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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. Ken Coleman, number one best selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose and host of the Ken Coleman show. He talks about your professional growth, including where you work, how you work and all about career stuff. He's going to be here to help me today answer your questions. The phone number is 888-825-5225 you jump in and we'll talk. Joy starts rapid City, South Dakota, off. Hi, Joy, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you.

Good. How can I help?

My husband and I are 69 and 70 years old. We retired two and three years ago, but we still work what we call retirement jobs. We just don't have a very big net worth at all and we don't mind keep working our retirement jobs. But I guess I'm wondering, what more can we do? I'll tell you. We have a traditional IRA, we have two Roth IRAs, and we have an annuity.

How much is in all of that?

If you totaled it up, about 140. And that's all?

$140,000?

Yes. We do not own a home. We, we did our stupid a few years, ten years ago and. Yeah, so we do not have a home. And I don't know, I guess I'm just really wanting to see these figures move up.

Okay. And obviously you've got Social Security coming in.

We do live on Social Security.

How much is that a month? That's how much.

Oh, okay. I bring in 1333 and my husband brings in only about 300 in Social Security because he has a foreign pension and because of 1600.

And how much is his foreign pension?

Let me see. He brings in, I have it right here to 3300 a month, depending on the dollar, you know, ratio.

Of course, what the conversion rate is. Okay.

Correct.

So you got $5,000 a month to live on. What does it take you to live?

We live on probably, yeah, 4500, maybe just 4000 sometimes.

Well, you got that much coming in. You got 5000 coming in.

Yes.

And then you're working on top of that.

Yes.

Okay. So I mean, the good news is, is you have a sustainable situation. You're not going to be hungry or the lights aren't going to get cut off, right?

That is correct.

You're probably not going to spend, you're probably not going to spend summers in the Mediterranean, though.

No.

Okay.

We are very carefully saved. If we have to take a family trip or something like that. We save so you don't have a lot of margin.

But it's good news is you're not hungry. When you started this out, I was afraid you were hungry. Okay, good. So, no. So what is it you're trying to accomplish that you're not accomplishing now? Let me understand.

I just know that 140,000 in retirement agreed is not enough. Agreed for agreed one person, let alone two.

Agreed. I'd love for you to have a million, 40,000, but, you know, so how.

Our ages, we're not going to get.

I got that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I'd love for you to. But the reality is this is where we are. And so the work that you guys are doing is just. Just adding to your $5,000 a month income and gives you a little bit of lifestyle bump and the ability to do a few odds and ends without cashing in the nest egg to keep going. Correct?

That's right. That's right.

I don't. What is the 140 invested in? It's in a bunch of different things. It's Roth and traditional and annuity. And then how much of it's annuity?

6000.

806,000 is all. Oh, good. Okay. All right, so most of this 68,060, 8000. Oh, crap. Okay, so, all right, here's what. The only thing I can tell you is that we might get to, you might reorganize and shuffle the deck on the 140,000 and get it invested in some good mutual funds and get it working a little bit harder. Okay, but let's say. Let's say it's earning 10%, or let's say it could earn 10%, that's 14,000. And right now it's only earning five. That's 7000 a year. So we're only talking about $500 a month difference, even if you get it working a lot harder. So it's not going to be like, it's not going to be a massive change in your life if we get the 140 invested perfectly, as opposed to the way it is, because the 68,000 in the annuity probably sucks. It's probably doing poorly. I don't know exactly what you got, but most likely that's a bad product. Some stupid insurance person sold you that instead of a real investment person. So the cause they can't sell real investments, so they act like they're investment people, although they're actually insurance people and they're not licensed and qualified.

To sell investments. So they sell annuities under the heading of their life insurance license because they're not licensed to sell investments. For those of you out there now, I mean, it's not just me calling them stupid, although that does completely apply to that situation. So. All right, so here's what I want you to do. Go to ramseysolutions.com and click on our smartvestor pro and sit down with them. And, Ken, that's going to help, because at least then you'll know what you've got is just working as hard as it can.

Yeah. And, you know, we sit in this situation, practically speaking, joy, this is about stacking cash. You're just going to have to stack cash. The investment opportunity.

Maybe their retirement jobs could be better. Maybe they can make more money at their retirement jobs.

I think so here's where I go. My mind goes to, you know, are there Walmart's?

Yeah. That's what I call a retirement job. Instead, I would like to see him be self employed and go make like $50,000. Because I got to tell you, man, if I was broke, I'm entrepreneurial enough. I would just start something. Even if I'm 60.

I was thinking that, although I would say low risk, let's. Let's do some low capital.

We're not buying. We're not. We're not putting out to open a business. Yeah, but I mean, let's get. Let's get some kind of something.

He's got a trade skill, right? So if he has a trade skill at 70, my father in law, give you a real example, is 74, very healthy, though. But he is a former custom home builder, and he's retired, and he is working more than he could possibly want to work. But he's making such good money doing small renovations, fixing a kitchen here, doing a bathroom here in Williamson county, where we've got. Where we've got plenty of money and people have got time and they can spend it. And so if I had a trade skill at that age, I would absolutely be doing that instead of working for a Walmart, because to your point, you're gonna go premium rate for your time.

Maximize what you can make, and stack cash. And don't just say, well, retirement job means awful.

I agree.

Yeah. Minimum wage or if you have a.

Skill at this point, listen, in the.

Economy or start something.

That's what I mean by starting something off of a skill. So in my father in law's case, he started his own home renovation business, and he's not. He's not doing full rebuilds, but he's doing a lot of.

He's not swinging a hammer.

He's, he's got a crew.

He's subbing it. Yeah, yeah. He's being, still being a GC. And that's, that's exactly right. Exactly. That's the way you do it. So there's a lot of stuff. So, Joy, let's two things. One is what can we do to get your income up better, quote retirement jobs, unquote, and get with the smart vista pro and let's see how, if they can help you get that 140 working a lot harder. Those two things together and you guys stay on a tight budget and I think you're going to be okay. But I don't think going to be anything here that adds a million dollars to this issue. This is the Ramsey show. If current times have shown us anything, it's that the least expected events can and will happen and we have to deal with it. That's why everyone who has a family counting on them needs term life insurance. For over 25 years, the only insurance company I've recommended is Zander Insurance. Not only because they search all of the top term life plans to find you the best rates, but over the years they have constantly changed and updated their systems to make the whole process simpler and easier.

To get the protection needed, you can now apply with a completely touchless experience. With everything being done either over the phone or the Internet. They also have plans with super competitive rates that dont require an exam, allowing you to skip a step and get the coverage you need faster. Go to xander.com or call 803 564282. Great rates and a simple process mean there's no excuse to not get this done, people. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 so those of you that are not as old as Ken and me, uh oh, you're not old like us. You're youngsters and you're out there watching us on the youtubes and all that kind of stuff, right? Um, I want you to go back and listen to that last call. So if you're 27 instead of 67, here's what I can tell you. If you save a month from age 25 to age 65 in a series of decent growth stock mutual funds that perform as the market has performed for the past hundred plus years, if they have normal historic values from age 25 to age 65, $100 a month is 1,176,000 in your retirement.

And that way you're not in the same situation that sweet lady was in.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And so you're not having to worry about your in air quotes retirement job. And so I have another friend, Ken, who's way on the other end of the spectrum, and his father in law is their age, or a little bit older than them. He's approaching 80. And he was a, he became, he's probably legitimately a billionaire. Wow. And starting from nothing, he was a poor kid. He grew up poor, and his goal was to give it all away before he died to ministries around the world. And my friend is married into that family and sits on the family, sits on the board with the rest of the family as they're giving this money away. The old man is still alive and he has just about succeeded giving it all away. Wow.

I need to get in touch with him pretty quick.

How do you get on this list?

I just came up with an idea.

It's a non profit ministry kid.

I know. I got a ministry idea right now.

It's not your car, it's not the next car you wanted. That's beautiful. Things are all ends of the spectrum here.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

$100 a month is a million dollars, living on Social Security and a retirement job or trying your best before you got to give away a billion. Yeah.

That's amazing.

These are three ends of the spectrum. I mean, middle and two ends of the spectrum. So these are the things, if you're a youngster out there, you could be thinking about that.

I'm saying there's a lady out on the front row of the lobby that just is trying to, she's trying to wrap her brain around giving away a billion dollars. Man, that's a lot of money.

Thousand. Million. That means you could take a thousand different ministries and give them a million dollars.

That's amazing.

And they then they've done more than that because it's continued to grow through the years. Oh, I'm sure it's not just been one time. It wasn't a one time thing. They've been systematically for 30 years giving it away.

You know, that puts a real shine on. Give like no one else. Yeah, like you've been saying for a long time, that's pretty wild.

And this guy was not a trust fund. I mean, he started from nothing at all. Started from nothing.

Yeah.

Andrew is in Minneapolis. Hi Andrew, welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave, thanks for taking my call.

Better, good. How can we help? Almost answered it wrong.

It's all good. It happens.

It's like automatic of 30 years, 2 billion times.

You've got that experience. It's all good.

Yeah.

So my question is basically, if you were trying to start over. I had a small business of mine, wasn't technically legitimate, but I tried when I was about 19, and it fell through. And then a whole lot of life came apart for a few years. And I'm getting myself back together. I'm in a corporate job now as a mechanic, and I wanted to open my own restoration shop. And originally it was actually supposed to be a nonprofit as well. So my question to you is kind.

Of how much it actually was. That's why it closed. Well, yeah.

You're not wrong. So, yeah, my question to you is, what might restarting that look like? Or how would you do it debt free starting at 28 years old?

So fixing cars just for everyday people.

Ideally, no, I can, but anymore, that's getting into just changing parts.

So describe what you want to do.

You want to do frame up restrooms on cool cars, frame up restorations or.

Customs where I'm actually changing things and turning them into something better than what.

They were turning them into rods.

How much equipment would you need if you were going to start today? Do you have the equipment, or could you rent it as a part of the job? Could you rent the rest of it?

Right.

Potentially. So the biggest obstacle that I don't have is a space to do it in.

All right.

Could you. If I said that you had to find space in the next week to be able to do a restoration for Dave, could you find the space? If I made you answer it right now, you don't know.

Basically, no.

I bet you could find a space. Don't. Don't you think? If you really.

Garage?

Yeah, I.

Well, I have a small garage, but I've had a lot of obstacles come up with that. My realtor or my landlord's not letting me upgrade any electrical.

