. Number two, accountant. Number three, teacher. Yeah, I don't agree with that. I don't care if you agree with it. You're wrong. The number three most occurring career field was teacher. Number four, business executive, whatever that means, could mean anything. Number five was attorney. Doctors, medical doctors didn't even make the top five. What do all five of those people have in common? It took us a while to figure this one out. They all are process people. They have to follow a series of principles. If you're an engineer and you don't follow the principles, the bridge falls down. If you're an accountant, you don't get to be creative. There's accounting principles, you follow those. Creative accounting is called embezzlement. You go to jail, okay? You don't get to be creative with your accounting. Teachers follow a system, a lesson plan, a series of testing to create the desired outcome.

Business executives, obviously following best practices. Attorneys, you got one way you can conduct yourself in front of Your Honor, the judge, or he'll put your butt in jail for contempt. You don't get to make up stuff in the courtroom. There's a process that the law requires you abide to or you lose the case. These are processed people. When it came to money, they found a process and they submitted themselves to that process. They didn't try to go, Well, I don't know if I agree with that. I'm 18 years old and I watched a TikTok video. Well, don't be stupid, okay? Don't be stupid. It'll cause you to be broke. Instead, you go, I'm going to figure out what the freaking process is, and I'm going to follow it. That's what causes people to be millionaires, and they do it over and over and over. Today, we've got a property restoration guy, a big entrepreneur guy, insurance claims process, Air Force. Try flying a plane different than you're supposed to fly. It's called crashing, right? Digital guy, I mean, information systems guy, syntax. When you start writing code, you got one slash out of place. The whole thing buggers up doesn't work.

It has to have it perfect. You have to follow process. Same thing. All the way down to dadgum list, right? Today, the example's followed it, and we didn't set these calls up. We just put it out there. If you want to call in, if you won the lottery, we'll put you on here. But you're not normal as millionaires go. If you inherited $10 million dollars and your uncle owns a hotel chain, that's great. But you're not normal. We'll put you on here because we want to hear your story. All right, let's get one more in before we run out of time this hour. Timothy is in Phoenix. Timothy, what's your net worth?

Hey, Dave and Ken. My net worth is.

1.1 million. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category, retirement house, so on.

Yeah. We have about 400K in a house. We have about 600K in retirement investments, about 50K in stock options, another 60K in the 529, and then around 40K in savings. And then, unfortunately, as I'm in school right now, about 29K in debt.

How old are you?

I am 38.

Good. How much of this did you inherit?

I wish I did, but.

No, nothing at all. Nothing. Okay. Your best working year or your worst working year? Income.

That worst working year was probably about 25K. I was getting out of school. Between when I got married and my wife and I, I think the best was about 270, but we averaged, I'd say, about 160 throughout our.

Marriage so far. What's your career?

I'm a nurse and I'm in the Army Reserve.

Thanks for your service. Obviously, your degree is in nursing. What was your GPA?

It was a whopping.

3.0. Okay, cool. Way to go, man. Congratulations. Can this still be done to a 38-year-old? You're a 38-year-old. You're talking 18-year-old, 20 years younger than you that's thinking about being a nurse. Can they be a millionaire?

Oh, absolutely. For me, what we did is simple first. My family never talked about money. And so what I did is I realized, hey, I want to learn about this. I educated myself. That's something anybody can do. Your books helped tremendously in that. Then I worked with my wife. We're a team. And then we created goals, and we prioritized the things that were important for our marriage and our life. And once you create a goal, you just backplan. And you realize that just by doing the same thing consistently that you planned out all the same, and you're a millionaire or you've accomplished some other goal in your life that's important. So it's 100% doable. It just takes those elements.

Absolutely. Way to go, Timothy. Proud of you, Hero. So Ken, nobody inherited money. Nobody became a millionaire because of inherited money. Nobody had a 4.0, one husband did, but not one on the phone. The GPAs were all right around three, which is typical. We find that you don't have to be a genius to be a millionaire. You do have to have some brain matter. We don't get 1.5 GPAs, okay? But a lot of 3.0s, 3.1s, 2.97s like mine.

Quick thought on this, Dave. What we heard the theme this hour was they learned about money. They figured the process out. You were talking a lot about process people. Want to make this point to all my non-process brothers and sisters that are listening and watching? You don't have to be processed to be a millionaire, but you can follow our process. That's where we come in. The Baby Steps is the process to become a Baby Steps millionaire. We're here to help you. So don't freak out. Follow the plan.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, host of The Ken Coleman Show, number one bestselling author of the book, Paycheck to Purpose: Our Ramsey personality that works the most on careers and jobs is my co-host today. We're going to talk to you about your life. The phone number is triple-eight-eight-two-five-five-two-two-five. Caleb is in Richland, Washington. Hi, Caleb. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello. Thank you guys for taking my call today.

Sure. What's up?

All right, so me and my wife are 22 years old. We're going to have a baby next year in the end of March.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much. We're going to move to Tennessee next year in the beginning of July. I'm currently a route service representative and my wife is an office coordinator. Our income right now is about 75. And once we move to Tennessee, if I stick with the company, our income will go down to about 36. I also do online fitness coaching on the side. I would like to have that as my full-time career. But I'm not sure if I should continue doing that whenever I move to Tennessee, still do my full-time job and hope that it works out and turns into something that will provide for my family, or if I should switch careers, go to college and find something different.

How much money are you making right now in the online coaching business?

About $200 a month, so still currently in the beginning stages of it.

When you say, How long have you been doing it?

Since the beginning of this year.

Okay. I wouldn't even call that. I'm going to be very kind, but I want to be realistic. I mean, you've got a lot to learn before we can even begin to have a serious mental conversation of, Okay, what must be true for me to go full-time into this. You got to keep testing this and.

Figuring this out. You could have delivered pizzas two nights a month and beat this.

Yeah. This is not a business right now. This is something you've tried and it's not working. Let me step out of this for a moment and say, anytime you've got a side gig and you're wondering, What do I do? Or, When should I move from full-time job to side gig? It's when the side gig is paying you the same amount of money or pretty darn close to the same amount of money as the full-time gig. I like to see 3-6 months of salary in side gig bank account. Now, that's just my starter advice of that's what must be true for you to move into this online fitness coaching. But you've got a lot of work to do, and so I'm scared about you going backwards in Tennessee.

Why would you go- Why are you coming to Tennessee and moving backwards?

If I were to stay in the company, they pay less than what I'm making here, so it's strictly based on location. I can make commission.

You're running a route, you said?

Correct.

Yes. For who? What do you do?

For Unifirst. We go to companies and provide them with mats and uniforms and cleaning products.

Okay. All right. You have an entry-level bad job. When you move to Tennessee, it pays even less.

Correct, yeah. Okay, all right. I don't have any college experience either.

Why are we moving to Tennessee?

To go with family, basically.

To go with family?

Yeah. My wife's sister and brother-in-law are already over there, and her whole family, including us, are doing a mass exodus out of Washington to Tennessee.

All right. Well, let's address the school issue because this is the default for most people. Well, do I go get a degree so I can make more money? I'm not sure that you can afford to go to school. Do you guys have any debt at all?

$10,000 in the car.

Okay, how much in the car? The 10 is in the car. I thought you said 10,000.

And the car. Debt-free. I mean, debt on the car. No, sorry. Let me ask you this, Caleb. Okay, you guys are 23. Ken, in my mind, I start thinking about a new baby coming and I got a little bit panicked if I'm him. I got to go make some money. This just got real, this adult thing. I'm going to be in a state that's unfamiliar. I'm making a move with a brand new two-month-old, three-month-old baby at that point. First, probably if it's me, I'm just going to go figure out a way to make the most money in the shortest period of time first. Then second, I'm going to try to figure out what I'm supposed to do long term and move towards that.

