Short-Term Pain, Long-Term Peace

0:00Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal as broke and common sense as weird. So we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Jay Dwasho, Ramsey Personality Number One best selling author is my co-host today. Daisy is in Austin, Texas. Hi Daisy, how are you? Good, good. Good, what's up? So I'm just calling on which I'll read out the question that I have right here. So my husband and I are over one with financial, financially. We have an mortgage, vehicle payment, credit card debt. And the biggest part is the large SBA loan. They send it to Treasury.

1:00We're considering bankruptcy and have also talked to some attorneys. They suggested bankruptcy due chapter seven, but we just wanted to see what is our best option. What is our best choice we could do first? Well, asking a bankruptcy attorney if your bankrupt is like asking a dog of its hungry. 100% of the time the answer's yes. Okay, so let's start with that presupposition. And so you have a business that failed? Yes, so the business is under my name. And then we like we switch it to my husband's and after that like it's not going right with the business. So it's really hard for us to pay it off. What is your impact? Has it been closed? The business that was under my name, yes, it's closed. That's what the SBA loan was for. Yes, that's for the SBA loan.

2:01Correct. And how much do you owe on the SBA loan? 178,000. And do they have a lien on your home? I assume. No, no, because I don't know like the attorney that I talked to, they said it's pretty much it's considered kind of like a personal loan because I was nine LLC or corporation. Oh. Yeah, but they usually take a second mortgage position on your house. You sure they don't have a lien on your home? No, no, because at that time we did not have a home where we were renting. Okay. And you were able to get a mortgage after the fact how much do you have to pay every month on this SBA loan? We were paying 584 each month for 30 years, but like Kai said, we weren't able to pay it off. So we stopped and it's in treasury now. What kind of business was this? It's like calling Stan, gravel and end dump truck. We have two right now that are right now working, but like I said, the money is fluctuating.

3:05Sometimes there's work sometimes. You said you had a dump truck and what? Yes, and dump truck. So it's like 18 meters. Okay. Where is it? You said it's still in operation? Yes, my husband's the one that's doing it now, the operation. And so what is owed against that, other than the SBA loan, nothing? No, no, because we paid them off. We paid off the... So what's the 18-hawaied or rig worth? Let me have it right here. Okay. So there's a Peter bill. It said I looked it up and it said like 30 grand. It was worth. And then we have a front liner. It says it's 20 grand, but that one is not working. And then we have... Let's see. What's wrong with the one that's not working? How much would it take to repair it and sell it off maybe? Maybe like 10 grand or more to repair it.

4:06And then you've got... What other equipment have you got? Other than those two tractors? We also have... The other ones are like just under his name. They're not under mine, but we have also a front liner and that one... We got it for 550, but I guess the book says something else. I don't remember how much my husband said. What does the book say? You can get for it. I don't know. Like he told me, but he just did a stick in my head. I was just getting a couple of them off. Did you say 550? What? Yeah, because it was broken down, so he fixed it. My husband is very manual. He's a good... Oh, sorry. $550? No, $5,500. Oh, got it. Now, no, no. If your husband is good at fixing, can he repair the one that needed the $10,000 repair? Can he do that with his hands? Because you'll have to get... I don't know if it's an engine or I don't know, none of that stuff, but it'll be like $7,000.

5:07What else do you want? We also own a 2018 Armageddon. That's the end of the 31,000. And then we have another trailer that is worth like $60,000. That's how much we got it for. Okay. There's a lot of equity here that if you sold these things off and got a job, you could cut your bills. You could cut your bills. Yeah, but I've been trying to do the math and stuff and we also have credit card debt. How much credit card did you have? My husband has $12,000 and has $6,000. Okay. That's not very scary. The credit card damage is not scary. How much do you own your car? Okay. So there's one car is $50,000 and I want he needs it for the... That might trick us like to haul everything. And he also has another side gig that is doing landscaping. So he needs that one and then we have... I have it right here. What kind of truck is it?

6:07Is it just like a F-150? Like a... Okay. So Daisy, let me stop you. I've been where you guys are and I know how scary it is. Okay. But when you are calling about bankruptcy, you don't get to say I have a side hustle with a $50,000 car. You sell the stupid car and you get a job. So what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would sell everything you own. And then you're not bankrupt and get a job. He's got a CDL, get a job drive and a tractor driver. And you get a job. Have you got a job? Yes. I also work and I have two jobs. Okay. What do you mean? I am a para professional and I make $26,000 a year and then I work in another job and that's like maybe like $3,000 to $5,000 on the side. Because I do sometimes weekends and then the rest of the time I work one, too.

7:08All right. And so if he's driving truck and you're doing those things, whatever the sale of all of these items doesn't cover, you can work your way out of. And so I got 50, I got 80, I got one, I got 90, I got one. Oh, he has another car. I got a car. I got a... Oh, he has another car. I got a car. I got a car. You guys just justify buying anything you want to buy on payments and call it. I'm in debt but I can't sell it because I'm in business. No, your business is broke. You went broke. You lost everything. And so you get the opportunity to start fresh with nothing by selling everything. So when Treasury calls and you owe $178, if you offer them $150 as settlement in full because I've got that in the bank because I've sold off all this crap, they'll take it. And you won't be bankrupt anymore. You're not bankrupt, you're just trying to hold on to everything. Yeah, that's... For me, I have told my husband I don't care, I could sell everything like...

8:10Listen honey, they're going to take everything from him. If he doesn't sell it and give it to them, that's how this works. Including bankruptcy. When you file chapter 7 bankruptcy in Texas, you don't get to keep $180,000 worth of stuff. They don't... that's not how this works. And I'm going to blow off all the debt and keep all this tractor trailers. No, they're going to sell all that out of bankruptcy auction and apply it towards your dad. So you might as well do it. And not file bankruptcy. Most people spend years changing their money habits, but never think twice about how their bank probably works against their values with nuisance fees and endless debt products.

9:13If you're being weird by sticking to the baby steps, you deserve a bank that helps with that. That's why Ramsay partnered with Fair Winds Credit Union. They built the smart bundle specifically for Ramsay listeners, not for everybody else. And it includes up to 10 high yield savings accounts so you can set up different funds for different needs and goals. And now they've introduced the live like no one else debit card. The original debt is normal, be weird debit card is still available too. And every time you reach into your wallet, your card is a daily reminder that you follow a different path. Listen, if you're living like no one else, your bank should back you up. Check out the Fair Winds smart bundle, including the all new live like no one else debit card at fairwinds.org slash Ramsay. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsay. Ensured by the NCUA.

10:22Katie's in Savannah. Hi, Katie. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So at the same time as my husband, I decided to take our financial health seriously. I also decided it was time to get physically healthy. And I have lost over 50 pounds. Why did it go? Katie! Good for you. Good for you. Thank you. Discipline against discipline. When you do a budget, you can also count calories, huh? The thing is, when I was budgeting, I forgot to save up for clothes because I forgot that my body was going to change. Yeah. Thank God. And all of a sudden, I tried to get dressed and my clothes fell off. And I can't wear any of my clothes in public while being appropriate. We are paying a large amount of money toward our debt every month, realistically.