I think you're missing. You're missing the point. You're coming up with all the reasons why space.

Say again, how much do you make?

I'm around 70, but I have a lot of debt on a. From a lot of. Just student debt, nothing else that I've been working on for a while now.

Okay. And do you have anybody that might be your first customer in mind?

I've tried one or two once. I actually give them a proper cost. Uh, they tend to step away. I haven't found the right people yet.

So the answer is no. Yeah. Okay. All right. We don't go rent a garage when we're renting a house and start this. But I think you've. How much debt do you have?

I've cut it all the way from 100 grand down to about 30 in the course of three or four years.

Way to go. All right. I think if you finish that up and you talk about renting a garage for four or $500 a month somewhere, because location does not matter other than they can't steal your tools every night. Yeah, but if you can lock it up, that's all that matters. Right? And so, look, you know, so cheap, and. And, you know, simultaneously while I'm trying to find that and I want to rent it. An old gas station or something like that, that they don't even make those anymore, but any kind of a thing that had a bay in it. But before I actually start writing checks for that, I actually want some customers, doesn't it, Ken? Yeah.

You got to get us started. And if I'm you, okay, this is how we answer these questions. If I'm you, I'm now starting to stick my nose back in the industry. Local guys that are doing cars. Here's what I know. I know for a fact. In just about every city in America where you want to get a car restored, there's a long line, and you got to get on. You got to get on the list. And the reason that is, is because there's just not enough hands to do the work, which tells me that there are several shops around you, Andrew, that if we looked hard enough, if you and I got in the car today and drove around, I think I could get you a freelance job before the day was over. And so I'd start there. I'd start freelancing. Just kind of, hey, you need me for 1015 hours a week?

I got a day job as a side.

On the side.

I got a day job nights and weekends.

Nights and weekends. And that's going to help you pay this debt off. So we got two things. We got two birds with 1 st here extra money to pay down the 30 grand quick. I really believe you could do that within a year if you really got hustling.

All right.

And then the second thing is, I'm back in the industry or still, and I. And I got meeting people. I'm getting paid to get reconnected in the industry, and that's when I start finding out about more people. Well, I can't take this job. But we wouldn't ever take this job because it's too small. But for you, a $10,000 job is great, and you'll jump on that and you do it on the side. So I would build the business up on the side. Rent the equipment. Do not pay cash for any equipment. Rent anything you need as a part of the job.

The big stuff.

That's right, the big stuff. And I think I would just slowly start to stack cash. And then here's what I tell everybody. How do we go from day job to that side job being the dream job in your case, if you're making 70 grand, I want to have 70 grand in the bank. Ideally, I'd want twelve months. You could go as low as six months of that, which is 35, before I ever walked away from the day job. And that's just me playing it safe, because this is why, Dave, I'd hate for somebody to have this massive pressure to feed themselves right away. I want some cushion there so that you can really focus on doing the job and growing the business.

This is the Ramsey show.

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Well, I don't know when you happen to be listening to this, but we're going to do something we don't usually do, and that's tell you the date. The date of this particular broadcast that you are hearing is April the 15. It's the day that my net worth goes down because my government steals my money. You need to pay your fair share. Well, you should then. And shut up. 49% of Americans don't pay pay zero federal income tax so don't talk to me about fair share. Okay? I got your fair share.

It's not very fair.

Not fair at all. I can't breathe anyway. So I do a lot of whining and crying and cussing and beat on people who it's not their fault. Just for the fun of it this time of year. Just because I'm generally in a bad mood when I sign these returns.

Did you see your good buddy Mark Cuban went public with his tax amount? I know you're not on the Twitter much anymore. No, it's not good for blood pressure.

How much did Mark pay?

288. $288 million. And he was putting it out there.

That's how much he paid in taxes? Yeah.

Then he revised it this morning and said showed the note from his accountant. It was actually 278. And he was espousing the importance of paying your taxes as though we have an option. But it was a little political move, but nonetheless that's not the point. He put it out there.

That's what his taxi is saying. He liked that.

He said, I'm happy to pay my shares.

You know what? He could just send him some more.

That's what. Pay mine if you want.

If you want to send them some more, you can. Since your dad gum happy, Mark.

Yeah.

Communist. There you go. Oh my God.

I wanted your hot take on it. And boy, did you deliver.

Thank you, Dave. I love you, Mark. I love you, Mark. But that was stupid. I got some friends that do stupid stuff.

We've all done it. No one's immune. Yeah, really excited to tell us all how much he paid.

Well, okay, James, so you found somebody else who's crying, right? Alright, so this is going around the Internet.

Where's all your money gone, daddy? Tax 910 eleven playing monopoly. It's okay. It's part of the game. It's not fun to. What? It's the worst part of the game. It's what dad.

I think the kids.

On couldn't agree more. I got a little over Klempt in the middle of that.

I'm thinking Monopoly's got. I got a tear in my eye watching monopoly too. It's just like.

Oh, man.

Well, just to remind you guys, if you're getting a tax refund, it is not time to celebrate. Because a tax refund simply means you paid in too much and they gave you your money back without any interest. That would not be something to celebrate. It's an interest free savings account with a freaking federal government. So you didn't do something right. If you got a tax refund you did something wrong because you had too much taken out of your check and then they sent it back to you. Santa Claus is not in charge of the IR's. He did not send the money. I know him. He doesn't go anywhere near Washington, DC. Those people are all on the naughty list. So that's how this works, boys and girls. You don't get a refund unless you pay in too much. Let that sink in a second. All right. So now, if you haven't done your taxes, you got to get them done right now, of course, because they're due by midnight. So there's two ways to do it at Ramsey. We've got Ramsey smart tax software, which is very inexpensive. If you have a simple return, don't go to something like Turbotax or those guys, because really all they're doing is actually trying to sell you debt.

They put you on the credit card list. They put you on their home equity loan list. They start hammering your butt to put you in debt, and the add on fees will get you. So Ramsey tax, smart tax is just very simple, very inexpensive way, boom, you file it. Like if you got a 1040, easy, you can do it in a few minutes with this. And it's very, very accurate, very well done, very well built out. And if you've got a complicated return, go to ramsaysolutions.com tax and you can see our tax endorsed local providers and you can get a pro to do your return for you that we have done the due diligence on. And God knows it's complicated. So you gotta have, somebody knows what they're doing. If you have a complicated return, so you can get an ELP and you know you're going to pay a professional to do that. And if you don't have a complicated return, just use the Ramsey smart tech software. It's, both of them are real easy to do. Those people that are members of Ramsey, trusted or, I'm sorry, of Ramsey. Plus, they're a financial peace university and all that stuff.

They get Ramsey smart, tax free. And so for a quick, easy return. So that's just one of the benefits of being in that thing. Henry's in Fort Lauderdale. Hi, Henry. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi.

How you doing, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So my question is, I did something very stupid last year. I went ahead and got a Tesla at 13%. My payments are $903 a month. And I just, my wife and I didn't listen to my wife and I did whatever I wanted to do. So now I'm stuck in this math, man.

That's like four dumb things. Tesla 13%, $900, didn't listen to my wife. That's four dumb things.

Yeah. So my question is, we were thinking about getting a personal loan to pay the negative equity because I owe 43,000 on the car, but it's only worth about 19 to 20.

When did you buy it?

Last year around March.

I wasn't aware they were depreciating that bad. I make fun of them all the time, but that's a lot. Did you roll negative equity into the deal?

About 5000.

Okay, where are you getting your number on what it's worth now? That sounds very low.

KKB, KBB.

Yeah. Private sale or trade in?

Trading. And it's, it's because I use my car for work, so I'm putting a lot of miles every single day.

How many miles did you put on it in a year, honey?

About 30,000.

Okay, it's up.

It's at 65,000 right now.

If a trade in is the lowest.

Value you can get, you know, I'm in private sale, but still it's not going like five or 6000 higher probably. So you can get 25, 26 for a private sale and you owe 48, 43,043. Yeah.

And we have some money saved up.

How much?

About 15,015. Yes.

Okay, well, I'll cover it, won't it?

Well, I'm down. What is it? 25,000 negative.

That's if you try. No, you're 23. Not, not, I'm not going with the 19. I'm going with like a 26 private sale and you owe 43. That's not, that's, that's more than 15 is 18. So. Yeah, but you still got scratch. What's your household income?

80,000.

Okay. Yeah, I would use the majority of the savings and I would sell it private sale and I wouldn't panic. Sell it for, I mean you can find somebody loves those things and you know, get as, get it. Get a private sale number for it, not a trade in number. And then, then you may have to take out a small personal loan, four or $5,000 it sounds like. And then you got to figure out, you got also got to figure out how to get a hoop d that you can drive as your penalty. What were you driving before this?

I was driving a Toyota hatchback. I should have, my wife told me to stay with it. I didn't listen.

How old was it worth?

It was about $25,000.

Where did that go?

I traded it in for the Tesla.

Were you, did you owe money on it?

And I rolled 5000. Negative equity.

Okay. That's right. You did say negative equity. Okay. All right.

Yes.

Okay. All right. So have you had enough fun with these cars that you can't afford? I mean, something cheap, dude, and get your butt straightened out and then save up and become wealthy and then get you a nice car. These things are wearing you out. 5000 here, 1015 thousand here. It's starting. Turn on to some money that you're losing.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah.

I'm gonna give you two words. You should practice over the next, I think year and say it a lot, especially in light of this. Yes, dear. Or you could substitute sweetheart, if that works better.

Yes, dear, I agree.

Yeah.

It's all I got for you.

Oh, I got three. Don't save the planet or whatever for whatever that is. Yeah. Oh, gosh. 13% on a battery. Killing me. I wish George was here, wish Rachel was here to make fun of.

Cut this clip up.

They're both Tesla drivers, so we just love making fun of them for the. Just because it's fun. Oh, man, I'm so sorry you got yourself into this. But yeah, you figured it out. There's four things you don't do. $900 car payments, 13% Tesla's. And listen to your wife. These are three, four things you don't do. This is the Ramsey ship, guys. It's no secret that the real estate market is weird right now. So go with a mortgage company you can trust to have your back. Churchill mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted because they're stable, reliable and focused on you. At a time when a lot of companies are being bought out or going out of business, count on Churchill mortgage to stick around. They've been doing things the right way for over 30 years and they'll keep doing them the right way. For 30, 30 more. Get started@churchillmortgage.com. Dot this is a paid advertisement in MLS.