Yeah, that's where I was going with all these questions. You need to get settled. And settled is I got to bemaking $75,000. We don't need a degree. We're trying to change our life. You don't need a degree to do that. We get in Tennessee, get in the zip code. We get a job or two jobs, my friend.

Or.

Three. Or three to take care of mama and baby. We want to, again, not go backwards financially. To be honest with you, this cost of living is going to be way less anywhere in Tennessee, I would guess, than most places in Washington. Do your homework on cost of living. Don't just make a move because, well, the brother and sister-in-law are moving, so we're going to go. I'll just be honest with you, I wouldn't move right away if I couldn't move right away. I'll move to Tennessee when I can move to Tennessee, and the can is determined by the job.

Yeah, we'll have about 22,000 in savings by the time that we move, so.

We'll be pretty- Where?

-we're going to be saving 1,500 a month.

I thought I must have misunderstood your income.

Okay. You're making combined 75, correct?

Yeah. We're making about 5,000 a month, and we're putting... Yeah, so we're putting about-.

Well, here's the thing. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to take some of that $22,000, and I want you to buy a couple of round trip tickets to the area in Tennessee that you're going to be in. I want you to come here and get a job. Go get a job. Okay. Get a job lined up, or two lined up, or three lined up to where you step into $75,000 with a reduced cost of living. It's a net gain for you day one here. Then take Ken Coleman's materials. I'll give you a copy of his book, From Paycheck to Purpose, and let's figure out what your purpose is. Let me go ahead and give you the assessment.

Get clear work assessment that'll help you figure out direction. But again, please don't step into more money, more time, which is schooling. Let's get a job, get settled, get stable, get baby here, and then determine direction, and then figure out the plan to get to where you want to go. That's exactly right, Dave. Right now, it's too much, too many moving parts. He's young. There's time. But let's be smart about this.

The thing, Caleb and others we want you to hear is knowledge is important, but knowledge that takes you to where you want to go in your career is vital. Sometimes that means going back to school. A lot of times it doesn't. Vaguely, in air quotes, go back to school as the solution to every income problem, seldom works.

That's correct.

Don't do that. That's like escapism. You're escaping reality. I'm going to go hide on the college campus and not have to deal with the fact that I don't know what the flip I'm doing. That's right.

It's like signing up for basketball camp if you want to go to the NBA. One does not guarantee the other. We've got to be smart about this.

That's harsh. That's harsh right there.

I'm dealing with the reality.

This is The Ramsey Show.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, folks, it's Dr. John Deloney.

This time of year can be hard, and.

Seasonal affective disorder is real. When I moved to Nashville, the time change.

Caught me off guard.

It got dark at 4:30, and I was ready for bed.

By 6:45 PM.

Things weren't as fun. Even the food lost its flavor. Now I know how to prepare my body when things get dark. I go outside to enjoy nature. I stick to.

An.

Exercise routine, and I intentionally connect with people. Another thing I did.

Is.

Therapy. Therapy can be a bright spot even when.

The sun goes down too soon.

Something positive and interactive to make us feel grounded and give us the tools to manage the way seasonal change can affect our bodies. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. Betterhelp is flexible because it's totally online, so it can fit into any schedule. Just fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no charge. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/daloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/daloney. Ken Coleman.

Ramsey personality is our co-host today. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. The phone number is triple-8-825-5225. Andrew is in Salem, Oregon. Hi, Andrew. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave, how.

Are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, I have some advice. I'm a 23-year-old family of four. My wife is a stay-home mom. I have two little kids. I have some money I've been saving for the last six years, and I work a full-time job. I make about a little under $100,000 a year, and I'm on the track to even grow some more. And my wife's going to college this winter, and it's fully paid for. We don't have any debt, but we're really anxious to get into a house. But we want to know if it's a good idea to go and look for a house now, or if we should just wait until my wife is out of school and start our looking bend.

When she's out of school, will she go to work using the degree and increase the family income?

Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir.

Okay. That would change the equation on what house she would buy based on her new income when out of school. It sounds to me like I'm going to wait till she's out of school because I can get a different house.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, because she's going to be a dentist, a hygienist. Her school is all paid for. We just-.

No, I'm talking about how much you want to spend on a house would change if you had more income, correct?

Yes.

I probably want her income in the equation before I pick out a house.

A house? Okay. We just have this lump of cash we're just sitting on. We have it in investment accounts and stuff. But what would be a better solution on making more than just sitting.

With-i'll just sit on it. -than just sitting-in-the-board. Just make sure it's in a high-yield savings, because you're going to use it within two years, dude. Yeah, you don't want to play with this money because you might lose it. We want to just sit there. Let's let that golden egg, let it hatch.

Okay.

Yeah, put it in a good high-yield savings right now paying five. I mean, you can get that, but you're not going to get... I mean, you don't need to be trying to... Yeah, but the main goal is to get a house when she gets a job, and we don't want to mess that goal up by putting this money at risk.

Yeah, there's a temptation, Andrew, to feel like I'm wasting my money by renting every month, and I'm not getting any ROI on this. That's just simply not the case here. I think what you're going to have to do here is switch your mindset from that to, I'm going to get a better house, have a much better down payment with patience. So put your mindset on that. Patience is not throwing money away. Patience is having more options, better options.

Yeah. You're going to forego a little bit of something now in order to get a bigger something later. That's right. It's a delayed pleasure thing. Yeah, very good. Nick is with us in Lubbock, Texas. Hi, nick. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey there, Dave.

How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Good to hear. I'm a sophomore in college, currently 20 years old. I am currently on an academic fool ride, so don't worry about paying for college debt, which is nice. I work two part-time jobs, bring in about 1,600 a month. I'm just trying to wonder what I should do as far as saving for the future. I have the $1,000 emergency fund, and just want to see what the next steps are and what you all think I should do since I'm young and it's a little bit of a non-traditional format for people usually at my age.

Yeah, agreed. It's not really a baby step thing. What are you studying?

I'm studying pre-law philosophy. I want to go pursue to be a lawyer, hopefully an appellate lawyer, then future judge.

Okay. You need a lot of money.

Yes, sir. That's why I got to start early.

We're not doing anything except stacking cash, are we?

Yes, sir, that's the plan. I have two savings accounts to have the emergency plan, and then I have one that I'm just.

Stacking cash in. Yeah, try to pay for law school. The fact that you got free college with academics is way to go. Also says you got a great brain and that's going to help you get into law school, good. Way to go. Fits right in with your goals. I love what you're doing. What I'm going to do is just do everything I can to pay cash for law school.

Yeah, and to that end, what's your GPA right now, nick? 4.0. See, I want to let you know about something, and you can go check me on this. I interviewed a lawyer from the Houston, Texas area, has written a small book on this on my show several years ago. Here's what people don't know. With your GPA and your intelligence, if you get a great LSAT score, there will be law schools all across the country, nick, that will give you a full ride to get a law degree. But it may not be a name-brand school. It just depends. But don't just get sucked into this big-time law school that looks great, has shiny bells and whistles all over it in the brand name. Be aware that you, at your intelligence level and LSAT score, could get a free ride for law school. Nobody cares, by the way, where you went to law school. I'm going to point that out. A lot of law students don't know that, Dave, because they think it's about the name brand.

Yeah, I met with two attorneys outside counsel on a deal this morning, and our counsel, our in-house counsel, all three lawyers, I know where our guy graduated from because I hired him. But other than that, I have no idea where the other two graduated from. Let me just tell you, they were brilliant. They were brilliant. I mean, the strategy and stuff we came up with, it was like, Oh.