11:24So what kind of a budget do you need to buy skinny clothes? Yeah. I feel like it's reasonable to spend like $350. I mean, but the only thing I can wear is my thoughts. Like $350. $350. $350. $350. One time? Probably just to get me through until we're done with the baby stuff we're on. I think that's very reasonable, Katie, that you can replace a whole wardrobe with $350. I think you're being real frugal. Yeah. I think that's excellent. Super friendly. I am very cheap. I do not buy anything brand new. But here's the thing. I'm not taking it. Part of the celebration, just like when you pay off your debt, you get to celebrate by doing some of the things you want. Part of the celebration of losing weight is buying the new clothes. So you should do that. Right. $350 is just right. Yeah. How much is your household income? Okay. We're in the mid 100s. Probably about like 145s. How much debt to go? About 15 left.

12:25Oh, wow. You're almost done in less than six months. Wow. And then after that, you can spend another $350 and get the rest of your wardrobe. We'll see. I'm really cheap. I'm probably not going to do it again. I want you to spend more than that later. Do you have more weight to lose as well? I have about 10 pounds left and then I'll be able to help you be a nice star. Wow. I'll lose more sizes. Okay. Perfect. But my long term goal was to be and maintain a healthy being. I like it. Well, I'm proud of you. That's excellent. That's amazing. I'll tell you what. The people who really benefit the most from the baby subs are people like you, Katie, who understand that it's a way of thinking that benefits you beyond your finances. That's how you can approach everything in life. And so I am not worried about you. You've got it. Yeah, you're going to be great. So I want you to spend $350 now and I want you to spend another $350 the day after you pay off your last debt. And then I want you to budget another $350 when you finish the emergency fee.

13:26Because you got another 10 pounds and you got another 10 pounds and you're going to need some more clothes. This is fun, Dave. I like it. I like this. I know. I hear you since. This is fun. I love this. I love it. I love this. I love it. Hey, Katie. I'm sorry, and it's the family's problem. You have saved your family an extra medical bills and insurance cost. Yes. Because your cost for your life insurance is going to go down. Yes. Your cost for everything is going to go down. You have saved your family tens of thousands of dollars into the future. Buy yourself some clothes. Thank you. That's a payback, okay. It's a good ROI. It's a perfect thing. Yes. And I gotta tell y'all, what you said is absolutely true, Jade. The idea that discipline, but gets disciplined, that when we suddenly become powerful, empowered in one area of our lives, we say, I'm taking control of this area, and you go, wait a minute, and I can take control of that area. And by the way, you children that are acting up,

14:28beware because I'm gonna take control of that area. Whatever it is that's acting up in chaotic, we're about to take control of it. But yeah, matter of fact, Christian, will you send her a copy of what no one tells you about money? I talk about this a lot in that book because that's what happened with Sam and I. You start with your money, then you start working on your marriage, then you start working on your personal relationship with Jesus, then you start working on your health, then you start working on your career. I mean, if you let it, it'll just unravel a whole thread in your life in a major powerful way. Yep. You know, I really can't probably legally, it's not the right word, I can't, and good. I ethically tell people that when you get on a get out of that plan that you're gonna lose weight, but an amazing number of people do. Not because they're starving themselves, but because they learn that they can control themselves. It's very intertwined. The methodology is so similar. It's all about that short-term sacrifice, long-term gain, delayed gratification.

15:28You know, all of those things, once you activate that part in your mind, that's like, oh, I can do that. And yeah, you can do it. Now, one definition of emotional maturity is the ability to delay pleasure for a greater good. Ding ding. There it is. All right, here we go. Denise is in Winston-Salem. Hi, Denise. What's up? Well, I just have either, it's gonna be a public service announcement, or I'm gonna get some advice. I started a site hospital about three years ago. Dave, I'm pretty sure that the seed was planted by something that you said about just looking around to see what you have available that you could turn to make money. And I have been, I'm not gonna, I've been tremendously blessed by the property that we bought about four years ago and had a son pull them back. My kids don't live, didn't live nearby, and I was just the only one out there. And I thought, well, it's got this great asset.

16:29I should rent this out. So I do it. And there is an app. There was a business that runs an app that provides the platform. It was very easy to do to set up. I started making money and making people happy. Renting your pool out. You can literally rent your pool through an app. So on a hot summer day, if somebody's looking for a pool, but they want a private pool, they can use your pool. How much liability insurance do you have? Well, that's completely a lot. That's completely, that was what I was risked the way in it for about three years. So they provided a million dollar liability insurance. And I think the platform, the app does. Oh wow, okay. So a million dollars of liability. So a kid is back there and gets hurt in the pool and you get sued for a million dollars. My property, yeah. You get sued for a million dollars

17:29then this app is going to pay out a million dollars. Well, yeah. Okay. So what happened? I, Facebook, what happened in the group and I saw where somebody had mentioned that they only pay after your homeowners insurance. And I thought, oh, I didn't know that. So all this time I've been liable because I spot, well, they'll just cancel me if I have a claim because also my homeowner's insurance it says that I do not run a business out of my home. That's true. And now you do. I don't, but I like three months out of the year. So I've justified it that I really didn't that much. But then I got, you know, my husband, I were like, this is too risky. This is really dumb. This is not worth it. I would say so. Yeah. I think you, I think you learned a good lesson. The only way you could continue to do it is if you could just buy your own standalone liability

18:31insurance policy that paid from day one, from dollar one and buy that from your local insurance broker and it would not be attached to your homeowners. Like a separate business policy. Exactly, exactly. And if that's not so expensive and I don't know if it is or not, listen, I call the standard. Don't worry. I call the standard and call to them. And what did they say? Yeah. No, nobody's doing that. Not for a pool. Do you not? You probably don't think that's fine. Yeah. It's like four times more than what your homeowners would be. Yeah, and it's more than you're making back on the app. So exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that first thing that popped into my head was somebody's going to sue your butt. As soon as you told me this, that's first thing that put running in my head, it scared me. It scared me. Here's the thing. Up until this realization, I was so just feeling proud of myself because I was supplying this. Everybody, they're just family. It wasn't like their wild parties.

19:32Like I do see some of that going on through this. That's true, but you never know what's going to happen to niece. And I think that you caught this early. You caught this early. You dodged a bullet. You dodged a bullet. Yeah, I'm not written my pool. Even with Airbnb, you have to be careful. You know, I'm going to rip someone my parachute. They're not. I don't think so. It scares me to death. I don't think so. As your business grows, everything becomes more complex. There was a time when Ramsey Solutions had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business. We wasted too much time chasing information instead of making

20:33decisions. That's why we got NetSuite. NetSuite brings your financials, inventory, CRM, and more together in one place. More than 44,000 businesses run on NetSuite, including Ramsey. And now they're taking the next step with NetSuite next, making it easier to put AI to work across your entire business. NetSuite next helps you make the most of your time, automating routine work like forecasting demand and following up on overdue accounts. With NetSuite next, AI is built into everything you do. So you can ask it questions just like when you're talking to a member of your team. And right now, you can try NetSuite next for free. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to NetSuite.ai slash Ramsey. That's NetSuite.ai slash Ramsey.