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Ken Coleman. Ramsey personality is my co host. Triple 8825-5225 you know, we had a lot of fun at that last caller's experience expense. He was being kind to us, let us do that. But we also answered his question in the process. I think it's probably good. Take a second and just talk about for our audience. We were joking about listening to your wife, but talk about the principle that's involved here. So when I went broke 35 years ago and lost everything we had owned. I was buying and selling real estate, doing flip this house before chip and joanna were born. And so. And I've owned pieces of real estate that to this day. We are driving around Nashville, and I'll tell Sharon, I'll say, you know, we own that house. She's like, never knew it. I was doing deals, and my wife had. I wasn't hiding it from her. I just didn't ask. I was just running my business, doing deals, and she's with babies at home, and we just didn't talk about just doing it. And she didn't ask about the structure of the business. And I was doing whatever I wanted to do because I was a genius, not.

And after we went broke, I was a baby Christian, just met God. And I started finding out that the Bible had principles of how to handle money. And they all, almost every one of them, they're not really mystical. They're all basically common sense things like borrower, slave to the lender, so stay out of debt. That don't build a tower without first cutting the cost. So do a budget. Live on less than you make because a foolish man devours all he has. So there's scripture that says, live on less than you make. Stay out of debt, save money. And the one of them I found is pro. Is, well, I can't call anyway. Who can find. It's proverb. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth far above rubies? The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. And I went, wow. Okay. There's a couple elements I like here. One is no lack of gain. I like that plan, and I can safely trust my wife. And. And she is virtuous. Now, part of being virtuous is you don't take that particular Bible scripture and decide you're the holy spirit wives.

And so, you know, you're not the Holy spirit. And so virtuous is. I might be wrong. Virtuous is. I've got an idea. I've got an opinion. In my wife's case, she's from the hills of East Tennessee. She gets a feeling. And so it's a seven syllable word, and it's a failing. And if she gets a feeling about something, and I go against that, it costs me a minimum of ten grand every time I do it, because her failing is never off. It's just. It's spooky. Now, she has a degree in child development, home ec, but she has insight into multimillion dollar business deals based on this failing. Yeah. And so. Proverbs 31. And so, you know, and those of us have been married. I've been married 43 years. So those of us have been married a while. We know that. And is she perfect?

No, she's not perfect.

And sometimes she's just straight up wrong, but she's virtuous about it. I mean, she very seldom is a butt about it. And so I learned from that to never again make major financial decisions without having not just her permission, but her alignment and agreement that there was no bad failing about it. And so, consequently, now, you know, we're. I mean, our net worth has returned hundreds of times over since then. All those years later, I mean, these buildings we're sitting in are worth five or $600 million, and they're paid for. So, I mean, you can blame that on her, right? The point is, there's a high correlation between people who work together in their marriages and have a respect for each other's talents, insights, and abilities and make major decisions together, not in spite of each other. LArRY BurkeTT used to say, you know, most people that are getting married are different. One's a spender, one's a saver, one's a nerd, one's a free spirit. Right? And so opposites attract. And if one of you know. And you know otherwise, one of you is not necessary. If you marry somebody just like you, one of you is not necessary.

So, you know, you need to be. It's good that you have different insurance. Sharon's wired completely different. Stacy's wired completely different from y'all. And I've watched y'all use the same principle. It's a financial principle. It's a marriage principle. It's a spiritual principle. No lack of gain to be on the same page on major problem, major deals with your money.

Yeah, well, and this is also beyond just the spouse part. The spouse represents someone who is giving you counsel. The Bible is clear many times on the wisdom of counsel. In other words, getting multiple pieces of feedback. But I want to just back up Sharon's feeling for a second. Okay, so, scientists, not too long ago, studied Dave grandmaster chess players. They put heart monitors on the world's greatest chess players, and here's what they found.

Yep.

Every time that one of those grandmaster chess players made an incorrect move that ended up costing them deeply in the match, the heart rate spiked. And all that means this here was the direct takeaway that the feeling, the gut feeling he's talking about that Sharon has is not some spooky East Tennessee talent. What it is is that it's actually the brain sending a signal to the body. This is a bad decision. And so I say all that to say if you've got a bad gut feeling. What they determined from that study was, had those chess players listened to their body, they would have said something logical. Up here is saying, don't do this. And they overrided it, and they over thought their way through it.

Trust.

The feeling is the point.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that slows you down. You don't impulse.

That's it.

And, you know, there's. You should have peace. That's right. Before you. There ought to be a sense of peace in the air before you make a major move. That's right. Not a sense of angst. That's right. And if there's. If there's angst, it could be because it's a bad move or it could because you haven't studied it hard enough.

That's correct.

And you get. You don't understand. So, for instance, if you're doing an investment you've never done before, doesn't mean the investments is bad. If your heart rate's spiking, it means you don't know enough about it to do it yet. You need to get comfortable with your knowledge base to be able to buy that same thing with buying the next house. Right.

And here I want you to comment on this.

How many times have we all done something? We go, I knew better.

That's exactly right.

You look back in the rearview mirror, you know, you're like, hindsight. Hindsight's 2020, baby.

But here's what I want you to weigh in on, Dave. Let's say that your spouse doesn't feel good about it, but you've actually done your homework. And you know that it's actually not a silly decision, but they still don't feel that way. It's still important to hear them and then do a better job of casting vision or walking them through their fear. So there's a flip side to this, too. That it's relational, too.

Well, I mean, sometimes it's. I gotta unpack and go, okay, here's the way this works. And she goes, it doesn't feel right. Well, that, okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's that thing. Right. It could mean she doesn't understand it. That's right. You're right. I can. Or same thing back. Back at me. I mean, she says, I think we ought to do this because. And I go, okay, well, I need to hear the because right now, I don't want to do it.

Right.

Right. And so I need to hear really good, because you're going to have to bring it. And so. But there's a. What happens is you end up with a long marriage. That is good. The date back set up high quality marriage. Your health is improved and your wealth is improved. That's what getting aligned. And so when we say stuff like, okay, you ought to be in one checking account. Couples ought to combine their finances and not act like roommates. And then all you people go bananas because you were raised in a feminist world where everybody has to be independent. Listen, if you want to be independent, don't get married. It's a great point because it'll screw up that whole independence thing. I'm just saying, I don't even know.

What that is anymore.

It's like, I mean, you need to learn to work 26. If you can't play well with others, it's like, wow. So I need to be independent. Good. Just head your butt over there and do it somewhere else. Right.

If you want to be independent, the data says you will be not as healthy and not as wealthy. That's going to freak some TikTokers out. But go research it on the Google.

It's good to mess with TikTok. Gotta keep Tic tac on its toes. So, yeah, that. But there's data and tons of research and spiritual counsel and wisdom from thousands of years behind this concept. And so we can all joke around and go, well, you should listen to your wife. But that's almost like, you know, he should be henpecked and do whatever the woman says. Cause he's scared of his wife. That's not what we're saying. No, we're saying a healthy relationship respects the other person's input. We work our way through the differences, and until we do, we don't make the move. And you wouldn't have bought a Tesla at 13% interest, rolling negative equity into it, and ending up with a $900 car payment making $80,000, because there's no amount of logical analysis that's going to make that smart. This is the Ramsey show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality number one, best selling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, host of the Ken Coleman show. He's my co host today.

The phone number here is triple 8825-5225 Elizabeth is in El Paso, Texas. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you?

Hello. Good how's everybody doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

Good. Good. My question is just wondering if I should go back to work. I'm currently stay at home mom and just to try to help with the financial burden with our household right now.

Hmm. What's your husband? Mike?

He makes about 73, 70% of that being commissioned, so it does fluctuate.

What's he do?

He works at T Mobile. He's a sales rep.

Okay. How many kiddos you got?

Two girls. Two and four.

Okay. And would you. What would you be doing if you went back to work?

I came from the corporate world, working at wireless. Before I left, I made about 110k. It is very demanding on your time. So I was thinking about doing something like a teaching job at a christian school that would allow me. Me to also have my daughters attend that christian school and kind of like have my kids and eat it, too, I guess.

Well, that's where I was going to go, is how much is your childcare situation going to be? If you run the numbers on what that would take. And I'm assuming that they have a preschool program where they could go free or heavily discounted. Is that the truth?

Yeah. The child care isn't too expensive for two kids. It could run about eight to 900 a month.

And that's at that school or.

No, that's just like a little kind of daycare. But at the school it would be. It would be discounted anywhere from 50% to 60% off. And that would be about 500 a child.

How much would you.

Hold on.

Yeah, that's not.

You said 900 before. Now you said 500 a child after the discount.

No, no, it's 500 with no discount. But at a daycare, it would be 800 for both? Yes.

Okay, so the daycare is cheaper than the school. After the discount.

After the discount, the school will be cheaper.

Oh, 500 total, not per kid.

Right?

Okay.

I was in the same boat.

I got lost. Okay. Anyway, so 500 or 900, but how much, you know, how much would you make teaching?

You know, that's going to vary from $40 to $60,000. I don't have teaching.

So you say $400 on daycare, but you are making $50,000 less than if.

I were to go back to something in my career.

Yeah. So if you're gonna go back to work, go back to work. I mean, 50,000. I wouldn't trade $400 worth of daycare for 50 grand.

Right.

What do you guys check? What do you need more income for? Give us the big picture. Why are you feeling this picture is.

We moved to El Paso. We bought a house. Obviously we bid off a little bit more than we can chew. My husband's car broke down. He ended up getting a car. So we had additional $400 payment. I have a $300 payment. And then on top of that, our escrow was short 400 a month from now we're short.

So how much is your house payment?

It was 2200 and it went up to 2500.

Okay.

We have 32k in savings.

How much do you owe on your cars?

A total of month to both cars?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You did buy out, bite off more than you can chew on the house. So unless your income is going to go up, you need to sell your house.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Either your income goes up or you need to sell it because you. It's why you can't breathe. You're quickly identified it. I mean, you can sell both cars, sell the house and get you a couple of hoopties and a cheaper rent, and you'd have a great life.

Mm hmm.

There's nothing wrong with that either, by the way. That's what you choose to do. But basically to keep that house in those cars, you're gonna put your kids in daycare. That's your choice. And either one is a fine choice. It's just you need to make the choice out loud. You'll need to say, that's what we did because you should be making. You should be making $10,000 a month take home pay to take that house payment. Right. And you're not even close to that. Yeah. You're in deep. So I'm okay with the other possibility, of course, as your husband realigns his career and gets his income up fifty k, I don't really care where it comes from, but your income is going to need to go up pretty dramatically or you're going to need to sell the house. And you're already feeling that. That's not me saying that. The math is saying that.