This is going to be fun. Why did you hire them if you didn't know where they.

Went to law school? I don't care where they went. I hired them because I found out who they were and the results they had gotten and the type of a thing I'm hiring them to do. They know what the flip they're doing. I don't really care where they went to law school. They're brilliant. I do know just in conversation that one of the guy's dad was a law professor at Mississippi. Right. But other than that, I don't know where he went. Isn't that fun? Yeah, that's the deal. I've hired a bunch of lawyers in my life. I have no idea where any of them went to school. I've hired a bunch of docs, and I got a physical there. They have no idea where my.

Docs went to school. And see, the reason that this exists, Dave, is because law schools, there's a lot of smaller law schools out there are just not as big brand names, but they want sharp men and women like nick. They'll give him a full ride so that they can say, nick went to.

Our place. Yeah, and then he becomes an appellate and then a judge. There you go, doing appeals. Nick, do research that out. Our recommendation is I don't care where you went to school if you get to go free and you get a free law degree to go with your free undergrad. There's a philosophy of life, Mr. Philosopher, that you could live with out there. I'm just saying way to go, man. Very cool. You're smart. Stack the cash, pay cash, and/or get a free ride to law school. That's the game plan. Nothing more than that. You don't need to do anything else. Job one is get nick through this without damage and debt. That's job one. Because, nick, you are the best investment that you can make. Mathematically, getting the law degree and paying cash for it is the best investment that you can make. You can't put money in a mutual fund and get that return. You can't put money in real estate, get that return. Knowledge that is usable in the marketplace is the best return on investment mathematically.

Yeah. Here's a question for everybody watching and listening that may be wanting to go to the path of nick. Imagine billing hours right out of law school that you can save and invest, not pay debt off with. Imagine. Just imagine that idea. It's all about kick and tail on the L-set. That's the bridge.

Wow. Is that true on the MCAT, too?

I don't know about the MCAT. I only know on the L-set because I interviewed a guy who just- Who did it? Yeah, who did it. Okay, wow. By the way, you can take the L-SAT as much as you want. Now you got to pay every time, but that won't break you if you're going cash. The point is.

This is- Does it run an aggregate score?

No, it's just much like an ACT, SAT. The last time you took it.

Is there a super score like ACT?

I don't know that is, but there is a level, and I'd have to look it up, by which you score over and law school start going bananas with offers.

I love it. I love it. Well, there you go, boys and girls. You're going to school? That's it. What we've lied to people in America, we told them degrees matter and where you get them from matters. Neither one matters. What matters is knowledge. Not getting knowledge is really bad. Go get knowledge. But it doesn't necessarily have to have a degree, and it sure doesn't need to have a famous name beside it. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Colman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free Stage. Weston and Haley are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

We're great, Dave. How are you?

Better than we deserve. Better than we deserve. Where do you guys live?

We live in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

All right. How much debt have you paid off?

$89,920. Dangerously like 90K. Way to go. Way to go. How long did this take?

It took three years.

Good. And your range of income.

During that time? We started $113,000 a year, and we ended at $139,000.

Excellent. What do you guys do for a living?

I'm a registered nurse in cancer research. I'm a healthcare recruiter.

All right. Did you.

Recruit her? No. He tried just recently. Not professionally, but, Nina.

I was going.

To say. Only with a.

Diamond ring. If just in high school, I may have recruited her.

A little bit. Little kid. I love it. Where did it go? Very cool. What debt was the 90K?

I have the story for you, okay? Okay. It was my birthday weekend. We're at the lake with our financed boat, our financed camper, financed truck. We only owed 700 on the truck. But yeah, so we had boat, camper, student loan. I think our couch was financed. A couch, vet bills? I mean, we had everything.

The dogs and the dogs.

Yeah, pretty much everything.

What.

Happened? A friend of mine called. I'm a car. I love cars, and so a friend of mine called. At the time, we only owed $700 on our truck. He called me and he said, Hey, do you still want a Cadillac CTSV? I'm like, Well, of course, I still want a CTSV. He is like, Well- Who wouldn't? Right? Yeah. I was like, Well, I can't afford one. He's like, Oh, yeah, you can. It was a good deal, so I had to try to prompt her and I- On his birthday. On my birthday. It played in my face.

It was dirty. They stick his little lip out. It was, yes. It was my birthday, my love.

I did. I came and I was like, Look, deal of a century, all right? Let me just figure this out. What did I do? I refinanced the truck to pay for the CTSV. Of course. Then a month later, I got laid off. Yeah. Then we had all this stuff.

Going on. Yeah, we can make these payments. Wait, maybe not.

On my birthday, he got.

Laid off. I did, yeah. There's a lot of bad birthday.

Vibe here.

Right before Christmas, too.

You all need to stay away.

From birthdays. That was the, Okay, we need to calm down a.

Little bit. Then how did you find us?

I was actually looking after he got laid off, trying to figure out ways that we could save money. I had a list of all of our bills laid out, and I just thought, Oh, my God, if we didn't have all this debt, we could live on one income and we would be just fine. So then old Google, I start looking at paying off debt. Then Dave Ramsey comes across, and I love podcasts, so I picked up the podcast. Once he got employed and we got income coming in, we started all up in February and we were good to go after that.

Just.

Like that.

Just like that. Three years later, we're free.

Yeah. It's amazing.

Thank goodness. Got a paid-for CTS now.

No. That's funny. One thing I was going to tell people is that the coolest experiences, so the CTSV is paid off. Ever since then, we've had two new cars for her, but we've only come out of pocket $600 because you just trade straight across. We got a van instead of a CTSV now. We had another child. We had another baby during this whole process.

So you went from cool to minivan. You made the transition.

It's the the man van. The man life. The man life.

Van life, baby.

I might rev it once in a while at the stoplight, but that's all right.

Rachel Cruz bought a van because she's got a house full of kids, and she spent most of Thanksgiving that year trying to convince us she was cool.

Well, see, I used to hate vans. Then we actually had a loaner van, and I was like, Well, this is actually pretty cool.

They are. It's a very cool car. It's just funny to hear people try to convince you it's cool. It is. It is. It is great. Way to go, guys. I'm proud of you. Thank you.

Yeah, by the way, it's not cool, but it's functional. It's not.

Let's just.

Keep it real. Let's not do future buyers into.

Thinking it'll be cool. Hey, look, it has a screen. I know. It's a hit seat.

I avoided it. That's why I could say that. Here's what I want to know. You start listening to the podcast. This is cool because, Day's been doing this for a long time, and now we're hearing things like, Hey, we didn't pick up a book. We picked up the podcast. I'm curious, as you were listening to the show, whether it be other Debt Free Screamers or just calls, was there a moment where it really clicked for both of you to where it went, Okay, it's game on time?

Man, I think that we heard several Debt Free Screams that just really resonated with us. We were like, That's us. That's our family. Exactly. If they can do it, what's stopping us? We did both read the book, though, I will say after we started on the podcast.

Yeah.

Awesome. Well, that's okay. You got started with the podcast. The book gave you the details.

Yeah, there's some great.

Things there.

Total Money Makeover book, I take it. Yes, Total Money Makeover. But yeah, hearing those people just like us doing that debt-free scream, it was a light, bold moment that we can do it too. I still listen every episode. Especially when you get people in our age group that have paid for houses and stuff, I'm like, Why didn't I start earlier? But you're not taught that stuff when you're younger. You're just like, Go buy what you want and have a great time.