21:44So Jade, we're going on a cruise. Woohoo! Oh man, this is so fun. The live like no one else cruise is March 14th through the 21st for seven nights in the Western Caribbean. Now let me tell you who should go. People that are on baby step four and beyond. If you're in debt and you're trying to in baby step two, not your house, but if you're in debt on baby step two, you don't need to be going on vacation. And if you haven't got your emergency fund, you don't need to be going on vacation. But we teach people to live like the low one else. So that you can later live and give like no one else. And so this is the so that cruise. That's right. This is you reward yourself. And I know you've been holding your breath when you were getting out of debt, but now it's time if you're at baby step four and beyond to let loose and enjoy some of this

22:44money. We tell you to do that. We tell you to enjoy your money and move from intense to intentional at baby steps four and beyond. Meaning that you're all your debts except your home were paid off and you have your emergency fund. That puts you at baby step four. Now you're investing. Now you're enjoying. You're going on cruises with Jade and Rachel Cruz and George Campbell and even Dr. John Deloney and Dave and Sharon Ramsey. We're all there. We'll be hanging out with you on the cruise. We're going to do presentations. There won't be any dancing unless George does it on the on the stages. But the but we will be in there with great information. We're going to go through some you know, some detailed things to do as you're becoming wealthy. Really get into wealth planning on this. The world's largest debt free screen will be there and we're going to do live tapings of smart money, happy hour of some of the other podcasts as well.

23:45It is going to be fun. I'm excited. I'm truly. And there's just a handful of there's some that there is some good state rooms left and there's some that aren't so good left. Well, there's always the ones you know, the ones that the ones you don't want. But they're hey, you can still get a good place to sleep and hang out with us and come on this cruise guys celebrate. So fun. Celebrate. Some of you have been waiting to hear Dave Ramsey say go enjoy your money. This is your this is it. This is I'm giving you permission. I'm giving you a directive come with us to Grand Cayman and Cosmell and Jamaica and the Bahamas. March 14 through 21 new wealth building techniques. We're going to take some of the stuff from investing essentially. I was going to take some of that. That stuff was real popular though the night. I'm going to do some of that on the cruise. I think of that. I think of some of the estate planning things and how do I keep from some people when they start making money they're they worry about how do you keep from ruining your kids. You know, how do you how do you make them grow up and be functional? Well, we're going to talk about that.

24:47Rachel Cruz probably got something to say about that. The nurturing of her mother, the harshness of her father and all that, right? Perfect. Lens perfect blend. Hey, baby step forward and beyond. You are officially directed to go to the website and only get the live like no one else cruise Ramsey solutions dot com slash events book your cabin before they're gone. They will be gone. Now listen, it's after Labor Day, all you people that have the summer in vacation. Now March is going to be here in about 20 seconds. Yeah. And it's only $600 to put your deposit down and hold your cap. Yeah. That's a deal. You can do that and baby stuff for you. And now you can afford it because you're not broke anymore. I love it. Looking forward to having you guys going to be fun. Jason Salt Lake, hi Lee, how are you? I am good. Thanks. How are you better than I deserve? How can we help? Good. I am a single mom. I'm 29 years old and I have a four year old son. I left an abusive relationship about four to five years ago and it's just been me and

25:49my son. I home school. I've been working remotely for the past three years. My job just announced that our company is shutting down and that I have about three weeks left. I have no debt. I'm on baby stuff three, trying to be on baby stuff three. I only have about $2,000 in savings. I've been applying like crazy. I've probably put in 100 applications this past week just trying to find a remote job. But yeah, I was just calling to get financial advice like what I should do. I'm just afraid because I don't have a lot of savings that we'll go home with. I don't get a job. I was only getting 2400 a month. Okay. Okay. And you've just been applying for jobs that are just out there. Have you reached out to people in your community and your network and said, hey, you have looking? Do you know of anyone? Yeah, I try to ask all my friends. I'm looking for a remote job.

26:51Why are you looking for a remote job? I was going to say when you say only remote, you're narrowing your pool so small. Like 90% of the job just came off the table. Yeah. Yeah, it's because my son is still home with me. Yeah. Do you have family in the area? I don't. Where is your family? They're in Arizona. Okay. You may be soon. If you had an in-person job where you made double, could you do daycare? I possibly, I just prefer, like if I can, I prefer to homeschool. I prefer you not starve. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I've grown out of your rental house. And get thrown out of your rental house. I've got a period for daycare. Yeah. I prefer you not get thrown out of your rental house and not have food. That's the first thing. We have to survive first. Then we can work on preferences. And you've got the fuse burning on a stick of dynamite. You've got three weeks as long as the fuse is. And then your world's going to blow up.

27:52So yeah, you don't, I prefer no longer is available. I think you've got to put in for whatever is out there, including in-person. And I think I heard you say you had a bad experience with daycare. There's really great daycares out there. And my guess is that if you are making 24, you might have scrimped on the daycare that you are going to. But if you have a little bit of a higher paying job, you might be able to look at some nicer facilities. Is that fair? Yeah, I was making about $17. My current job right now is I just not sure how much more. You're starving to death. I think it's because you've narrowed your pool so far. I think that if you go out and you're looking at in-person jobs full time, what's your area? What's your area of expertise? What do you in your field? I have a bachelor's in hospitality and tourism management. You have a four-year degree in hospitality and you're making $17 an hour. Yeah, you ought to be able to get out. You ought to be able to go manage a hotel or all or manage a restaurant or get in line

28:56to do that and make a lot more than that. I think you've just narrowed your pool. I know I've said that, but I think that you're so tunnel-visioned on taking care of the four-year-old. The truth is, he's going to be in kindergarten in a year anyway. Yeah. I think part of my problem too is that I've just always wanted to be a state-home mom and so that dream of home schooling I have, but yeah, financially it's a hard part. That's the hard part. Here's the thing. You've got competing priorities because you've got this value of wanting to be a home school. Then you've got a priority that really is a responsibility of bringing in enough money for your family. You're the sole provider. When that happens, sometimes you have to reorder your priorities. Even if it's temporary in this season, you're going to have to prioritize earning money for your family first. The hard thing with priorities is everything wants to be number one, but that's just not reality. Math says that earning money at a career has got to be number one. And just remember, it's for season Lea, you might pop back and be doing so well that

30:00your season changes and you're able to shift in some ways. We don't know what that looks like, but just think everything is in seasons for life. It doesn't necessarily have to be like that forever. You've come through an extremely emotionally damaging process, leaving it abusive relationship and clinging to this child and just trying to make sure the child is okay and surviving. You're being a good mama bear and you're putting your arms around your baby and that's noble and that's exactly what you should do. You're not in the middle of all the emotion of your former abuse and so we don't have that. All we see is that our friend, Lea, that we love needs to get a job so she can feed herself and her baby. And that's first. All the other stuff is second and that includes remote work is second.