Why'd you chuckle when Dave threw out that as an option? Is that just such an emotional, out of left field selling the house that you can't even process it?

Yep.

That's what I thought. How long you been in that house?

It's been about six months.

Yeah. See, the last time your life was good was before you bought the house. Pretty much, yeah. And if you trace your steps back to the last time your life was good, then it tells you where you went, where you turned left and you turned left. So, yeah, so I know plenty of people, including Dave and Sharon Ramsey, who took on a lower lifestyle because it mattered to us that she was at home with the kids and it's what she wanted to do, but it means a different car and a different house in order to do that until the income comes up to justify otherwise. And so we stayed in a super conservative situation after our bankruptcy, losing everything until my income came up, then we could afford to do that because she could have gone back to work right after the bankruptcy and it would have made sense, actually. But it was a choice that we made and we said, okay, the trade off is a better house and better cars. Now, eventually we'll get them anyway because my income will come up and his income will come up, but now I want to trade that for time at home with the babies.

She said, I don't want to leave. I don't want let's do anything where I don't have to leave home. Now, if she had said, I, you know, like, if she had said, like, rachel Cruz, I want to be in the marketplace. Rachel's in, you know, in Phoenix doing a book signing. So Rachel's out there, professional lady, speaking, writing, doing the show, and has, you know, has folks help with her children as a result. And so she chose that, though. And so you need to choose this because this is choosing you is the problem. The stress chose you the last time because y'all just thought there was no implication. I just buy whatever house I want, like you're in Congress or something. You spend whatever you want. And so you got to go back now to. So tonight y'all need to sit down and talk about it, Elizabeth, and say, all right, do we keep the house or do I go back to work? Or what can we do to get your income to 120 from 70? And that probably means you're not working. T mobile store probably means you're doing something else. So which of these three things are we going to do?

Because sitting where we are is not going to work mathematically. The math is screaming at you, not Dave and Ken. The math. This is the real Ramsey show. It's financial literacy month nationally, and this month we're celebrating teachers. The teachers of America do such a good job. They work hard. We all know a teacher that made a big difference in our lives and probably more than one. It's weird that 40, 50 years later, I can remember them like it was yesterday. The good ones, the ones that really poured into the kids, you know, you can, everybody can name their teacher or six or seven of them. I can name that or made a huge difference. And here at Ramsey, we want to say thank you for all you do. With our teacher appreciation giveaway sponsored by Ramsey Education, one teacher will win $5,000 vacation, plus two additional teachers are going to win a $3,000 vacation to wherever they choose, completely free. No purchases necessary. For more info, send teachers and teachers, go to ramsaysolutions.com teacher and enter today for your chance to win one of those vacations if you're a teacher. Up next is James in Richmond, Virginia.

Hi, James. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, Dave. How you guys doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Me and my wife. Okay. Jocelyn, my wife, we're 40. I'm 45. She's 42. We been stuck, I guess. And we're trying to figure out what's going on. I've been a business owner for 18 years. Not very good one, apparently. Poor dad. I was in retail. She just retired medically from the Navy two and a half years ago. Before she retired and I was in business, we were doing okay. We bought a house, decent interest rate on it back when it was a few years ago with a VA loan and something we could afford. It's 1960 a month and we were making $85 to $10,000 a month with my restoration company, water damage and her and her navy. Then she got discharged and they dropped her pay down to like 2000 a month. And then work dries up and we've been stuck now for a year and a half. And it seems like every time we start to build, we were on step three for a while and then all of a sudden something big happens and crashes us. And now we're seven, eight months pregnant and due next month. Can't figure out what we got to do.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

On the baby? Yes.

Not on the rest of the stupid.

Yeah. Yeah. So what was the nature of her medical discharge?

She had a lot of things. She got almost 90% when they finished with her with migraines, stress fractures, different tendinitis and some other things. They. They got her all on that.

How's she doing with the baby then?

She's doing great with the baby. It was unexpected. That was completely unexpected and but a happy surprise to us last August, October. I'm sorry when we found out, but yes, baby's doing great. We don't know what it is yet. We're not going to find out.

So your crisis, it sounds like more than anything is income in our crisis.

And we don't know what we want to do. I've applied for jobs recently. I never haven't done that in 15 years. But we're applying for jobs. Yes. And we're, I'm trying to get, you know, we're down to the point now where we can't even afford to buy our lead service to get more jobs to come in for where we're at. And we're in $30,000 in credit card debt over the last two years trying to just make ends meet. We're trying to get rid of them. We had them snowballed, and she had almost 20,000 of them paid off and then just got to where food was and we couldn't even eat.

Yeah.

We need to get some income fast. Real quick. Give me a couple snapshots here. What's your combined income right now?

Well, we. I think. I think I might have made 40,000 total with us last year. And she made her 2000 a month, 24,000. So we might have made 66,000. We got an 18 year college next year.

Let's reverse engineer this. What's, do you have a good grasp of your budget to know what's a number combined or you? That would, that would give us a lot of room or at least a decent amount of margin to start attacking this debt. What's that number? Is it 80,000? Is it 90?

What is it?

No. Okay. We have a house that, which I guess that's debt, too. So we owe 360 on it. We bought it three years ago at 383. 360 on it. It's worth 425. Now we've got two vehicles that we pay for. One is a truck that we bought from my restoration company that we're not even affording.

All right, let me, let me jump in here. Let me, let me try to fast forward this. What is the number one skill you have?

Water damage restoration, mold remediation.

Great.

Okay. And, and with that skill, you've got some other handy skills. My guess is as well, correct. Not just the knowledge of that function, but you've got some other skills around being handy. I'm wondering.

Yes. I can't take a lot of that in Virginia because of licensing, registration regulations and all that kind of stuff. They'll have to be very particular. What I do take as side jobs.

Okay, tell me what you could do today. I know Virginia well, what could you do if I hooked you up with a couple of builders and stuff like that? What could you do without the licensing stuff?

Just real work.

Water, mold, fire, smoke, crime scene cleanup, disaster recovery.

Okay, what else?

Tearing down, built, tearing down buildings I looked at a pressure washing job a few days ago for a large private school, and, you know, it's a $17,000 bid. We'll see if they go with it. So we're.

Hold on. Can you swing a hammer? Can you do basic carpentry?

Yes.

Okay.

Let me just tell you this right now. I want to give you a snapshot. We have a shortage of carpenters in this country. A shortage of carpenters. It's all over the news. You could look it up. If you think I'm just making this up, I'm not. And let me tell you something. You need to be out working. Working. So, the rolled mold remediation. I got a friend of mine who owns a company in that space, the water remediation space. They're making money hand over fist. You know what he tells me?

Should be.

But I keep running out of money.

Listen, you don't need to buy.

You need to go work for somebody.

You need to buy leads. You don't need to buy leads.

Stop buying leads.

Good God.

I. Listen, I think right now you need to figure out how to run the business later. I think you need to go work for somebody who's crushing it. You need a good hourly rate. If you're making $25 to $30 an hour, that would be a raise for you. A big raise. Am I right?

I just went to an interview last week with BMS Cat for the director of operations position. That was 100 something.

Hello.

Good job. Keep doing that. But my point is, let's not wait.

I'm putting applications and I'm putting them in every day.

I know, but James, James, if you and I were hanging out in Richmond, Virginia right now, and I used to live there, I know where I'm talking about. And I know where I would get in a truck with you and say, james, come on, we're going to go and I'm going to be your agent, and we're going to walk on job sites and we're going to introduce ourselves. This is a serious, serious, serious situation that you are in. You got a baby on the way. You're upside down. You got the waters right under your nose. You need to go out and work. And we're talking 25, $30 an hour. Anything I can get. I'm going to go work for somebody in media, in remediation, who needs an extra set of hands. I'm not going to work for myself because I haven't figured out how to do that part well yet. I'm not knocking you, but I just want you to get some. Some air back.

I think you can go make 100, 120 doing something in these areas.

I do, too.

Running a crew for somebody that's crushing it right now, and there are people out there crushing it. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. You're spending a lot of your time beating james up, and you need to let old james up. He's not that bad a guy.

That's right.

You need to let him up. You've been beating the crap out of him on this call the whole time. Because you're getting ready to be a dad, and it's scary, and you feel normal. People feel inept. I remember when we lost everything. I felt like I was an idiot because I had done some idiotic things. And I discovered there's a difference between doing some idiotic things and being an idiot. And so, you know, so you need to give my friend james a break. He's a good guy. He's getting ready to be a dad. He's thrilled. He's happy. He knows how to do a lot of things, and with a smile and a work ethic, and I'll show up on time or early, leave late, not early. You hire me, you're gonna get the best guy on the planet. Because I'm a guy with a brand new baby, and I need to feed them. And I'm gonna take care of you because you're taking care of me. Man, I gotta tell you, in the world we live in today, that's a big plus. You're very marketable. So we're gonna send you both of Ken's books, the proximity principle, and paycheck to purpose.

And I want you to go to kencoleman.com right now and for free, start looking at all the different forms and processes Ken has on there about getting a position. And it's all about face to face contact. It's not about filling out applications on the Internet. That's useless. It's a complete waste of time. Nobody looks at that crap. You know, you get eyeball to eyeball with the dude making the decision. He'll hire you if you'll start liking you a little bit better. This. I like you. You ought to. This is the Ramsey show. Ken Coleman. Ramsey personality, is my co host today in the lobby of Ramsey solutions on the debt free stage. Mason and Chelsea are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Good.

How are you?

Better than we deserve. Where you from?

We are from about an hour south of Montgomery, Alabama.

Oh, okay. La, lower Alabama. That's right. I like it good for you. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you guys paid off?

We paid off 160,000 in about 36 months.

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

We started out at about 110, and then we ended around 140.

Excellent. What do you guys do for a living?

I'm a math teacher, and I'm a manager over a water authority.

Okay. Did y'all sell some stuff? That's a lot in 36 months.

I sold my jeep and my wakeboat during this time, so we sold some things.

What did those two things bring?

It wasn't too much. Probably about 15 between. Between both of them. And we had a little money saved up from before that.

How much towards it? Probably about 30 or 40. Probably?

Yeah.

Okay. So of the 160, almost 60 of it went out the door that way?

Yes, sir.

Then you knock off 100. About 35,000 a year. For three years?