Now you've proven you can make this money thing behave and you'll be able to do anything you want to do now. Yeah, exactly. It's a whole different world. What do you all tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

I tell people to have a partner that holds you accountable.

No more car deal. No more car... No more birthdays. Yeah, yeah.

Really? For me, budget is the budget. I remember our first budget we did, we looked and we were spending $600 a month on eating out. You didn't know because you're like, Oh, seven bucks here, seven bucks there. Then $600 later, you're like, Huh. I'd say communication, too. There were some times during, especially through the student loans at the end, where things weren't going so good. We were really getting burnt out. We had a $7 over budget, just all-out argument when he knew there was no money in the budget. But he went ahead and spent seven dollars. I did. I did. And you would have thought that it was the end of all things. I did. I threw a man-child moment that you say. I was like, I'm tired of being on a budget. I'm going to spend this seven dollars. And then I came home with my toe between my leg. But it was communicating when we're struggling together and saying, Hey, I'm struggling in this, and let the other person help. And then there were times that the other one struggled, and we would have supported each other.

Amen. Amen. And through it, your whole relationship grow stronger. Absolutely. Your confidence in each other and in the future get stronger. For sure. It's called hope. We're going to be okay. Not only are we going to be okay, we're going to prosper. I mean, really very well done. Good for you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. We're so proud of you, heroes. Appreciate it. You took control of your life, man. You didn't wait on somebody else to do it. You went and did it. Excellent. Excellent. Hey, we've got the live and give box for you. It's got the Baby Steps Millionaire's book for you, total money makeover book for you to give to somebody else since you've already got one and have read it, and the Financial Peace University membership as well. I will give all that to you. Thank you for coming all the way over from Arkansas. You want to bring the kiddos in for the Debt Free Scream? What are their names and ages?

This is Jackson. He's six. This is Taylor, and she's about to be two in December.

All right. How does she doing? Her mother screams about stuff.

We don't.

Know yet. Get ready.

I.

Love it. She might not be happy.

All right, Weston and Haley, Jackson and Little Taylor from Little Rock, Arkansas, $90,000 paid off in three years, making 113 to 139. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah!

Didn't praise her. That's awesome. I love it. Very cool. Very cool. James, how many debt-free screams do we have on the YouTube channel now that people can access? It's got to be thousands, right?

Oh, yeah.

They're.

In all our.

Full episodes, so every day they can go watch. But don't we have a... You can just watch those or you have to go watch the episodes? We don't have a post. It's separately now. Oh, I thought they were separate. Okay, so there's thousands, literally. Okay. You just flip through and you find one. Because the social proof is there. What they were saying is so important, folks. There's someone like you, exactly like you that's done a debt-free scream. We've done too many thousands of them that it doesn't. That's what he means. When you see someone that... If those people did it, then that says to you, you can do it, right? And that tells you. That's why we continue to do the debt-free screams. Number one, number one. Number two, to honor heroes like these who have taken control of their lives. But you guys, there's a massive catalog of Ramsey on YouTube, be sure and check it out. Now we're up over 1.5 billion downloads with a B on YouTube alone. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates.

But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ramseysolutions. Com/agent. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Hey, guys, if you've been listening to the show and you're enjoying it, we could use your help. Literally. I mean, really, we need your help. It changes everything if you will subscribe on YouTube or follow or whatever the method is on whichever podcast platform you're on or just tell people about the radio station you're listening to, whatever it is. Let people know. A lot of people have a share button on some of the things, and you just click it and you send it to three friends and go, Hey, check this podcast out. Check this YouTube guy out. These people over here are making a difference. They're helping people. Leave a five-star review. That helps do the likes and that stuff.

That helps. Anything that helps the algorithm on those particular platforms push our show forward. We know a bunch of you are sharing and subscribing and following because we see your numbers, number one. But number two, we see our rankings going up in every one of these platforms. Thank you for helping us with that. It doesn't cost you a thing. We're not going to spend like $300 million on a football stadium to tell you we're here like, So that, or something like that. Excuse me, I got allergies. But yeah, you don't want to do that. We're not going to do that. We're not like that. But you guys are our biggest champions to help us move this thing forward. We need to create a crusade in America and have a renaissance in the art of living well, having the right career, the right mental health, the right ways of handling money. I mean, we the people can do better. We don't need someone else to tell us how, but we'll leave the charge if you'll help us. It's that simple. Cara is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Cara, how are you?

I'm doing well. How about yourself?

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

I currently have a job that works great for my family. It's a good income. I'm just not passionate about it. I've only been there about four months, and historically, I stay with my job a long time. I was just offered my dream job this morning, and I am nervous about discussing that transition with my current employer because I haven't been there very long. How do I go about that?

Well, first of all, congratulations on getting offered your dream job. Let's not just cruise past that. How did that come about?

Well, I have a history in cardio throughout surgical ICU nursing, and I'm now a nurse practitioner. I heard about the opening with the surgeon that I used to work with through a friend, and I reached out and they were really excited that I reached out.

What will you be making at the new job?

120.

What do you make now?

122. Okay.

But I'm guessing there's room for growth here with this new job? Yeah.

Every year, they're pretty consistent with making sure that they compensate you well.

Yeah. Okay, well, first of all, congratulations. My answer to this is always the same, and it's really simple. I want you to put yourself in your boss's position. I want you to, in your mind, you just role play that out. How would you want you to come say, Hey, listen, I've only been here four months, but I got a past relationship with this surgeon, an opportunity was there. I reached out. It's my dream gig. I'm sorry to put you in this lurch and do this at this point four months in, but this is an opportunity that I have to take. That's your reasoning. You don't have to explain that away, but how would you say that in a way that is humble, filled with gratitude, certainly sensitive to the fact that, Hey, you're leaving only four months in, but you don't owe them a certain amount of time. What you owe them is your best. I don't think you'd ever be able to give them your best if you turn this opportunity down. If you have that mindset, how would you want someone to handle it with you? That's the best way to go, because I know you're a person of character and a person of class.

Did they pay you anything or pay moving expenses or assigning bonus or anything when you took this current job?

No, it's a better schedule for my family.

Right now, it's a... No, the one you're in today... The one you're in.

Today, what.

We're seeing is, are there any.

Strings attached? The four-month-old job, do you have anything you owe them because they paid for you to move or they gave you a signing bonus and now you're going to take the signing bonus and run?

Nope.

Okay. All right. You just took a job, didn't cost them anything. I'm with Ken. I think you just be sensitive to how would you want to be treated if you were them? If I'm them, I'm disappointed. But this great lady is going to go. She got something that she likes better. She's going to go do it. There's not a lot I can do about it. I'm going to be classy about it and say, Well, certainly understand. Are we going to do a two-week notice or what are we going to do here? Just be honorable and kind and tell the truth and just be... I think you say out loud, I'm sorry. I did not take this job intending to do this. This fell in my lap, and it's something I've always wanted to do, and I'm going to take it. But I do feel bad about the way this worked out, and I'm sorry.

Yeah, I do. Okay, I just wanted to... Was there a more professional way to say that? But that sounds.

Compassionate and professional. Sometimes profession gets in the way of people's stuff. I love the way Dave said that. I think he gave you a great perspective from the leader's perspective. Just be a good person, and you are a good person. That's why you called. There's a sense of guilt. I get this call a lot on the Ken Coleman show, Dave, and people feel guilty because they're good people. But if you're not doing anything ethically wrong and you're not doing anything illegal, then guilt shouldn't enter.