31:04This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I know a lot of you out there are trying to keep it together all the time. You show up to work, you pay the bills, you smile at the right times, but then no one sees you snap at your spouse or lie awake all night running through everything you'd wish you'd done differently during the day. Just because you're functioning doesn't mean you're okay. Talking to someone else is a great way to process what's happening in your life and get to the root of your challenges. That's where BetterHelp comes in. BetterHelp matches you with one of their 30,000 licensed therapists, someone you can be

32:04real with and finally put down some of the weight you've been carrying and come up with a plan for getting well. They can help you get perspective and see the other side of your situation and help you with a plan for moving forward. BetterHelp Therapist all follow a strict code of ethics and if the first therapist isn't to write fit, you can switch for no extra cost. Asking for help before you hit a wall isn't weakness, it's wisdom and strength. If you're exhausted from always having to hold everything together, trust a BetterHelp therapist to help you carry the load. Go to BetterHelp.com slash Ramsey for 10% off. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey. Amanda is in Jacksonville. Hi, Amanda. How are you? Hi. I'm so excited to talk to you. You too. What's up? I need help convincing my husband that the mortgage tax benefit doesn't outweigh paying

33:08off our home tomorrow. Do you guys actually itemize? I know. At least just whatever, tarot tax. No, there is no mortgage tax benefit unless you itemize and only about 4% of Americans itemize. You're known we do not. You do not have a mortgage tax benefit. You never listen to you. No, it doesn't matter whether you listen to me. You do not have a mortgage tax benefit if you do not itemize, nor do you have a charitable deduction if you don't itemize because you're taking the standard deduction and the standard deduction does not allow you to list off other things that you want to deduct on your taxes. Instead, you take one deduction, the standard one, and you waive the others which are smaller anyway than the standard deduction. So you're probably not itemizing, so your mortgage tax deduction, mythology, it doesn't

34:12occur. You don't get one. Okay. So you have the money in the account to pay off the mortgage? Yeah, we have 235,000 and our house is 94,000. And why does he like being in debt? Well we met with a financial advisor, like an intro meeting as she was trying to convince him that we should invest that instead of paying off. Oh, you need a different financial advisor. Mm-hmm. I like that. Yeah, you need to go to Smart Vestor Pro at Ramsey Solutions.com and find someone that has a brain. There is money. I mean, it almost feels like you could do both and maybe that's the way you approach him. There's 234,000 dollars sitting there in savings. You take the 94 and pay off the mortgage, you take another chunk and invest it and then keep your three to six months. Is that, is your three to six months included in that 234?

35:12Yeah. Yeah. That way everybody's happy. He gets to invest a little, you get to pay off the mortgage and you've still got your stack of cash there for an emergency. Okay. That sounds good. If he listens. If he listens, that's the, you know, we've done all the other things. Yes, in our 401Ks, our kids have their Florida pre-paid plans set up. They have their own checking account. What's the mortgage payment? What do you guys pay every month on the mortgage? It's about 1200, but that includes taxes. Right. I mean, and that's the other thing. I mean, I would sit down with him tonight. This is, if you, if I were in your shoes, I would sit down and I'd say, here's the money we have. I would like to do this, pay off the mortgage, and then once the mortgage is clear, whatever is left, let's say I don't know what your taxes and insurance are, let's just cut it in half. I'll do you guys. I'm 39 years 43. Okay.

36:12Let's say, let's take $600 and let's start investing that every single month, along with the extra cash that's sitting in that account. And over time, Dave, do you have it in there? Well, I just put $1,500 a month for the next 25 years, okay, which puts you guys into your 60s. You'll be 65, you'll be 67, okay? So 1500, your house payment plus a little bit is 2,364,000. That's what that house payment is costing you. Yeah. So anyone that tells you to keep that house payment is a mathematical moron for a tax benefit that you're not eligible for anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Play this for him because he's wrong and we're right. Well, and has it, and your financial advisor is not giving a good advice. They make, they don't make commission on the amount you're used to pay off your mortgage.

37:14They only make commission based on what you buy with them. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So there's a little conflict of interest in that advice. I will actually defend the financial advisor and say it's probably not his motivation. He probably just believes the lie that a lot of people believe. But what we know from having done the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, 10,167 of them, the typical millionaire in their first one to fill. $85 million of net worth that we found, like 80 to 90% of them fall in this category, have a paid off home that's worth $67,800,000 and they have money. It's gone into their 401k. That's worth $67,800,000. Those two numbers added together are a million to two million dollars. And that's the typical person that does this. The number of millionaires, not broke financial advisors with an opinion, the number of millionaires

38:15who said, Dave, the reason we became a millionaire was we didn't pay off our house and we invested the money instead. And that caused us to be a millionaire. The number of 10,000 millionaires that said that was zero. Can I ask another stat? How many people in all your years on radio who you have guided to pay their mortgage off? How many of you have called back and said, Dave Ramsey, you fool, I paid off my mortgage. You run to my life. I can tell you that there are entire websites devoted to hating me, entire segments of Reddit devoted to hating Dave Ramsey. I mean, type in Dave Ramsey sucks. It goes on for days. Never will you find a single person that said, Dave told me to pay off my house and I hate Dave for that reason. Not one. Not one. No one regrets it. If Amanda, you all pay off your house and you hate being debt free, you can go get a new

39:18mortgage and get back in debt. But I've never heard anyone do that. I've never seen it. I just woke up and I just felt all clammy and I anxiety and I was having a panic attack and it was four o'clock in the morning because I don't have a mortgage. No one has ever said that. So I had to rush down and get me a new mortgage because I just couldn't have peace when I was completely debt free. No one has ever said that. This is, if you think about it, it's kind of freaking common sense until some goober tries to put a half-butt math formula to something that left out all the other aspects of this. The number of people that said, I got a divorce because we just couldn't get along after we paid off our mortgage. Right. The paid off mortgage was the end of our marriage. That was zero. No. Zero. Nobody. Nada.