Yes, sir.

Very good. That works good for y'all. Y'all been careful. You got fired up, didn't you?

Yes.

So what kind of debt was the 160?

It was our house.

You paid off your house? You got rid of the jeep and the wakeboard boat to pay off the house? How old are you two weirdos?

I just turned 28, and I just turned 29.

And you have paid for house?

Yes.

Y'all are whacked. I love it. What's this house worth?

Probably around 3330, something like that.

I love it. And you're not even 30 years old. Paid for house. How you doing on the nest egg? How's your savings going? Weird.

We're getting there.

We're slowly but surely, but we're putting towards it.

Yes. Good for you. Well done, guys. Thank you. Congratulations. How long y'all been married?

We have been married. Next month will be seven years.

Okay. So about halfway through the marriage. Ding, ding, ding. Something happened, and you plug into this Ramsey stuff. Tell us the story. How did you find us and what happened?

Well, when I turned 18, I was working in the oil field offshore, and it's the first time I was making money. And he was going out the door as fast as coming in. And I just did a Google search, and I found you guys. We've been plugged in ever since. And about three years ago, we, you know, we built our house, and then we just followed the principles, and then we just wanted to pay it down as soon as we could. We got. We had two little boys in the three years, too, so we had some, you know, some reasons to do it.

Wow. Very cool. Good for y'all. Well, done. So two babies paid for house and everything was paid for before that. You just got rid of some of it because you wanted the house paid off more than you wanted the stuff.

Yes, sir, that's right.

Okay. And the savings too. So extra savings. Way to go, y'all, way to go. Yeah.

I've got to ask because there's an emotional connection to these baby steps. I mean, once you get to a place, you've heard Dave say you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Sometimes it's different emotion, but I gotta know what was the range of emotions you went through when you sold a jeep and a wake boat all for the purposes of paying the mortgage off?

Well, I tell you, we saw, we, Chelsea set a hard goal of the end of last year to be done with it. And I wanted, I said it'd be the end of this year. And she said, well, we can get it done the end of last year.

Year.

And we sold some things and we did some hard things to get it done. But when we set the hard goals and we got it done, you know.

Yeah. So was it worth it?

Yeah, absolutely was.

Absolutely.

How's it feel to be completely free?

Awesome.

Free.

Amazing.

Wow.

I like that you just dropped it and said, no, we're doing it at the end of the. He wanted twelve month extension. And you said, no, sir.

Yes and wow. Yep. It was, it was tough. And he, he had to dial me back in a couple times.

Well, it's. That's how it works. It's a little bit of give and take.

I love that.

And stay on page together. That's the thing.

Yes, sir.

Well done, you two. Very well done. Y'all are heroes. And those little boys, they have no idea how great their parents are.

Appreciate it.

Look at that. They're beautiful. They're set. We're looking at the picture on YouTube. I mean, wow. Wow. They're set up. Their whole lives are different.

They are.

When you ever know anybody that by 30 had a paid for house that was worth $350,000? I didn't when I was your age.

I don't.

Yeah, I don't.

Very strange. It is weird. It is a good kind of weird. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

My thing is to don't let yourself see the money in the checking account to begin with. Go ahead and put that money in savings. Go ahead and be paying stuff off. Because if you're anything like me, when you see it in the checking account, you want to spend it. But if it's not there, then you don't have to worry about it.

It's got to have a plan.

Yes, exactly.

What about you, Mason? Anything to add to that?

I'd say just, you know, set hard deadlines when you want to get things done, your goals, you know, it's very important to me just to do that and then just keep on, you know, just keep on your plan. Start one, and then just stay with it. And it's just, you know, that was the main thing for us.

Yeah.

From the very beginning, we started a budget. We lived off of his paychecks at the very beginning, and mainly because I was still in college, and then whenever I got a job, it just made sense to just keep living off of his paycheck instead of spending mine, too. So from the beginning, my checks were going either in savings or then once we got our house, was going straight towards our house payment, so it just made sense to stick to that. And even though we got raises, we still lived as if we didn't.

So who were your biggest cheerleaders?

Probably our parents. They were behind us the whole time. We had some friends that were behind us, but we did it.

So your parents, you grew up in a house that had common sense, getting that way, they were at least cheering you on. That's right.

Yes, sir.

And that's what we talked about before. You know, if they had known what we knew, then they would have followed these steps to, like, they knew. If they had known then, you know.

Yeah.

So they were definitely behind us, cheering us on.

Yeah. Very good. Good for y'all. Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

Very, very cool. Thank you for coming all the way to Nashville to share that story. It inspires people. So, Ken, this is what I'm always talking about. I'm constantly. I was on Trip Fox business the other day, and they said, so what about this Gen Z generation? And I'm like, I love them. Yeah, I think they're awesome. What do you mean? A bunch of deadbeats? No, they're not. I mean, there's some of them are, but then I meet these, like, this here all the time, and these. There's good ones. There's hope for this country. People like that right there. These are heroes, man. They take control of their life. They looked in the mirror and said, you're the problem, and you're gonna fix it. And, man, they stepped on it. I'm so proud of y'all. Way to go, guys.

Thank you.

Way to go. Very, very well done. We've got a couple of one year. Subscriptions to every dollar for you, one for you guys. You can give one away to one of your buddies and get them started on the everydollar budgeting app as well. So, good stuff. Mason and Chelsea from Montgomery, Alabama, are just south of there. 160,000 paid off house and everything in 36 months, minus a wakeboard boat, making 110 to 140. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt free. Love it. Yeah, baby. Whoo. This is how it's done, boys and girls. This is how it's done, man. Any. I'm telling you, if you're out there riding right this second, you're driving in your car and you're listening to this, that couple drove up here so you could hear that story, no question. And that means that you. I'm talking to you right now. You're supposed to be doing this. You're supposed to decide to get control of your freaking life instead of living. Thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. And start putting this stuff down. Get the every dollar uploaded. Start laying out a plan, a budget, because nobody plans to be broke. They only plan to not be broke. So lay you out a dad gum plan, baby, and get with it. You can do this stuff. Anybody can do it. Ken, we've seen people from every walk of life, every region and state in the country. That's right. Every race, creed, color, national origin. This stuff knows no boundaries. The only color that we're worried about here is green. So get with it. Get with it. We're here to help you.

We're here to walk with you and show you, inspire you, inform you. So you go do this stuff, and you can stand on this debt free stage and scream, I'm debt free.

Yeah, it's absolutely right. And one of the things I just took away from this, too, is you get the sense that they are impacting the generation ahead of them with their parents, that this is going to potentially change. They're young, so that means their parents are still young. And I love this. This begins to influence so many people around you. When you live this way and you live like no one else and you give like no one else, it becomes highly attractive. And so think of this as not just financial freedom for you, but maybe your family, extended family. And I'm really blown away by that. It means you guys have done it well.

Yeah.

Classy in how you did it.

Very well done. Very well done. Even now, you answered the question.

Yeah, that's right.

This is the Ramsey show. Do you listen to the Ramsey show for motivation? You want to know what's even more motivating? Attending a Ramsey event, the ultimate motivational experience that's fully focused on helping you eliminate money stress. Join us for the total money makeover weekend on May 10 and 11th in Nashville. And leave money stress at the door for good podcast listeners. Use the code 50 off to save $50 on standard level tickets. Get yours@ramsaysolutions.com events well, it's book launch week here at Ramsey Solutions. Rachel Cruz's new book for children. I'm glad for where I am. The second in the series comes out tomorrow on April 16. Those of you that have pre ordered, it'll ship, and she's going to be around doing signings in several of your markets. We'll be letting you know about those this week in Phoenix and Dallas and Los Angeles and Atlanta and so on. So we'll let you know where she is and make sure that we get you out there for that. Also, Ken Coleman's new book, the Get Clear Assessment. Find the work you're wired to do. We've been selling Ken's assessment that our team built with Ken here on the website for a while.

Almost 100,000 of you have taken that assessment, and we decided that it would be a good idea to do a book explaining exactly how to interpret the assessment. Right, Ken?

That's exactly right. So the assessment answers the question, who am I? We're talking about as a professional, meaning what are you good at and what do you love to do? And then the book comes along almost as a coach. And we wrote this short, takes you about 45 minutes to read, but it only is effective if you've taken the assessment. The good news is, Dave, you get an assessment with the hardback when you pre order it, and then you're going to get an ebook with another assessment code and the audiobook with another assessment code, all of your pre orders. So essentially three books, three codes, which means just the gift that keeps on giving. And again, as a professional, if you want to make more money, more money is all about your ability to grow as a person. And I like to say it this way, it'll help you get better so that you can get a bigger paycheck. Right? The bigger the paycheck is always about how much better you are improving yourself. We know this. And so that assessment in the book is going to answer the big questions, who am I? What do I want to do?

Where can I do it? And the book comes along and helps you get there. And that's a game changer. As you know, 96% of millionaires loved their work. And, oh, by the way, they were good at it, too.

Yeah. It's hard to be good at something you hate, number one.

Except for golf. For me, yeah.

Just depends on which hole. But the. But the thing is this, you don't have to necessarily change your whole career.

That's correct.

It could be you're just doing it in the wrong place in the wrong way. It could be just some personal growth and landing in a different location. It could be a complete change of direction.

Could be.

Either one's fine. But sometimes people mistake and say, oh, well, what I need to do is just quit my job and go to school. That's right. No, no. You need to find out where you are and figure out if school is required to get where you want to go. Yeah.

You know what the superpower is, Dave, for all successful men and women? Self awareness. And we're talking about awareness and what they do really well, what lights them up. And they find a way to get in that spot. And when they do, it's when greatness happens.

Megan is in Chicago. Hello? Megan, are you there?

Hi there.

Hi.

Hi, Ken.

How can we help?

Yeah, I've been Davish now for a while, and I'm wondering, how do I pay off $79,000 in debt?

It sounds like, you know.

Stop being David.

Well, I mean, you're. What you're saying is you're doing some of the things we teach. Sorta.

I am. I. So, I'm a single mom of two kids, and I've off and on over the last several years, worked on my finances, and I feel like every time I'm making progress, something happens or there's something that I do wrong.

Can you give us one example? Give us a recent example of you were going along great, something happened, and then you didn't make a great decision.

Probably a year ago, I had a washer and dryer breakdown, and I used a credit card to buy a new washer and dryer, and then at the same time, needed to replace the flooring because it had rotted where it leaked. So rather than, you know, find some salvage washer and dryer or hand me downs, I bought new with a credit card.