The equation. Well, you understand- You do. -you understand as a human that has good relational skills that you've greatly inconvenienced someone and actually cost them money. That is correct. Because when we put somebody on at Ramsey, it costs us quite a bit of money to onboard somebody. Then they turn around 90 days later, they're gone. It's a net loss for us. That's correct. But I also don't want them to stay here if they have their dream job. Further down the line, though, I don't want to be as an employer, used. I'm going to take this job and then keep looking.

Correct.

And all over the place. If I can get 10 cents more, I'm going to jump. That is a lack in evidence. I agree with that. That is a lack in evidence.

I agree. Job hoppers are very different.

Than the- That's not hopping. That's just speculating. That's wrong ethically, but that's not what Cara is doing. No, no, no. Good job. Oakley is with us in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Oakley. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, thank you so much, Dave, for having me on. I appreciate you guys.

Sure. How can we help?

Hey, so I just wanted some insight and wisdom from you guys on how a young couple like my wife and I could best attack the debt that we have, become debt free with the situation that we're in, and ultimately pay off, again, everything.

That we have. How much debt do you have, not counting your house?

About a little under 50,000.

Okay, and what do you guys make?

Collectively, about 1.15, 120.

Okay. If you lived on 70 and made 120, that'd be 50, not counting taxes, you'd be out of debt in a year. Do you follow me? Yep. We got to count taxes, so you're not going to make it in a year. But that's the math. Yeah. That's the math. You got a good size shovel and a medium-sized hole. This is very doable. Now, what do we do? We get on a written budget on every dollar and go to everydollar. Com/budgeting, and sign up for one of our free webinars on how to use the budgeting app to get things under control. You and your wife sit down. You stop all investing. You take any money you've got that's not in retirement, and you throw it at this debt. We're going to list the debt's smallest to largest. We're going to attack them with a great intensity, a great vengeance, like paint yourself blue and wear a kilt. I mean, you're getting after it. You know what I'm saying? You knock it in the head. You knock it in the head. You knock it in the head. We're not going on vacation. We're not eating out. We're going to take our lifestyle down to scorched earth, and we're going to live on less than $70,000, so we can pay off 50 with a 120 income in around a year.

And you can do that. What's your smallest debt?

Actually, it would be my student loan.

It's about five grand. Okay, yeah. And so you're going to have that done in a little over a month. Boom, one done. And you just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. Keep hitting it. Keephitting it, keep hitting it, keep hitting it. That's the process. So jump on everydollar. Com/budgeting and sign up for Rachel Cruz, Jade Warshaw, or George Camel doing a webinar for free and get yourself into that every dollar app and get this thing going. You can do this. It's called The Death Snowball. List them smallest to largest and attack them in that order. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help the people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman. Ramsey personality is my co-host, Open phones at Triple Eight, 825-5225. Thanks for joining us. We're glad you're here. Sarah is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Sarah. How are you?

Good. How are you, Dave? And Ken, thanks so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

All right. My husband and I built a house about three years ago, and the equity, the value of it has really went up. We have about $625,000 in equity right now, and we're just really on the fence if we should sell and downsize and probably get a little bit older of a home and pay for cash and have no mortgage. We just can't seem to get there. We want to. We know it's the thing we should do.

Why should you do it? I'm not sure you should do it.

You don't think we should do it or you don't know? I don't know. I guess it's just that the no mortgage.

What's the house worth? -is that what we're looking at?

It's probably worth a million. Okay.

What's your household income?

About 200,000.

Okay, it's not out of line. How much is your mortgage? I know. What's your mortgage balance? What's your balance?

$373.

Okay. You got other investments that are not retirement?

I do. We could probably pay about 60% of it off with our non-retirement money.

Like 200,000 of the 300?

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Then you got a $200,000 income and you knock off $100,000 worth of mortgage.

Yeah.

I guess so. I think that's what you're going to do.

Okay.

Like you're going to be a debt-free house and everything in 24 months.

Okay. The thing is we put an offer on a property about a month ago, and we said if they take it, it's meant to be. They said no because we came in low. They just came back to us two days ago and said, Are we still interested? No.

Because you're only moving down here because you're having some emotional shame or we're afraid to do good. I mean, why are you afraid to have a nice house?

I don't know. I don't know because I live amongst people 25 years older than me, and I think I probably should go to a different neighborhood.

I don't know. You mean just because you don't feel like you've earned the right to be there? Yeah. You make $200,000 a year. You earn the right.

Okay.

All right. I don't hear anything you're doing wrong. If you don't like the house, I don't care if you move down, but it feels like you're moving because you feel like... I mean, there's almost like a shame in your language. Yeah, I.

Guess I just feel like we could get, I don't know, live life faster, I guess maybe. We're down to our third kid. He's a freshman in high school. We got three years to go. We've already gotten two out of the house, and it's.

Just still the problem. What do you want that house when you're an empty nester.

Yeah, I think it would be fine. Any house I live in, I'm fine with. We've lived eight houses.

In all of them are. It's not like it's some super… I mean, it's a nice house for a million dollars in Jacksonville, Florida, but it's not like it's a $20 million house. There's a lot of million-dollar houses in Jacksonville, Florida. They're all over the place.

You.

Started to give us something. What do you mean by live life a little faster?

I don't know. I think for so long we had kids young at age 20, and we've just been working hard our whole life. It just feels like if we could not have any debt, maybe we won't have to always be thinking about what we should be doing.

Right, that's it. Okay, so.

This is it. When you get out of debt, it doesn't give you a pass on thinking, right?

I know. I actually think the idea of you going hard at paying off this house is a little exhausting to you. It feels to me like you just want to downshift because you just want to slow your effort and pace and you just want to chill. It doesn't seem like you want the house that you would be moving to. It's like you want what you think that house is going to give your pace. Is that closer to what's going on?

100%.

Okay, so that's a little different animal. I'm not sure, again, that you need to sell this house to get that. That's what I.

Would push you on. I'd say 24 months you're going to have that in this house. I think so, too. Using your mutual funds and your income to knock the mortgage out. That's what I would do. Karen is in New York. Hi, Karen. Welcome to The Ramsey.

Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken. Hey, what's up? My question is I started late with listening to Dave Ramsey a year ago, and now I'm 66. I only have about $180,000 in my retirement, and I have two houses I'm still paying for, which will be paid off in the next five years. And my main objective with money at this point is to have something to leave for my kids. Will it be a better investment for me to invest in term life insurance so they get a tax-free payoff? Or will it be better for me to invest in the mutual funds? When I'm not sure how much compound interest I'll be able to accumulate in who knows how much longer I live.

Insurance is not an investment. It's an expense. You don't make a return on insurance. The insurance company makes a return on it. Yeah. I don't want to make a return... No, you don't buy term life insurance to create an estate. No, you don't buy life insurance of any kind to create an estate. That's not the purpose of life insurance, so don't do that. Take what money you have and let's get these houses paid off as soon as possible and let's build this nest egg some more. In seven years, your 200,000, your 180,000 will be 400,000 if you don't add anything to it. If you've got it in good mutual funds, it'll double every seven years.

Okay.

That's what I called you. At 73, you'd have 400,000 there if you don't add anything to it, and you're going to have the paid-for properties. The properties are worth what?

Four hundred thousand each.

Okay, so 800,000 plus 400,000, so a million two. How many kids have you got?

Four.

Okay, so they're going to get three or four hundred thousand bucks a piece if you lived to your mid-70s.

I know, really. Why do I want to do this? Why don't I want to spend money on myself? But I appreciate you guys so much. You've saved me because I always make ridiculous money decisions.