40:19None. Wow. I mean, that's a big stat. You've been sitting in this chair for a long time. Almost 40 years. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, and there's everyone hates me for some reason or another except that one. Except that one. That's a good point. Interesting. Now, the people that live in a test tube and they want to argue about concepts, but I'm talking about the, they all hate me on this because they are the financial planner that this guy went to, right? But the people who actually did it, never a problem. Cut up your credit cards and pay off all your debt. I've never even had anybody get mad at me that actually did it for that. Yeah. For that. I hate it that I paid off my car. I feel, I hate you, Dave. I've never had that one. These are not things we get. We get a lot of hate, but a lot of it is from people that have been drinking hate or aid. Yeah. And they're just stuck on some, they don't want to do something or they don't agree with

41:22it, but they've never done it. That's right. So they really don't have these spirits. If you've ever actually been 100% debt free. If you've had the unbelievable thrill of placing scissors across a credit card and saying, take that city bank, discover this. I'm done with American distress. If you've ever had the pleasure of a plastic to me, I promise you, you will never go, oh, I so miss my credit card. You know, those airline miles, I can't fly anywhere because I don't have any airline miles. No, you can go anywhere you want to go because you got money. And no blackout days. Money. You know, all those airlines, they take money. I know, that's right. That's the thing. And this is how this whole thing works. That's so fun. That's a great question, Jay. Thank you. Yeah. It's just to enter it. It's so, it's so humerus. It is. When I run into somebody, I was at a restaurant this weekend, we stopped in. Lady came over the table and she said, thank you. And you know, she's someone who actually did it.

42:22She's not someone who talked about the theory of it. Yeah. That's the big difference. Hey, George Campbell here. Listen, if you're behind on debt payments and drowning in debt, I already know what you're thinking. I can't afford a lawyer to help. And honestly, that's exactly what creditors are counting on. But here's what most people don't know. Guardian litigation group doesn't work like a traditional law firm. There's no massive retainer. There's no hourly billing that costs more than the debt itself. Guardian is a law firm built specifically for people in default behind on payments or staring down bankruptcy. And their model is designed so people in that situation can actually access real legal protection. From day one, you're assigned an attorney. If a creditor sues you, you have someone who can actually represent you, not a call

43:23center that isn't built to defend you in things escalate. The best path out of debt is still doing it the right way, budgeting, working the plan, changing the behavior. But if you've already hit a wall and you need real help, guardian delivers. Their attorneys have settled over $600 million in debt for more than 55,000 people. So go check it out for yourself. Guardianlit.com slash Ramsey. That's guardianlit.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, J. Warshall, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Hazel is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi Hazel, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I am just wondering what kind of advice you have for blended families.

44:27I have three teenagers from a first marriage and I have two toddlers with my care husband. And my older boy's dad does not like to pay his portion of the bills and it makes my husband really upset so much so that he then has a hard time wanting to pay anything for my older boys. And I am totally supportive of having a joint account if you guys teach. But my husband just hasn't wanted to do that since married. We've been married for almost seven years. And now I'm wondering if that's even a good idea because I find myself like paying for a thing on an account and not telling him which I know I shouldn't be doing but also like I have to pay for things when I come to my older kids and I'm just looking for some advice. The three teenagers they're in the house, they're not like 18 and 19 right? They're in the house?

45:27Yeah, I have a 19 year old who is leaving soon but yeah, they're all in the house right now. And so when you say he doesn't want to combine money, it's not just he didn't want to pay for the same thing. He doesn't want to pay for the fact that you have kids. How did you all not discuss this before you got married? I know. Well, we did. That's the thing that I have a hard time with is he was, how did different attitude before we had our own children together and since having his own children in the house like the attitude has just been so different towards my older teenagers. So he even treats the boys different? To me he does. When he is with them face to face, he's kind to them. But when it comes to like paying for sports, paying for school, just things that like parents pay for, it just causes an argument every time. You don't have a combining money problem and you don't have a who pays for what problem.

46:32You have a marriage problem. Yeah. I had a feeling that's what you were going to tell me. What's the best way to talk about this with him? With a mediator and counseling. Okay. Yeah. And I would talk to him about it tonight. I would say the more I've been thinking about this, we've got some issues in our family and I think you and I need to talk about them and I would love to do that with a counselor because I think they can give us an unbiased look at what's going on and offer some unbiased advice to us. And give us some tools to work through this because otherwise this is not going to go well because if you make me choose between my boys and you, we don't want to have that choice to have to be made and you're forcing me to do that and I'm not going to do that. Yeah. It's not what I signed up for. It's not what we agreed to before we got married. And now it's come up again and again and again and now I feel like I'm having to sneak

47:34to take care of my own children and that ends today. Great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. How long have you been married? Next month it'll be seven years. So you want a prediction? Yeah. It's going to be okay. Okay. Because I think as soon as you call him out and he sees what he's doing in the mirror, he's going to stop because he's a good man. Yeah. He is a good man and that's the prediction. That's my prediction. I just don't think he's seen himself in the mirror lately. And this discussion, this discussion with a good counselor puts a mirror up in front of this behavior and I think he'll stop. I also want to add this and I may be wrong but you've been married seven years and you've got two little ones. Like this just started when the other two were born. My guess is it may not have much to do with your boys and it may have to do with him feeling like he can't provide for this family.

48:38Okay. And so are y'all coming up short on money? No. No, he makes good money. We have decent savings. I actually don't know really what he's got in his like for O&K and Roth. He's always just kept that separately. He's always said like I always should combine it but we never did. Never did. Yeah. I can never do this. Yeah. But that this little bit of secrecy on your side and on his side both is starting to really cause it's going to grow into a problem unless you nip it. Yeah. So you guys need to come clean and say we have five children in this house. We are going to care for as long as they are in this house. We are going to care for them equally and totally both of us. And we are going to disclose 100% of the financial transactions in this house and all the passwords to everything starting now. That's a real marriage when there's that level of trust and that level of alignment on

49:39our goals and our visions. It's going to increase the quality of your relationship to know in but you guys got some sandpaper to get there. Absolutely. It's going to get some rough edges knocked off to get there. So that's that's you know, that's the direction. So yeah. And Hazel is like, I know you were going to say that. We're fairly predictable around here. Yeah. And honestly, and I know people are afraid of that. But that's one, I feel like that's one of the great benefits of marriage is you've got this other person that you can be your 100% self. Self. That you don't have to hide a bunch of things. You don't have to hide who you are and the things that you're struggling with. You have a person. That's the whole point. It's crazy. Yeah. But I, this guy doesn't send, I think he's just, I think you're right. Maybe there's a sense of scarcity. I think something's going on there. And he's pissed at the X for not doing his part. Yeah. That's a valid, that's a valid.

50:39And he's like, come on man, take care of your kids. Come on man, man. But in the process, he's not man enough. Yeah. He's just taking out his feelings in the wrong way. And I really do think that I got a feeling this is a good guy. Yeah. And I call you out if you're not believing me. I'm pretty quick, especially somebody being a whus. But this guy, I think he's good, dude. I think you just got to have some clarity here and, you know, some exposure therapy. Exposed, exposed, your, your pro, expose yourself to yourself kind of thing. Like, oh, look at who I am. I don't like that. I don't think I am that anymore. Ready set go. And therapy is a good thing. I think all couples need to visit the office of a counselor here and there. I think it's a good practice just to make sure that everything's going good. You know, we wanted to go in a bad time. We've been married 44 or 45 years almost. And at 10 years, we went bankrupt at seven years. And we didn't kill each other then, but we didn't have the money to leave. So we just kind of, we just kind of stuffed everything. And about three years later, when I started making money,

51:42all that stuff kind of resurrected, we all started coming out. And so we ended up in the marriage counselor's office. And I thought it was so that, you know, the murder didn't occur or something like that, because that's the way she's going to kill me. And, but what it ended up being was, it was like going to a personal trainer. They teach you the right way to do the exercise. That's right. They teach you the right nutrition, the right tools to win in that area. And so I looked, I looked at it as I was just going to class. I had a personal trainer for relationships. And man, I got a lot out of it. It's so helpful.