And then being davish, what would we say? A washer dryer going out? What would we call that in our world? An emergency.

Right.

Yeah, because we got to wash clothes.

Although they both went out the same day.

Well, the dryer had been on the fritz for a while. And the washer leaked all over the floor for several weeks because I didn't have the funds. Exactly. I didn't have the funds to do anything about it. As a single mom of two.

You know that thing right behind the washer where it has a faucet handle?

Yeah.

Yeah. That cuts the water off if it's leaking.

Yeah.

For several weeks.

Yeah.

You don't have to have funds to go lefty righty to be smart.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm just. Okay, so not picking on you. I'm just saying that what you're. What happens is, is that we get in these situations and you get. You get scared and you get. You add drama to it. I do this and you've done it. I heard it. You add drama to something and turn it into something a lot bigger than it is. My point being, you could have just turned the water off the first time you saw a leak and then said, okay, I'm gonna go the coin laundry for a little while until I can save up some money. And then you wouldn't have a rotten floor and the driver is already on the fritz. So that was, that wasn't new information. So we took all of these things and we added them together and a catastrophe was created in your head. And that. That's what we all do. But, so, but, but it's a. What it is, is anytime there are problems, the more we avoid them, that they get worse, they don't get better. And the washer and dryers are almost a metaphor for that. So how long have you. Were you divorced or widowed or never married or what?

Never married. I have two children, two separate fathers. I do receive child support on one.

How old are the kiddos?

They are 13 and eight.

And what do you make a year?

I bring home. I mean, a monthly. I bring home 2500.

Okay. All right. What do you do?

I work from home and insurance.

Sales or customer service.

Authorizations.

Yeah. So you're 40?

37.

37. Okay. All right.

I have a mortgage and a car payment.

How much is your car payment?

It is 440 a month.

Okay. All right. So what I think I'm hearing, and if I'm wrong, you just tell me. Okay. But I think I'm hearing, a lady, that for a little over a decade, life has happened to you. You've not happened to life.

Yes.

Like you're. You're not crying and you're not whining victim, but you've also not been on the attack, you've been on the defensive, correct? Yeah. And so let's flip that script a little bit and start saying, okay, your job sucks. You don't make any money. And so we got to work on that. And we got to get Megan where she's proactive rather than reactive on everything, including money, including her kids, including her job, including everything else, because you fell backwards into this job. You aren't out hunting going, gosh, I hope I can do phone work for an insurance company from home. I sure hope I can do that. For $30,000 a year and starved a freaking death, I hope I can do that. That wasn't what you're doing. You just took something because you were hungry. Am I right?

Yeah. I work in healthcare, so it was the best fit during COVID to work from home. So it just works out that way.

Right.

But here's the point I'm going to give you.

No, it really wasn't. No, it really wasn't because you're hungry, you're broke. So that's not a best fit. It's what you chose to do. Yeah. Okay. Are you a nurse? Actually, are you a nurse?

No. No. When I. When I took this job, I increased my income because I was working as a medical scribe in a cancer center.

Okay. Then. Then that was a better fit. It's a better fit than what you had. But the job before really sucked then, because you're not making any money, girl. Yeah.

So what's going on is, is that you have to do two things. You got to decide you're going to find a way around debt when something breaks next time because you'd find a way to feed those kiddos if that's all that you had to do. And then, secondly, hang on the line. I do want to give you the get clear career assessment and the new book, find the work you're wired to do. Because you're worth double. You're worth double.

You need to be making twice what.

You'Re making right now, and that'll solve a lot.

I didn't say you suck. I said your job does. That's why. Cause I don't think. Cause I don't think you do. I think you're awesome. You're a warrior princess. Now it's time to go to fight instead of being beat on. This is the Ramsey show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose and host of the Ken Coleman show. He's my co host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 Mina is with us in Washington, DC. Hi, Mina. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave. How are you doing today?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Good. Yeah. So I recently got married, and we have a baby coming on the way. And my husband. I personally don't have any debt. I don't have any student loan debt, but my husband has some from undergrad and his master's, and he's wanting to be a theology professor. And so currently he's pursuing his PhD with a, you know, fully funded, with a stipend and everything. But we have. We have about 86,000 or $87,000 in his student loan debt. And, I mean, thankfully, I have been, like, set up pretty well. And so I'm kind of in a position where I could wipe it all away for him. But I didn't know, like, if there should be a different strategy, because we have a baby coming in a month.

Like, what do you mean, set up? Really? Well, what have you got and where did you get it?

So I worked for my dad, basically since I graduated from school, and so he helped me a lot with my savings and investments and everything. So I have money in, like, Marcus Goldman Sachs account and money in, like, invested. So right now I have about 60,000 saved. I mean, that's actually after we combined bank accounts. So, like, that is me and my husband's combined savings. And then we have about another 50 50 in my investments, including. And I include that in my Roth Ira. So I've built up some of my Roth.

Okay, how much is in your Roth?

17,000.

Okay. That's not accessible. So you have third. So you have 23, 33 left. Other than that. Right.

They did say it was accessible. I think it can. I think it can be.

You know, we're not messing. We're not messing with the Roth. Okay, so we got 23 and 60. So you got 83,000 and you owe 86,033. I'm sorry. You have 99, so you have enough to pay it off and have $5,000 plus your Roth. I don't want you doing that until a baby comes.

Don't do that until the baby comes.

Right? Because I want mom and I want mom and baby to have the comfort of a big old pile of money when baby comes and baby's okay, and mom comes home and we figure out what we're doing with life then. And we're living on a budget where we live on less than we have coming in and we've got a game plan then. Yes, I do want to pay off his student loans.

Okay. But, yeah, I guess it's. What scares me is that the interest is accruing.

I mean, obviously it's not accruing that much while a baby comes. It's just a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, it's. Right now it's accrued about. About 2200 as of today. Like 2200 in interest, which. Yeah, obviously it moves it up to 87,000. About.

Yeah, you're going to get a little bit of interest, but in return you're going to have a bunch of money. Okay. If you want to throw. If you want to throw 30 or 40 at it, that's fine, but I don't. I want you to have a really fat nest egg until baby comes and then you can talk about coming down to $5,000 and clearing it out. But the last thing I want you to do is have zero debt and zero money and have a baby come and there's a bit of a hiccup and, you know, it throws things sideways by $10,000 and now you got to worry about a bill and a baby and we don't need to be worried about that. So.

Yeah. And you would suggest then putting 40,000, like, at most, like, yeah, that'd be fine.

40 or 50 towards it out of the. You got about 90 and so if you throw 40 or 50 towards it, you'll be fine. And that. That least lowers the interest that's occurring. You're still sitting on 40 or 50 at that point. And then when baby comes, you just pay it off.

Pay it off completely. Like, there's no, like, I should.

Yes.

I should just have it appear.

Yes.

Yeah.

And he's not borrowing any money to finish the PhD. And are you going to be working or how are you guys are living off the stipend or what?

Yeah, so we're living off the stipend. I'm working full time as a tennis coach. But it's. I mean, it's. I don't plan on. Ideally, I would like to be home with the baby, but I just don't know, like, with. I mean, insurance will obviously be through the roof.

Well, it's not that bad. You're young and healthy and the good news about tennis coaching is you could do that with individuals and set your hours and not be leaving the baby very much.

Right. I don't even know if I. Yeah. Want to. Want to do that. I think I mean, he himself has talked about how he'd rather, like be working.

Okay, as long as you guys can eat and you're not, and you're not broke, I just launch. You can have enough income coming in between the two of you that you figured that out. And you know, our grocery bills pretty high though.

It's, it's kind of like our, I mean we're living in DC. It's not where we want to be. We want to be in like a more red state. But I mean, just our grocery bill, I mean we.

Is that where he's studying or something?

Yeah. Yeah.

For the two of you? It's just the two of you, right?

It's just the two of us right now? Yeah.

They tell you something, Mina? I got three teenagers, two of which are boys. Don't even talk to me about grocery bills.

It's crazy.

You guys can do better than that.

Yeah, you got a lot of other things worry about than your grocery bill. I was gonna say so. So here's the thing.

I love her intensity, Dave, but I hope she grasps that you were giving her an insurance policy that means peace of mind until baby gets here and then you can attack it.

But I just.

That's such a, it's such a huge deal. I hope a lot of people hear that. That's really great advice.

The first three baby steps, save a $1,000 quickly with great intensity. Pay off all your debts except your home, smallest to largest in that order. With great intensity. Like sell so much stuff the kids think they're next. Put the dog on eBay, the cat on Craigslist. I mean, everything's gone. No life, scorched earth, beans and rice, no eating out, no vacations. We're cleaning up the mess. Baby step three in that same intensity is finish the emergency fund. Now when you finish the emergency fund and you have no debt except your house, then you move from intense to intentional. But until then, you're wide open. Now, when there is, when you're in the middle of a storm, like you say, the boss comes in and says in 60 days, we're laying off 70% of the people that work here. Well, that's a storm. Yeah. So you push pause on paying off the debt or building the emergency fund wherever you are in one through three baby steps until you get the other side of the storm. In the case of a pregnancy, obviously. Obviously it's a blessed event. It's not a storm, but we're going to prepare as if it matters more than the getting out of debt.

Because it does. Then we get the other side of it. Baby comes home. Mom and baby are okay. We push play again, which means we clean out everything down to $1,000 and pay off debts until we're debt free. That's exactly what I was telling her to do. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, friends, it's Ken Coleman, and I've got some big news. The get clear career assessment is now paired with my new book, find the work you're wired to do. Every book comes with access to the assessment, so you can discover who you are and how you're wired. Then I'm going to show you how to use your results to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. Preorder, find the work you're wired to do@ramsaysolutions.com. Store and get the audiobook and the ebook free. Go to ramsaysolutions.com store.

Thanks for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman. Ramsey, personality, is my co host. Today's question comes from Julian in Texas.

My responsibilities at my job have increased significantly. I've received routine raises, but they're not reflective of the increased responsibilities I've been given. I approached my boss with my concern and gave him a number that I think I'm worth based on similar roles. My boss agreed that I deserved a raise and said a raise would show up on my next check. The raise was 5%, less than half of the number I'd suggested. Feeling frustrated, I applied for a couple jobs at other companies. I received an offer for 2% more than the amount I asked my current employer for. But the kicker is, I didn't like the interview, and I don't intend to take the job. Is it inappropriate to use a job offer to leverage a raise at my current job? My heart is telling me no, but I want some of that good old fashioned Ken Coleman sense knocked into me.