No, I think you've made some pretty good ones. You're doing pretty good. You're doing better than you feel like you're doing, I think. Yeah, I think you're going to be able to live an inheritance with the investments that you haven't used. I also do want you to enjoy some of those investments because you're under no moral obligation to live an inheritance. You're not a bad mom if you spend all this money and then die. You're not a bad mom at all. Matter of fact, you're like the party mom if you did that. The fun mom. Mom's going everywhere. Look at mom. Look at what mom did now. That's cool. Because you've worked your tail off your whole life and you've done a good job. You're not hungry. Well done. This is The Ramsey Show.

Guys, I've got exciting news for you. The Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway is back and you can win one of our $500 weekly prizes or.

The $5,000.

Grand prize. Enter daily at ramseysolutions. Com/giveaway to increase your odds. There's no purchase necessary, but sorry, kids, you got to be 18 or older to win, so get mom and dad to help you out. While you're there.

Check out our $12 sale to find the.

Perfect Christmas gift for everyone on your list. Head to ramseysolutions. Com/store to.

Check that out. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Fall means football and changing colors, but it doesn't mean the time for lawn care is over. Neighborly is your source for experts like Ground Skies and Lawn Pride. Download the Neighborly app today and find the trusted pros in your area. Great company, Naburley.

Today's question comes from Gabby in Washington. I'm a recent graduate with a bachelor's degree in Health and Human Services. I love serving my community, and I'm currently with a nonprofit. The problem is I make about $2,000 a month and have student loan debt of about 55,000. I have come to the realization that while I love working for nonprofits, it is not going to help me pay off this debt. I really do not want to go back to school, but I would love to move into a higher paying field. Should I apply to these higher paying jobs? Even if I only have about 40%-50% of the qualification, I would love any extra words of wisdom. Well, that's a tricky question because there's a lot of evidence on both sides of the aisle, one side being a lot of companies will put out all these qualifications, but if you're a good candidate that they feel that they can train you and that you've got the core of what they want, they'll hire you. Then there's the other school of thought that you'll never get through the online application system if you don't lie about the qualifications. My take on this is I like to meet in the middle.

I think if you've got the core qualifications, you've got the chutes put to go after it, and you can use the connections you have. I wrote a book called The Proximity Principle.

That's what.

You need. If I can make connections, I know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody, it could be three, four levels, it could be a direct connection to these organizations that have the higher paying jobs. I'm going to go about it that way, and I'm going to get around the AI application software, and I'm going to give it a shot. I have nothing to lose. I'm certainly going to do that, Gabby, before I think about going back to school. Again, if a degree is the only way or the best way to get requalified in this case, if you knew a different direction, then yes, but we want you to cash flow it. That's the only option that we tell people for school. Just going back to get a degree that I can't afford, get into debt to hope to get another job is not the best way to go about it. I would take that background, the education you have now in health and Human Services, it's a lot broader than you realize, then use the proximity principle and go about it that way. I think you can get there.

Yeah, I think you can get around the lack of qualifications if you get to humans. That's correct. You get your resume out of the stack and get it passed the AI screener into the hands of a human. A guy that I met with three years ago sent me an email this morning, his daughter's roommate. This is like my cousin's uncle's sister's aunt. I was keeping track.

Okay, daughter's roommate of your friend.

Of a guy I met with three years ago. Yeah, an acquaintance. I have not talked to him in three years.

Okay, I like this.

Even better. Okay. Sent me an email this morning and said, My daughter's roommate has applied at Ramsey.

Can.

You help me with her resume? I'm like, Absolutely not. I can forward it to HR to Armando Lopez, our director of HR, and I will promise you that they will look at it. But that's all I'd... Because I don't do hiring here. I haven't in 15 years. But you know what? Her resume from an uncle's, aunt's, cousin's brother, sister's roommate got into the hands of the director of HR, and he sees it. And he's going to look at it because it keeps- We get thousands of applications a month. That's correct. Thats he never sees. Right. When her application came in the first time, he never saw it. But now, does that mean she's going to get hired? No. No.

But you did help.

But I put it in front of someone that can decide now. So the no promises. That's correct. But she's 98% ahead of everybody else to at least get a look. No question. You get a look, and then it's up to you once you get the look. That's the proximity principle. That's exactly right. It's exactly what you teach and teach people to do. Did I look at her qualifications? No, I don't even know what she was applying for. But will they look at her qualifications? They will. Yeah, when they interview her for a certain position, they certainly will. Then will they look at her character? Will they look at all the things that we look at at Ramsey before we hire someone? It's very difficult to get to go to work here because we only hire thoroughbreds. We try to keep the donkeys out of the building. Can't win the Kentucky Derby with a donkey. That's right.

You can get hired at the CIA a little faster than you can here. Yeah.

We don't even do backgrounds. I don't like working with crazy, so we've got all these crazy screens to keep the crazy people out. I don't want to pay crazy people. That's crazy. We don't want to do that. Anyway, we've got all this stuff, and so she'll have to go through every bit of that. But you know what? She's way ahead of where she was 24 hours ago when she was in the stack with everybody else. Without question. That's the proximity principle. That's how you work around. I don't know if I have the qualifications. Do you have the personality? Do you have the character? Can you get the job done? Do you have the initiative? Are you hungry, humble, smart, as our friend Pat Lencioni says? Are you going to be an ideal team player? That's the title of his book. That's right. Then are you going to do these things? Then if you can convince the hiring manager of that, ding-ding, all of a sudden, the qualifications, unless you just simply are incompetent to do the job, don't matter as much... Yeah, that's where I go. Open phones at triple-8-8-25-5-2-25. Rashad is with us in Baltimore.

Hi, Rashad, how are you?

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking the call, Dave, and Ken. Thank you.

Sure. What's up?

Me and my wife are at a bit of a crossroads with each other, and I'm hoping for some wisdom from you guys.

With each other?

Yeah, with each other when it comes to our side hustle. So we're currently on baby.

Step number two.

Where we are attempting to pay off our debts so that we can eventually save up for our house and our emergency fund. Okay. But at this stage, we are hitting a wall with each other because she keeps talking about our side hustle. She keeps talking about doing something called Amazon, selling products on Amazon. And she keeps talking about buying a house so that we can eventually invest in real estate, which I know you've done.

So I'm just hoping for.

Some.

Guidance because.

I'm honestly at a loss, and I'm actually a little terrified about losing whatever little money that we actually do have right now.

Okay, Amazon drop shipping, you should not have to invest any money. Is she proposing you invest money into that venture?

No, it's basically like, how should I put it? What she does is she'll go out to department stores and look for deals on certain products.

That's not.

Drop shipping. No, it's just selling at.

A higher price. Yeah, that's not drop shipping. She's just flipping. That's all that. She's flipping product. So she's going to tie up an inventory. Correct. Yes. Yeah, I'll pass. Yeah.

For me, it's like I work full-time. I have a full-time job, which brings us money, and then I have a part-time job that brings us money, and I'd rather go to my part-time job that actually brings me money rather than just sit over there and figure out this stuff, figure out trying to find products. I feel like that's just a waste of time when I.

Can actually.

Devote that same amount of time to going to work and actually bringing in a fixed amount of money, a fixed income. I don't know how to talk to her about that. I don't know how to make her understand. I feel like that's a waste of time.

Oh, I think you've said that. You just didn't get through.

Right.

You told her that exact thing, didn't you?

Yes. I don't.

Have- I didn't go well, did it. -several arguments -Yeah, I don't know what.

To- -I don't know what to- -have several argument about it, no.

You got a messaging issue. I'll just quickly say this that the waste of time, we've already shot that bullet. We need to start talking about emotion that you have, the risk of tying up money. Come at it that way, a little bit more logical with some real emotion instead of calling what she thinks is cool a waste.