52:45If you or someone you love is dealing with a complex health issue, navigating the healthcare system can feel like a full time job that you never signed up for. Several months ago, my family experienced multiple emergency healthcare situations. And little did we realize what kind of nightmare we were in for beyond the medical issues, dealing with different schedules and signatures from different providers, scheduling appointments, decoding all of the medical jargon, figuring out medical billing and the mountains of paperwork. All of this on top of being sick or scared and dealing with the challenges and disruptions to our home. Like me, most people go through this alone, but not anymore. The next time a medical challenge arises in my home, one of my first calls will be to Salis Health. Salis Health is extraordinary. They pair patients with a personal advocate, someone with an average of 16 years of healthcare experience, whose entire job is to fight for you so you get the care and honest answers you need.

53:48And Salis is covered by insurance. They handle the paperwork, battle claims denials from the insurance companies, and make sure you're not getting lost in a system that was intentionally designed to be confusing. So you and your loved ones can focus on getting well. With Salis, you have someone who knows how to fight for you and who will. Go to SalisHealth.com slash Ramsey or click the link in the description to see if you qualify. It takes about two minutes. That's S-O-L-A-C-E, SalisHealth.com slash Ramsey. Must be 18 or older. Advocates do not provide medical or legal advice. Well, we wish we could get to every call and a question here on the show. We can't because you can't get through on all these phones. Sorry about that. If you have a money question and you want an answer for your situation head on over to our website and use Ask Ramsey,

54:53Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on proven Ramsey principles. You'll get an answer the same way we'd answer it right here on the show. Ask your question today at RamseySolutions.com or click the link in the description. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Evelyn is in Knoxville. Hi Evelyn. How are you? Hi, I'm doing great. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? I'm in a little bit of an impasse right now. I'm trying to figure out if I should go back to work full time right now or just wait it off. Wait, what off? To go back to the full time force right now. I'm doing a part time job. Evening. So I stay home with my daughter during the day. Okay. So you're considering going back to work because you need more money or because your daughter is getting older like what's causing you to hit this crossroads?

55:53Yeah, good question. I got a call from a former co-worker saying there was a position available soon. My husband and I are maybe step four. We are trying to do the best that we can with our income. We don't have a very high income. He's trying to find a job right now that pays more. If you're telling me we don't have a high income and he's not working much and you're working part time, I am looking for I would be looking for a full time job. How much are you guys bringing in every month? Oh, no, he is working much. He's working full time job. He's just not making as much as he wants to. What's he made? What's he made? What's he made? He makes 50, 50k. Okay. What can you make at the new full time gig? 50k. And the trade off is that you currently make how much at your part time? Right now because it's a server positions tip base.

56:55So it would be about 20, 25 grand. Okay. So you can increase, you can double your income and you have one child and the child is how old? Two. And so the child would be in daycare. She's two. Did you hear that? She would be in daycare then, correct? If you took the job. Correct. Yeah. Okay. So the trade off is do I want to put a child into daycare, much out into daycare so that I can make $25,000 a year more? Correct. Yeah. And that's where I'm at a bit of an impact. That's not an impact. It's just a decision. Neither one is the wrong answer. You're in baby step four. Is there a reason that you need the money? Does your mortgage fit within what he earns and what you earn part time? Now the mortgage that's before, before when we made, we both had an income. The mortgage does not fit into the income. Okay. Right now the mortgage went up so we're at 14, 56 from on.

57:59Okay. So do you, if you don't take this job, can you stay in that house? Yes. The way that we're making it work. So basically we started, I started aggressively putting money towards the, not me, sorry, literally to you guys aggressively. And then because of that started putting lots of money into the mortgage. So this is the first month that we're kind of taking a step back just to invest because we were not investing the 15%. We were just wanting to be done with the mortgage, but that'll take a while. So we are trying to figure out, you know, I still think this is high for you. Because if you're telling me he's bringing in after tax around 34, is that true? No, so he's 2800. Okay. Even less. He does have a pension. No, no, no, just after tax dollars after tax, after tax, he should have around 33, 34 a month.

59:00Yeah. And then you with the, with the 2500, I mean, what do you bring in 1500? If that, it's about 2200 is the average or the median. Okay. Okay. I mean, it's, it's combined. It's about 5,000 of 50,500. Yeah. Okay. It's tight, but you can make it work. I see what you're doing. So it does come down. Okay, we can make the housework. We can make the housework. So the only question is, do at this stage, do we want, do you want to work full time? I not have the server job. And, and your child will be in daycare. There's neither one is a sin. Neither one's horrible. It's a personal choice. Okay. If you told me you were going to make 10,000 more, you're going to spend that on daycare. So I wouldn't do it. Right. But you're going to make 25 or 30,000 dollars more. And his income's going to go up. So if you want to go back to your career, back to your old company, that's fine.

1:00:02But just because they have a position available, doesn't mean they won't have one later. You could say, third option is, I'm going to continue like we are temporarily. And maybe in two years or three years when junior goes to kindergarten, maybe then I'll go to full time. Yeah. Because daycare won't be quite as expensive when I've got a date, when I've got school. So anyway, that all of that. And so you just got to work it through that way and decide, I don't think there's a wrong answer. I don't either. And I like what you said, Dave, you can go on a path and then look up and go, does it still feel right? If it does, keep going. If it doesn't, you make changes. Yeah, that doesn't have to be that. That job is not the only job. And it's not, might not even be the only time that job is there. That's right. So I didn't even ask what the field was and that might have even added to that. April is in Atlanta. Hi, April. How are you? April. April. How are you? One more time. April, April, April.

1:01:03Three, two, one. All right, we'll go back. Karen is in Oregon. Hi, Karen. How are you? Good. Thank you. Um, my question today is I'm 61 and I have retirement, many and I put it. I'm no longer working out of the house. I'm taking care of my mom. But I went to a fiduciary at our credit union and he put it in stocks and bonds. And I feel like they're too risky for my age. Just I started last year and I've been losing every cent. I know it's a long time thing. You've been losing in the last year. Yeah. Well, it's not too risky. It's just the wrong ones. It's awful. How much did you start with and how much do you have now? Well, um, started with about 84 and the first quarter of the thing I looked at, I lost 5,000.