Okay. Wow.

That puts the pressure on me. I got to cuff him upside the head, apparently. Julian, here's the thing. I think there's too much emotion in this, and I think at this point to take in the job offer that gets you 2% more. So it looks like a 7% bump from what you've just been offered. I think here could get really manipulative, and I think the emotion I'm seeing in this, and I understand why you feel the way you feel based on what you've said. But if your boss agreed that you deserved a raise, you told him a number, and you gave him what you think was evidence. Now, I don't know how good your evidence was here. I don't. I don't have the luxury of talking to you back and forth, but based on what you're saying, the boss heard, you agreed, you told him the number you think you deserve, and they gave you half of it, and you don't want the other gig anyway. So this feels really manipulative. Is it inappropriate? No. Well, let me finish what I mean by inappropriate. I know what you're saying. It's not. It's not unethical. It's not.

But it runs the risk of being very manipulative. And so if you want to call that inappropriate, then certainly I get that. And so I just wouldn't do this. You've been given the raise. They told you what they think the raise is, and now you got to be an adult, and going back in and trying to waive another job offer in front of them that you do not want feels childish to me. And it wouldn't do it. I don't think it'll serve you well at all.

It doesn't change the fact that, let's say that you went back in and waived this and they gave you a 10% race way through the roof. Yeah. All of a sudden, you're not going to be over all these other things. That's exactly right. Yeah. You. You feel underappreciated, used. You feel like they didn't take care of you. And the only way that you get your right amount is to threaten them. So when after you finish threatening them and they give you a big raise because of that, even. Maybe even more, you're still gonna feel like they don't have your back. Like you're underappreciated. Like, you know, the only way I got what this company gave should give me is I had to be a jerk. And, you know. And so you need to leave is what you need to do, because you're done. But you don't need to take this other job. So you need to keep looking, get you another job. You need to leave. Yeah. That's what you need to do. Yeah.

Well, here's what happens. This will wear off. Dave is right.

If you.

They gave you the 10% immediately, you would feel like you won something, but you'd still feel like, well, they're going to keep giving me more. Keep giving me more. And that's the point. A raise doesn't fix this kind of damage here.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure this company did anything wrong. But you think they did. And the fact that you think you've been mistreated by them. That's right. You're done. You know, your language all through this email is, I'm done. I'm done. And so you don't really want them to give you the money, because then you'd be staying in a situation that you think is unfair, unjust. They don't appreciate you. They. Whatever. They don't. They're not fair people. They don't pay comp. Right. They don't. You know, whatever. You just don't like these people anymore. And so that. That's thing one. Thing two is this. Anytime you're facing a business ethics question, or for that matter, most ethics questions, you don't have to take a class on business ethics. All you got to do is switch shoes, walk a mile in the other guy's moccasins. All right? Now, you're an employer. You had a guy that came in and said he was worth x, and you said, yeah, he's probably worth some more, and you gave him some more. He's pissed about that he works for you. And then he comes back in and says, hey, I got an even better job offer.

The whole way this goes down, if you work for us, we would say, take it. We'd say, take it. So if you switch it. If you switch it, you see how scummy it is. Yeah. And so just to wave something in front of their nose that you don't intend to take just to manipulate them. Ken's right. That, you know, you wouldn't want somebody to do that to you. So don't do it to somebody else. Treat other people like you'd want to be treated. It's a real business ethics lesson. And so, you know, if somebody came in and started waving something in front of me like that, I'm gonna be going, you know what I think? I think you should take it. Yeah. Because you don't work here anymore, so you're gonna need a job. You know, it's stuff like that, you know, I mean. I mean, we probably wouldn't be quite that snarky about it, but that's how it would. That's how it would be playing in my head. Yeah.

And even if they didn't tell you to go right away, it would start to erode the relationship to where it's already the beginning of the end anyway. That's right.

Yeah.

Don't ever put yourself in a corner, folks. Here's the thing.

That's.

That's playing chess against yourself. And that's not smart, because then you're forced out to take a job that you don't want. I'd rather you leave on your own terms.

Jerry's in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Jerry. What's up?

Hey, how are you today?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So about five years ago, I came to America with a full scholarship and a cell phone. I worked for a year now in public accounting, and because of a visual issue, I have to go back to school. Now, throughout this year, obviously, I started at zero. I've saved about $30,000, and I'm going to have to pay for college, which for me is going to be about $45,000. So I was wondering, as I won't be able to take out a regular student loan and I'm going to have to take out a personal loan, would it be more beneficial for me to pay off? I'll pay most of colleagues cash and take a small amount or just keep the finance, the whole amount that I would go to college with and pay it off throughout the next few years as I go back to public accounting.

Probably explain really quick on the visa why you feel like you have to go to school.

Okay.

So I work for a big four firm, and they decided to sponsor my visa.

Right.

So that puts you into a lottery. And in this lottery system, unfortunately, I was one of the unlucky few. You have about a 20% shot. It used to be about 50, but in the last few years, it changed about 20% shot. And now I have to go back to school. And then after school, I should get another three years. If I get a stem based degree, which is why it costs about 45k, that will give me another three shots. And the company I work for has already agreed to hire me back.

All right.

And then on the 45,000, what type of school we talking about?

Well, it is harder for me to get in school since I am an international. So it'd be a regular state school, might be even a private school, but it'd be a good degree, like business analytics or something like that. Something I'll be able to use.

All right.

All I'm going to challenge you to do is get the absolute cheapest option possible. You're not getting this. You're getting this degree to get another ticket in the raffle. And I just think you can beat that price to where you don't have to pay anything out of pocket other than the 30 or way less. I just do not rely on student loans for this to get a raffle or loans?

Private loans.

No loans at all. This is a raffle ticket. And that's american language for it's a lottery. It's exactly what you called it. But it's like, hey. And I just think there's so many other ways for you to get this degree that are much cheaper.

There's.

There's these things called college hacks, and it sounds crazy. It's not. But you can actually test. It's like good old fashioned clep test is what it is. And you can actually get that degree?

It's not a degree. You're saying you're going to shift from a work visa to a student visa, right? Yeah. Yes.

I didn't get my work visa, so I have to go back to school.

In person, which gives you a student visa. That's the only way you get to.

Stay so you don't have to get the degree.

So, okay, so you're. This is all a visa play. You're moving from a work visa to a student visa, and you're hoping to move back to a work visa after that, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. So again, you're you buying a parking spot to change it from a raffle ticket. And so buy the cheapest parking spot. Go to school somewhere for 30k or less. Don't take out a loan. This has nothing to do with getting the education other than you is going to benefit from that while you're doing it. But pay cash for that. And, yeah, that's what I would do. Thanks for the call. Here's the thing about investing advice. You can find it just about anywhere, but that doesn't mean it'll always help you with your personal goals. Here's another option. Check in with a smartvestor pro. These financial advisors can review your plan or help create one that's personalized to you. To find a smartvestor pro in your area, go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor. Go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor.

Ramsey Solutions is a paid non client promoter of participating pros. Learn more@ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor.

Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality, is my co host today open phones at Jackie is with us in Canada. Hi, Jackie. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken. I'm so glad to be connected with you today.

You too. How can we help?

I just have a question. So my husband and I, we followed your principles for probably the last ten years. I'd say we took financial peace years ago, and we are in a fortunate position to. We only have our mortgage, and it's 70,000. And the property that we live in, that's our primary property, is worth about 570. And just recently, our mother in law, she had a fall, and she's going to be living a retirement home, which leaves the family farmhouse available for us to live in. And we're just wondering, my husband's an owner on that property. We're just wondering, would we sell or would we rent our primary home at this stage? So that's the question.

So you're going to move into his childhood home.

Exactly.

And who are the other owners of the home?

Just his mother and him.

Okay. And her portion is the of turned over to him at death.

Exactly. Yep. That's exactly right.

Is that. Is that via a will or a deed restriction or what?

Um, well, they're both co owners on the deed. They're just, uh, you know.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Well, I don't know canadian law. Okay.

Okay. No, the wheels, the same. The will is all written out. It's his property. So his sister, she's also a farmer. She's already been given a farm as well, and she has her own farm, so she has two properties nearby.

Okay, so your mother in law has gone into a nursing home. Probably will not live in this house again.

No, I would not expect that.

Yeah. Okay. And so you're gonna move into the farmhouse.

It needs a bit of work, so we could cash flow the renovations. Our income is about $180,000 between the two of us. Plus we have two small rental properties, and they bring about 37,000 a year.

What's the. How much renovation.

I can't picture being, you know, you could spend a whole ton if you wanted to make a livable. I'd say probably 20,000.

Well, it was habitable when she left.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's just more water.

There's no water.

Nope, there's water. It would just need a treatment. And as well, you know, because of the condition of the water, maybe some of the bathrooms and the plumbing would need upgraded.

I see. Okay. All right. So how much cash do you guys have?

Well, my husband likes to keep a large emergency fund, so there's enough money there. 65,000 there, plus, you know, a few other accounts.

I'm sorry, how much money do you all have?

Oh, all told.

Yeah.

Liquid access. Or you just mean how much.

How much cash do you guys have?

Well over $100,000 cash.

Okay.

And then we have about half a million in retirement. And then we own the two rental properties and a lake house for ourselves.

Okay. All right. So the 100,000 includes your proper emergency fund of three to six months.

Exactly. Exactly, yes. That's in there.

And you guys make 180. So if we set 30 aside, you have 70 left, and if you spend 20 on the farmhouse, that only leaves 50 to throw towards your mortgage. Are the other two rental properties paid for?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. Are you going to rent your current home?

That's what we're thinking. We're not sure. Do we rent that or do we sell that?

Only if you plan to pay it off very quickly.

Yeah. Two years is what we were hoping.

Oh, I think about one year, because I'm going to use up all. I'm going to use all your cash.

Okay. Okay.

$30,000 emergency fund. Do the renovation. That leaves 50 to throw at the 70. You make 180. You ought to pay off 20 in less than a year.

Okay. Okay.

You follow the math. Yeah.

Very doable.

Yeah. Yeah. And so you end up with three rental properties and a paid for farmhouse. And it's renovated a little bit. You're probably going to renovate it some more as you go along. But you make 180,000 and you have zero debt at that point. You can renovate it a little more if you want to with cash. Right?

Exactly. Yeah.

How many acres?

400 acres.

Wow.