Yeah, it's all right. This terrifies me because I see us losing money instead of making money. That's different than you're stupid and this is a waste of time. So it scares me because I don't think it's going to work and I don't know how to talk to you about this because you don't seem to see any risk with it. But you could buy a bunch of stuff and it sits in our garage and that scares me. I don't want to do that because I'm trying to work so hard to get out of debt here. If we had some extra money and we wanted to try that, that'd be different. But right now we're broke. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, guys, we got to face some facts here. The holidays are right around the corner, and with the holidays comes more spending. Listen, folks, if you don't go into this season with the budget, you're going to end up swiping your way into a huge mess by the time January rolls around. Don't make that mistake. Our budgeting tool, Every dollar, will help you make a plan for your spending now. Don't wait. Create your free account at everydollar.

Com, or download the app from the App Store today. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on The Debt Free stage. Ty and Lottie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you?

Great. How are you? Good. How are.

You doing? Better than we deserve. Welcome. Good to have you guys. Where do you live?

Emerillow, Texas.

All right. Bit of a haul over to Nashville. Just a little bit. Yeah, good to have you guys. How much debt have you paid off?

$10,000. Goodness.

How long did.

This take? We started in 2013 and then just finished up here, I think it was in July or August.

So 10 years?

10.

Years. Yeah, wow. And your range of income during that decade?

It was anywhere from 65,000 to 114. We sold some houses and I sold a business in the midst of that too, so it had some variation there too. Got you, okay. But that was my W2 income.

Got you. What do you guys do for a living now?

I actually work for the Department of Energy. But before this, I've always traded commodities or traded some type of feed. I just didn't like that. Actually, I read Kim Coleman's book and decided to take a change in life.

Really? How's that.

Working out? Love it. Good. It's a great change. We're on the 13th day of our road trip to get here just to have a vacation in Bollywood and everything. Oh, come see you guys. I come see you all guys. Wow, there you go. Five-year planned of a trip right here. There we go.

Lottie, what do you do?

I'm a stay-home mom. Good. We have four kids going on five.

Oh, congratulations. Well done. All right, what debt was the 582,000?

We had it all. Some of it was just... I farmed and run cattle, so I had a lot of farm debt. I had a house, a $50,000 Duramax, man. Zero interest. They'll do it every day of the week for you. Wow. I had a Nissan car and we had our house. It was about 235,000 Tiffany's rings for this young lady. They financed that too, don't worry. I had about $20,000 with the student loan that she paid for because she saved money before we got married. So she came into a mess before. She decided to take me on. And then, yeah, I had some farm debts and stuff like that. I also took even a $5,000 trading class to learn how to trade commodities or trade futures or online, couldn't find out you can't trade unless you have money. So yeah...

It's a show, it's a table stakes. Yeah, I tried.

To tell her. Yeah, she tried to tell me. I'm going to claim that one's one of my stupid tax right there.

I don't have any money because I just spend it all on the class that tells me I need to have money.

Yeah, I was sitting there about halfway through it thinking, Man, Itry to die. This is dumb.

I think there's something on my shoe. I think I stepped in it. Yeah. Good for you, man. That's so cool. You went from playa to cleaning up the mess because everything you said there was like, I do everything, man.

Oh, yeah.

It was just like, boom. And now you're just like, boom.

Straight and narrow. Yeah, really what drove me onto this deal is when I first came out of college, I bought cattle for a major packet company. I spent a lot of time Western Kansas, and there was only AM radio over there. There was Dave Ramsey, I was focused on the family and Rush Limbaugh. That was my theology in life. Every day, I would just spend time right around looking at cattle and listen to you. Basically, that started in 2006 and.

Never stopped. Wow. Well, thank you. We appreciate you being out there. Yeah. Good stuff. Okay, so who decides 10 years ago we're actually going to do this stuff?

Well, we started off trying to cheat it a little bit because some people say I'm cheap. I like to say frugal. But when I saw the price of the envelopes, I was like, We don't need the envelopes. We'll just do it. After about a year of that and we were still fighting about money, we decided we need to take this seriously. If it's not broke, don't fix it. We went ahead and got the... We lived out in the country, so we just got the at-home study program and watched through.

That together. Financial at home, yeah.

Bought the envelopes, started doing the cash system, set up our budget. We had to do that budget meeting every month, sitting down together and getting that going. That was the hard part at first, but then once we got the ball rolling, we found other things to fight about, but we didn't find about money anymore. It made everything organized. We knew what to expect of each other and where we were at, and it just went from there. Like you say, it's just that boring consistency. You just do the same thing over and over, and then you see it make progress, and it gets really exciting.

Yeah.

There you go. For her, it just was a security thing. I mean, that was one thing that I noticed that really she just... That was the rough part for her. Even for me, growing up as a kid, my parents, they're good people, but we had some financial problems growing up. We had bankruptcy and man, I don't want that for my kids. I want them to know that what we've done as a sacrifice, as a couple.

Yeah, now you're free. Yeah.

When you talk about the grass feeling different, there's some.

Truth to that. Yeah, there is a lot.

Of truth to that. That's one of the, I mean, I don't know if we actually before we got our debt paid off, we passed a millionaire mark and it was just like, I don't know. I just- I still don't believe it. I kept looking at the spreadsheet because I was a spreadsheeter before you had the every dollar app, and kept looking. I'm like, That can't be possible. But just a lot of dedication and a lot of time, and that was probably the hardest.

Part for me. A decade in, you're 100% debt-free and baby steps millionaires.

Yeah, and we just... That was the consistency. There'd be some times where you're just like, Man, when does this end? But if you saw it on the paperwork, you knew it eventually was coming to an end.

I want you to talk about that. Stay right there because a lot of people that are in the middle of their journey, and we know they're watching and listening, and they're feeling it today. They're going, I don't know if I can finish. Yeah. What did you do or what would you tell them?

How did you.

Keep going? What did you tell them?

Well, honestly, I'll bring our faith into that one God was good to us. I'll admit when we were... We made the least amount of money, we made the most because we were the best with it at that time. You know, more money, more problems type scenario. That's probably where we were as a group, as me and her and even the Lord in our life, that's where we had to bunker down and just be tough and not go, Oh, forget about it. We're just going to go on vacation. We just didn't do that stuff. You just have to stay strong. You didn't wake out. Yeah, didn't wake out, yeah. I think we both got to the point where you realize you make a mess of your life, and that really God's the only one that can fix it. It's great to have a program and it has great principles in it, but if you don't have God at the center where you can take your mess to Him, then the principles only get you so far. God really was central to our story and got us through a lot of the hard things that we went through.

Amen. Amen. Well, when you're a person of faith and you're leaning into that and you realize the system I'm using has the principles from His word in the system, then that tells you also I'm going to be okay. I got reassurance from that when Sharon and I were walking that out. It's like, Okay, I get it that some of you people don't understand, but I don't care. This is what Dad says to do, and dad's really smart. My heavenly father.

Sometimes even what he says doesn't make sense, and.

You don't understand it. I just have to assume he's smarter than me.

Exactly. I'm going to go with it because I'm not doing so good on my own.

Yeah, he's smarter than me. I know that. I'm sure of that. Yeah. I've never made a world, so I'm pretty sure he's smarter than me.

That whole debtor slave to the lender. I took my first loan out was with the USDA when I was nine years old on some cattle. I wrote my life away at nine years old and I knew nothing else until me and her got married.

Yeah, and now the other day, your baby steps millionaires is not a debt in.