1:02:05And which quarter, the first quarter of this year? No, it would have been I put it in like July last year and then December when I got my first statement, I had lost 5,000. How much do you have today? Do you know? I would say I'm down 8,000 from the 84. Okay, this guy is the world's worst picker of fun. I'm sorry, I stopped looking at the. It's the world's worst. He's the world's worst. No, stop. He's the world's worst picker of funds. While you've done that, I've been in a 100% growth stock mutual fund and I've almost doubled my money while you lost 8,000. Okay. And I'm 66. Oh no. My husband also went to him and lost money in the first thing. So, so long term thing. Let's. No, it's not a long term thing. Long, you don't do long term when the market is going up and your investments are going down. You don't do that long term. That's just immediately over. Do not pass go. You're fired. So, um, yeah, go to Ramsey Solutions.com, click on Smart Vestor Pro.

1:03:07And pick out a Smart Vestor Pro that you can sit down with that has the heart of a teacher. And never again put money in something because someone else says to do it, do it because you understand it and you select it. Yeah. If you pull up, Dave, you always have that S&P 500 thing. If you pull up that and look at it, you can see the fact that you've lost apparently quarter over quarter and 8,000 dollars year to date is, is crazy work compared to what the stock market is actually doing. Yeah, let's see, it's 12.24. It's up today since the first of the year. Year to date, it's up 12 percent since the first of the year. That's not an 8,000 dollar loss on 84,000. That's a 12,000 dollars and 8,000 dollar gain on 84,000. That's right. That you should have had. And that's just if you only did what the S&P did. And... Which means he's got... That's all. Yeah, that's not doing well. Yeah. Horrible. Scary. Yeah.

1:04:28Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. When it comes to life insurance, most people fall into one of two camps. The ones who make a plan to protect their family. And the ones who hope everything will just work out. But hope isn't a financial plan. When you get married or have kids, your money decisions aren't just about you anymore. Your income helps keep the lights on, pay the mortgage, and put food on the table. And if something happens to you, will your family have protection or uncertainty? Well, at Ramsey, we recommend term life insurance that 10 to 12 times your income with a 15 to 20 year term for the years that your kids are at home and your mortgage is still being paid off. That's why Winston and I have our term life coverage through Zander Insurance. They're an independent broker who works for you, shopping all the top companies to find the most competitive prices on coverage you need. Get instant quotes online in just minutes at zander.com or call 800-356-4282

1:05:28to get your family protected with term life insurance. That zander.com or 800-356-4282. Jay to talk about this a little bit the other night on the investing essentials. And after our last call, I'm going to talk about it again for just a second. All right. Conventional wisdom isn't. It's not wise. If you follow conventional wisdom on the average diet in America, you will be obese. If you follow conventional wisdom on the proper way to be married, you won't be long. If you follow conventional wisdom, you would get a credit card when you turn 17 or 18 so that you

1:06:32can build your FICO score. Why? So that you can borrow money to buy a car. Why? To build your FICO score so that you can borrow money to buy a house. Why? So that you can build your FICO score to make the banks rich. Because your FICO score is not a measure of winning with money, but conventional wisdom says to build your FICO score. Conventional wisdom also in the financial planning world says that as you get older, you're supposed to move your investments to less risky. And if you read anywhere on the internet among the stupid thousands of articles that are out there, they teach you thing that the financial planning industry has called conventional wisdom, called the asset allocation theory, your asset allocation model, which means that you allocate more of your assets to bonds and money markets as you get older so that you are safer. That is conventional

1:07:34wisdom and conventional wisdom isn't. Here's why. As you move your money from good growth stock mutual funds into bonds, they underperform dramatically. As we told the last call our year to date on the S&P 500, my stock growth stock mutual fund in an S&P has averaged 12.2%. You know what the bond market has averaged since the beginning of the year? Less than 1%. Oh gosh, I was going to guess higher. That's bad. And so she calls up and says, I have followed conventional wisdom and my fiduciary, which is a funny term for someone that's supposed to have your best interest at heart, but used conventional wisdom and screwed up everything. So this Boza with the credit union put her into bonds, some equities and some cash, which is what conventional wisdom says to do when you're 61.

1:08:39So she's lost $8,000 when she should have made $8,000, which is a $16,000 swing, which is somewhere around 25% on $84,000 because she's off because she followed the advice of someone who was giving conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is what normal people, everyone believes without question and they just follow each other around until they walk off a cliff together. Yeah, because he didn't notice that she was losing. Yeah. And she was told that she should be in something safer, and yet she lost money. And so her response was, I'm not in something safe enough. Instead of I'm in the wrong thing, she believed the lie about part of it, but didn't understand the situation. So the idea that you need to move to all of your investments to a safer, a safe haven of bonds and cash, where you make no money, as you get older, is absolute bull crap. It's mathematically stupid,

1:09:42because there's two kinds of risk with money, boys and girls. There's a risk of actually losing it because it goes down in value. There's another kind of risk. If you don't make 4.2% on your money, which is the inflation rate, then you are going backward in real purchasing power. Oh, as a matter of fact, if you're going to have to pay taxes on it, you need to make a little over 6% in order to net 4.2% after taxes to break even with inflation and taxes. If you're using the asset allocation model, and you're in bonds and cash as a part of your portfolio, 40, 50% of your portfolio, you're not even keeping up with inflation. You've gotten tackled from behind. And God willing, she lives from 61 until I don't know 80 or 81. So what usually happens to a Ramsey follower, if they follow the stuff, is there in the four types of growth stock mutual funds, no bonds, no cash. And we don't tell you to change that as you get older. And here's why. Because if you follow the stuff we're talking about, the guy who I want to go, he said, if you just put your house pay in a way, it was going to be $3 million,

1:10:45right? $2.2 million. So you're going to millions of dollars in these mutual funds. I'm 66. I have millions of dollars in my mutual funds. Now, if I have millions of dollars in my mutual funds, and they go down this year, am I okay? You'll be just fine. I think I'll be okay. But they went up 12.2 year to date. And last year, they were at 18. And the other years, they're averaging over 12. And the last five years, that two million would have become four million and five years, just by leaving it alone. Meanwhile, someone following conventional wisdom, it's my age, has lost millions of dollars in opportunity. Millions. Oh, and guess what? I'm 66. You think I'm ever going to touch that money, probably? No. I might live off of the income, because it'll generate two. If you had two million dollars, it'll generate $152,000 a year in income, and not ever touch it. So my ever got even got to touch it. No, I'm not going to touch it. So it

1:11:46doesn't really matter what it's in, as long as it's producing income. And so, who am I actually investing it for? Oh, me when I'm 96, because if I'm 66 and I'm healthy, statistically, I make it into my 90s. Now, if I'm not healthy at 66, we can change that, but I'm healthy. So knock on what I make it into my 90s. So I have 30 years to outpace inflation. And if I go with conventional wisdom, my two million dollars will be worth less than it is now in actual real purchasing power, because of adjusted for taxes and inflation. So that's just as a nine. Use your own brain to think about these things. Don't use somebody who follows everybody else around. Yeah. Don't be normal. Use your own brain. So that pisses off half of the financial planning world, which really keeps me very happy. I'm one of my goals in life. April is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, April, what's up?