Yeah. A beautiful piece of property. Legacy, you know, a couple generations have lived there and. Free living generations.

Jackie, that sounds really cool and romantic. Is that where you. Is that where you want to live?

Oh, yeah, I do. I love the property. We also have lake home, so we can enjoy, you know, time between both pieces.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Just making sure you weren't living his dream and not yours.

No, not at all.

Okay. Shared.

Very shared.

Sounds like a lot of fun. Sounds like a lot of fun. It's beautiful. 400 beautiful acres. Wow. I'm a little jealous. That's amazing.

And Jackie truly represents the most positive stereotype of Canadians that I have ever heard. She is poster child. So kind and nice and pleasant. Just. Just an enjoyable person.

She represented her country well.

Well, you hear about the Canadians being the nicest people on the planet, and Jackie is exhibit a. What a fine lady.

There you go. Easy to get along with. Yeah. So we're moving to the farmhouse? Yep. You got it. Of course.

I love it.

Just gotta have no. Just gotta have no more of that water. That's all. Yeah. That's all I require. It's low maintenance. Very fun. Open phones at triple 888-25-5225 hey, folks, our event season is in full swing. We would love to have you be part of our events. We have the total money makeover weekend coming up May 10 and 11th. This is the best of the best. Ken Coleman's going to be speaking on how to get your income up. Doctor John Deloney. How to bring peace and quiet and tranquility to your home. Not as much anxiety and stress. Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Jade Warshaw, Dave Ramsey. We're all going to speak. It's Friday afternoon, evening down, all through Saturday here in Nashville on our campus. You're going to come in maybe, maybe not knowing what to do, maybe knowing part what to do. And you're gonna leave with an exact plan dialed out to go from broke in debt, stressed relationship problems, all the way to leaving with making more money than you've ever made in your life, in your mind, showing you how to do that and how to actually become wealthy and get out of debt.

So we're gonna cover every bit of that. Bring your reluctant spouse, bring your friend who's been making fun of you. Pay for their ticket. They will leave. As crazy as you are at that point. And we're going to show you everything to do, every process, every detail. It's a very intense weekend. We're going to have a lot of question and answers, very experiential. We're going to have a lot of fun, a lot of laughter, a lot of tears. And you're going to leave exhausted and completely changed. The total money makeover weekend, May 10 and 11th. To get tickets, go to ramsaysolutions.com events and you can learn more and get your tickets. Right now, the vip platinum is sold out. The vip is there, and there's some platinum there that are not combined. And there's a few other special sippies in there that you can get. And of course, general admission is there. But this thing is on track for an early sellout. If you want to come May 10 and 11th, that's just, it's less than a month from now. You could come and enjoy the Nashville environment. We're gonna have a lot of fun here on the Ramsey campus, and we invite you to be part of it.

Gonna be going to be a blast, Ken.

It really is. It's a, you know, it's an incredible environment when everybody shows up in the room because they want to get better. They want their life to get better, and that creates electricity. I know our team, we're working hard, and it's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Going to be great. We would love to have you go to ramsaysolutions.com events? Also on the following week, about eleven days later, ten days later, May 21 and 22nd, I'm going to be doing Dave Ramsey's investing essentials as a virtual event, a two night virtual event. George Campbell's gonna hang out with me as well. We're gonna go through the basics of investing, but we're also gonna get deep into investing. And I'm gonna open my personal playbook, what I do, including what I do with real estate. And I actually own a lot of real estate. This is not a theory for me, so if you want to be part of that, you can check tickets on that as well. This is the Ramsey show. Our scripture today, proverbs three, six. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Thomas Sowell says some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

Classic, classic passive aggressive. Just mic drop there by Thomas.

So there he goes. David is in Chicago. Hi, David. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Oh, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Sure. How can I help?

My question is that I'm trying to do the baby steps. I got myself a little bit of a quagmire with my debt, mostly real estate investment, but nothing horrible. So I'm trying to apply the real, the baby steps. And I'd like to sell one of my rentals, but I just don't think my tenant is going to be able to relocate and, or it's somewhat of a moral quandary, anything.

Why is your tenant, why can't your tenant relocate?

I just don't think that she'll be able to get another home, especially one as nice and large as this one, to house her and her kids.

So you're not, you're not charging her market rental?

Yeah, it's close. I mean, I could probably charge her more.

So if she's getting close to market rent, why can she not take close to market rent and go rent something else?

I don't think she, I just don't think that it's really available. I think it's really going to put her in a position and I think.

She'S going, why is it not available? You think you have the only house?

No, no, I don't.

I don't.

But she's, I think she's paying for her mom's rent, too. And I've tried to counsel her to, like, maybe they could live together, but I don't think that's a, I don't think it's available if you've been late and behind, you know, you know how it is, Reynolds. And I just, like I said.

Well, let me just, let me ask a question. I'm curious. Did you feel this way? Did you have this concern for her before you talked to her about the possibility that you were going to do this?

No.

Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did.

Okay.

And what was her reaction when she. When you told her that this was a possibility?

I broke it to her a little bit, but not. I really haven't come down.

You didn't answer my question.

What was. I didn't really say it. I didn't really say anything about selling it. It really would come up yet. Oh, I know it's not going to go over well because I don't, I don't think she's going to find.

Well, there's a lot of thinking.

Listen, I. It is not your job to manage her house.

That's right.

You're her landlord, not her boss. You're not her daddy. And so you're pay. She's paying almost market rent so she can pay this, take the almost market rent and go rent something else. And if she wants to combine households with her mom, that's completely her business and her problem. It is not your job to manage her life.

Yeah, you're right.

And you're not doing anything wrong. No. To take an asset of yours and say, you know, yeah, I. You don't want to be mean or nasty about it. And if you want to give a little bit more notice, there's no. Nothing on fire here. You know, we're going to. Instead of giving you, I don't know, she. On month to month.

She is now. She didn't want to resign last summer.

Oh, she didn't want to resign last summer.

No.

Yeah. Hmm.

I get a fair amount of renters like that that don't want to resign.

Yeah, but they're not committed to you.

You don't have to commit to them. The point is, you're not a bad person.

I think if you said, okay, I'm legally bound by the lack of a lease to give you one month's notice. I'm going to give you three months.

That's a good compromise.

And that gives you plenty of time to work your way through this. Um, it. I've appreciated you being our tenant, except for those times that you didn't pay on time. And you don't have to say that, but, you know, you're acting like this is some kind of freaking stellar tenant. They don't pay market rent, and they don't pay on time. So I missed where I'm excited about this tenant. So, um, you know, I. That's not being mean. It's just like, you got really one job when you're a tenant, don't tear up the house and pay the rent on time. These are the two jobs you got. So it's your job to make sure you're charged market rent. So I know you don't have a moral dilemma at all. You can be kind, and you could give more than adequate notice and say, you know, I'm sorry, gosh, if there's any way I can help you with this, I'll try to help you. But if helping you means you staying in the house past this 90 day mark, that's not the type of help I'm talking about. So. But if there's, you know, if we can assist you in any way.

I tell you about my friends that have properties help you find a, you know, something like that. I appreciate this, but that's what we're going to do. We're going to give you three months notice. Listen, she can process this in three months. And if she's angry at her landlord, who she refused to sign a lease with for giving her three months notice, who's only required to give her one month month notice, that's her fault, not yours. That's her fault. And so I think this is all about David.

He's such a nice guy that he's worried about a confrontational situation and understand that, but this is nothing more than a difficult conversation. And it's not his bag, and I get it. But she's going to be fine just by virtue of only. She don't want to sign a deal anyway. She's got options. She knows it could change at any time. David, you're a really good dude, and you're just fretting over a difficult conversation.

And it's going to be over in about 45, 50 seconds. I mean, there's not a lot to it. It's, hey, gonna be selling the house. I'm gonna be sending you a note in the mail. So we make it formal that, you know, July 1, we're gonna be done August 1, whatever it is, and giving you plenty of time. You had 30. You have a 30 day, right? But I'm gonna give you 90 days just because you've been here a while, and I want to be kind and, um. Thanks. That's it. I'm done. It's really, it really don't have to have a big, long thing here. It's not a whole bunch of feelings. It's. It's, um. I've had. I've had landlords in my life, and none of them had any feelings for me. You know, I just. None of them did. I just never had one that did that. And, I mean, if you get a situation like we had one one time that, uh, you know, guy got off terminal cancer diagnosis, you know, and he's got four months to live, and he lost his job because he lost his health, and his wife had three little kids at home and all this.

And so, you know, we just didn't charge him rent. We let him live there and let her live there after he passed for a little while. I mean, we worked, we worked with him, but. But that can't go on for eight years either. No, even that, you know, it's a, it's a period of time we can have some grace and mercy with somebody in that situation, but just simply, they're going to have to move. That's, you know, this lady, she really just got to move. I mean, this part. That's why, folks, that's why you want to be an owner when you can be, and not in a stupid way. Don't go buy something you can't afford, because I'm afraid my landlord's going to do that. Oh, by The WAy, if you don't want to move, sign a lease. Hello. Then if he had a one year contract, then he'd have to honor that morally, ethically, legally, everything at that point. So there's the process. And, you know, here's the other thing. Those of you that are, that are thinking of owning real estate, you need to have a policy of raising the rent every single year, because I've been doing real estate for about 40 years, and rents have gone up every single year.

And the people that I know that get stuck in situations like this, they don't raise the rent for five years because it's a nice person and they pay on time, and they cut the grass real in a little pattern, and then we JUst love them. And you don't raise the rent for five years, and suddenly you've got a way below market situation. And then you try to raise the rent and they have a fit, like they think they're the owner. So it's really good. It just keeps the relationship accurately defined. When we raise the rent, even if it's a little bit.

What's the Dave Ramsey way on that? Do you look at the market and.

Then we look at the market and we go. If they've been with us a long time, it's a little under market. Okay, but not, I mean, I'll take it all the way. The max plus some been there one year, we just take it up to market. If they've been there five years, we, we tell them when they come in, too. Right, next year, and just expect, go ahead and know, you know, and that way they're not shocked. Like what? You know what, right? I don't understand what. I mean. What do you mean what rents are going up and so if you don't have that pattern, you set these, you set an entitlement expectation in place, and it creates real serious problems later. It's a real bad idea that puts us out of 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, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace. Christ Jesus.

Hey, folks. Dave here. You want to hear even more life changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like the Ramsey show, smart money, happy hour, and the doctor John Deloney show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.