The world. Yeah, Amen on that one. I will tell you what not to do, because you talk about some people are the nerd and some are the fun spenders. Well, he's definitely more of the nerd, and so he's a spreadsheet guy like you said. But he would make his spreadsheet and he would bring it to bed and be all excited like, Look at this. Oh, boy. We got to have some.

Boundaries here. Yes. You're a romantic, aren't you? Don't bring the.

Spreadsheet to bed. Just show me. We'll talk about that over coffee in the morning.

I'm thinking I don't want to see the spreadsheet now. I could be wrong. Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Yeah, that's nerdy for you.

He's definitely the nerd. I love you guys. You're fun. Well done. Hey, we've got a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaire's book because that's you. Total Money Makeover book because that's you, and Financial Peace University because that's you. You can give those away. You can read them whatever you want to. They're our gift to you. Bring the kiddos up and let's have a debt-free scream. What are their names and ages?

We have Adeline, which is our oldest, and she's 10. We have August at seven. Then we have Piper, she's five. Then we have Dax, and he's fixing to be two in November. Then number five.

Will be.

Born in March.

Love it. 582,000 paid in 10 years, making 65 to 114. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

You guys ready?

Three, two, one.

We're.

Debt-free.

Yeah.

That's how they do it now, Marilla, boys and girls. I love it. Our scripture of the day, exodus28 and 9, Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Robert Frost said, By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day. Isn't that true? Oh, my gosh, that's the truth. Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality is my co-host today. We're glad you're with us America. Thanks for hanging out. Drew is in San Antonio. Hi, Drew. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, thank you for taking my call, Dave and Ken. I'm really excited to talk to you. My question is, I recently got laid off from a major technology company actually located in Austin at a semiconductor company. And I'm having a hard time with a career change. Do I still go with the tech sales where I Excel really well? Do I have a plan for jobs? Do I get a lot of responses back? And I need a clear pathway. So I'm really excited to talk to Ken about this, about what I can do with my career and to go get another certificate in cybersecurity. I know you were talking about code school one time, Dave. Just wanted to get your thoughts on.

That, please. Well, do you want to go into cybersecurity or coding of any type, or is this just more of a, Well, I feel like I need another option? What's the want to behind this?

It's the other option, sir.

If you could snap your fingers and do anything, what is it? Yeah.

If I could snap my fingers and do anything, I'd really want to run my own tech company. I have the experience for the last 15 years.

Your own tech company? What's the tech company do?

It's probably a financial technology app that would be able to help, not similar to every dollar, but just help people manage their money in a more efficient way.

You've been in tech sales the last 15 years? Yes, sir. Okay. In your mind, what's the best path forward to get to that place? Is there some experience you're still needing, or is it about or both?

Both.

Okay. I'd be charting my path in tech for the experience that I would need to leverage one day for my own company. That's what I would be thinking about. Is that-.

That's not cybersecurity.

Yeah.

Is that cyber? Cybersecurity is a complete sidebar to everything you're talking about. Right.

Yeah.

You just pick cyber security because there's really stinking good money in it. That's right.

Yes, sir.

You're right, Dave. Here's the deal. You need to be moving forward in the type of tech work that one day you're going to understand well enough to hire people who can do it and develop it. It's all about experience. Take you back to my journey, I wanted to get into broadcasting, so I had to actually start doing small broadcasting gigs. It's a different deal. You can get paid full-time for this. So you've got to get in that lane that is going to prepare you to run your own company one day. Quite frankly, you need the best financial opportunity because you're going to be stacking cash for years so that you can launch this company and do it the right way without any risk other than just the cash that you saved. So what direction is that? What is that tech direction?

It would have to for me, to be able to, as you guys say, be on a HueStream budget, code the app, and as you would say, Dave, why don't you just sign your card table in your house, making sure it's cash flow system, not going into debt or anything necessary.

Yeah, but what is the direction? Is it coding? Do you need to become a programmer and really good at it?

Yes, I would need to code.

Part of that. Then that's the direction. Now back to your initial question. You don't have to go to a four-year school to get this, to get the actual qualifications.

Matter of fact, it's the longest route.

It's the longest route. We actually work with Bethel Tech. They train internal folks for us. I endorse them. They have a $15,000 program for Ramsey Show and Ken Coleman Show listeners. Contact them, have them walk you through the program. It's a nine-month online program, so you shouldn't do any interruption of income. You need to get a job right now, so go get hired and get some stability then sign up cash flow through a program like a Bethel Tech, and then within nine months, you're qualified and ready to go. We have stories of people that are starting out making $80,000, have gone from making 45 to 80. So you can get on a nice track. We make it six figures in two years, and now you're on the path to funding your future. You don't need to go to four-year school here. We're giving you one option to kick the tires with, but that's what the path looks like for you. But right now, you need to get hired, and you just applying, applying, applying. It doesn't seem to be working. I'm going to give you my book, The Proximity Principle, dial in on your relationships, and let's get a good job that will take care of you now and then allow you to pay for this next level of certification.

Yeah, that's exactly the route to go. But in the meantime, it sounds to me like your current skill set is sales. Yes. You can make some really good money in and around the tech world in Austin, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, in sales around tech, all kinds of different sales and all kinds of different tech for that matter. That's a way to put food on the plate while you're executing on your small business launch idea and learning your code, all that stuff. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well done. Robert is in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Hi, Robert. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello.

Hi, what's up?

I'm not in any super dire predicament. I'm just trying to make a better life for my family in the future here. I've got some debt on my vehicles right now. I've got a debt on a four-year loan that I bought last year, and my house loan, it's really kicking me in the butt here.

How can we help?

My vehicle loans, I have total out to, including the four-year, about $12,000. I am the single income bringer into my family of my wife and my daughter.

What's your income?

I make 32 before taxes every month, 3,200.

Okay. What do you want to do?

I was curious. Do you think it would be smart to pay off my vehicle...

My vehicle. Do you have the money?

I have about $15,000 complete in savings between my wife and I. That would leave us about $3,000 to take care of our house payments, take care of our kid and so forth.

Well, you work. You take care of your house payment your kid with that. Yeah. You're not using savings to do that. You're using your income to do that, right?

It's digging in right now because my house payment just went up a hundred bucks and so did my insurance.

Yeah, but you got car payments and four-wheeler payments. Yeah. Robert, this will work if you use the money and pay this debt off, and then you get on a budget and you quit borrowing money for stupid stuff like four-wheelers.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking right now. It was a good.

Idea at the time to borrow. No, it was not a good idea at the time. You did not have the money. You're broke and you have a baby and you make $32,000. There's no four-wheeler in that. Matter of fact, you may need to sell it. But aside from that, yeah. Here's the thing. If you'll get on a budget and you and your wife say, We're going to get out of debt, not just to get out of debt, so that we take our income and build up a nice emergency fund back to $15,000, so that we can start investing, so that I can advance my career and make more money, so that we can build an emergency or we can build a college fund for our kids, so that we can pay off the house so that we can become very wealthy, outrageously generous, and change our whole family tree, if that is what you do after you pay off all this debt, then fine. If you pay off all this debt and then just keep doing life the way you've been doing it, well, that probably wasn't very good advice on my part. But I want you to play all the way through, my man.

This just starts the journey. It's not the end of the journey. The reason we get out of debt is so that you change your family tree. You start figuring out how I can make more money. You start figuring out how we can save and invest more money, how we can be more generous. You start figuring out how investments work and you change their whole way of looking at this world. If that journey begins with paying off the debt, let's do it. Ken, call me a good show today. Thank you, sir. That puts this hour, The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Ken.

If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramseysolutions. Com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. Again, that's ramseysolutions. Com and click Get Started.