1:12:49So I have a, a, a, a, a, a, a, the dumbest dumb question. Oh, like honestly, you know, so I am married. I have, and we have a mutual income of a lot of money. I mean, we make about half a million dollars a year between the two of us. You know, so we, we are in a good financial place. But the thing is, is I also know that we've been made for about 15 years. I also know that he has always put money away in investments that he has controlled. And so I have never really looked at that. I know it's about maybe two million at this point, like the last time I ever, you know, looked at it. So my thing is, is now we're, we're thinking about divorce. And, and this is a real situation for us, is that we, it's not that we don't love each other anymore. It's just, it's just not working anymore. And it's,

1:13:50it's a mutual decision. But my thing is, is at this point, do I just walk away from this money or, you know, because he's kept that separate from me for this long. I have money too. I make 260. So how much money do you have? How much money do you have an investment? So I have about a million and one, like one point, I'm looking at my investment account right now. I have about 1.1 million in investments on my own, in, in my own money. So he's got two million. He's got one point. The, the law in Georgia does not say you have your own money. So the law in Georgia is 50%. I know. Right. That, all of it goes in a pile, all of the money goes in a pile. And we split it down the middle. Yes. And yours and his are not yours and his. It's ours until we split it. Right. We have two children. They're nine and seven, you know, like so and he has done the very, what's just,

1:14:54what's, let's be very honest. Let, you know, he's lived a really good, dad life. So the question is, do you, do you, if you're, yeah, all we can do is tie how great this guy is and I'm divorcing him. Yeah. It's just so strange. You may have kept your money separate, but it's your money goes in a pile and you split it down the middle. It's what the law says. And if he doesn't abide by the law, it's not going to be good for him. This good dad is not going to go well with the judge. When you take your car to the shop, you're probably thinking two things. How much is this going to cost me and is it going to get done right? What you need is a mechanic who will give you transparent information so you can make the best decision for your car and your wallet. Christian Brothers

1:15:58Automotive is the official auto repair shop of the Ramsey show because you can trust them to take care of your vehicle the right way. Their digital vehicle inspections let you see exactly what their technicians see giving you confidence on which repairs are urgent and which ones can wait. Plus every repair is backed by their nice difference warranty three years or 36,000 miles with a guarantee like that. You can walk away knowing that your car and your wallet are taking care of. Schedule your service today and get 10% off your visit at CBAC.com slash Ramsey or click the link in the description that CB AC dot com slash Ramsey 10% off up to a $250 value see store for details. Ramsey show question of the day is sponsored by why refi if your private student loan payments are

1:17:05out of control and behind. You might feel stuck like you're out of options. Why refi was built for borrowers in difficult situations helps you explore refinancing options that fit real life budgets. Visit whyrefy.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Okay, today's question comes from Steve in Vermont. He says you often say investing in mutual funds in real estate are your two go to options. Would you ever suggest REITs as an alternative to purchasing real estate in order to get in at a lower price point. I've never heard you do that. I've always heard you say if you're going to have 5% to just play around with and do things like crypto single stocks. REITs would kind of fall into that category. You know, REITs used to fall into that category. I think you're right. REIT stands for REIT real estate investment trust and it's basically a mutual fund that buys real

1:18:06estate. But there's a lot of different types. There's a lot of different types and when they first came out, I don't know 25 or 30 years ago, I first started seeing them. I just told people stay away from them because in those days, the fees being charged to manage the property was so high that the yield to the actual rate of return on buying the mutual fund was low. In these days, though, I've seen a lot of the current REITs that are yielding up around what you might make on a regular gross stock mutual fund. So you're getting up around 10, 12, 15%, somewhere in there. I've seen REITs that are doing that. So if you wanted to do a REIT as a way to get to real estate, I would. That'd be okay. Pick out one with a good track record. Get with a Smart Vestor Pro. They could help you pick one. We have a really great article also on Ramsey Solutions and it goes through the different type, the equity, the mortgage, the hybrids, and it'll kind of explain all of those to you. Equity is basically buying real estate with equity,

1:19:09which is what I would say. That's what you want. That's the one I would do. Because this is a way to put in $10,000 and be in the real estate market without having to buy a house. Right. But you do want to stay away from the mortgage ones because those actually take on debt in many cases. Exactly. It's exactly right. So, and that article is on our website. It can give you more detail. But overall, I would not do this until you were ready to buy real estate, which would be baby steps seven. Yeah, they're home is paid off. Your home is paid off and you've got, you know, 15% or more going into the four types of growth stock mutual funds that we talk about, growth, growth income, aggressive growth. This is not a substance to- You're not using part of your 15% on this. Yeah, it's not a substitute for your normal investing plan with the baby steps. Okay. It's in addition to. So, let's say your house is paid off and you're putting 15, 20% away for retirement and you got some extra money and you're thinking about buying real estate with it. Yeah. But you don't quite have enough to do that yet and you want to buy a reate instead. I love that.

1:20:10That's an okay place, but that's the only time and that's a very small percentage of our listeners. True that. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. So, you've got to get there first before we talk about it. And no, I would not do a reate instead of growth stock mutual funds. And I think that's what Steve was asking. In addition to. Yeah. He's got the real estate bug and he's wanting to get in there quick and get in there easy and that's not what we want to do. So, you're going to buy, you're going to buy it like you do any long-term investment you're planning to hold it 5, 10, 20 years, that kind of thing and then you're going to be all right. John's in Columbus, Ohio, hi John, how are you? Good, how about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so I had a question for you. I wanted to really weigh the pros and cons. So, I know you're not really for bankruptcy but I wanted to see what you got in my situation. There'd be a chapter 13. So, I'm about $200,000 in unsecured debt. That includes anything from

1:21:15payday loans to hangers credit cards. I'm spending around $9,000 a month and I think I bring home around 11,800 after tax. So, not much left. I've tried to do like the debt snowball and it doesn't really get anywhere. Look what is all the debt 200,000 unsecured? Yes. What do you own your cars? So, I got one car. I think I have around 27,000. Is that an addition to the 200? Yes. So, I mean, it's a test plus. I don't have to pay for gas. So, I mean, I don't know if I really make up for it but I can't keep it. No, it doesn't make up for it. You have $2,000 with a debt. Well, you have $200,000. How'd you get $200,000 unsecured debt? That's a good question. So, I was a realtor and right around the time COVID happened. I wasn't

1:22:23making much, maybe like $12,000 here. And I just started having to take out loans and that cover basic living expenses and then it's just kind of grew from there. You went a long time without working. So, 200,000 dollars worth of time without working? Because you're putting your life on credit cards instead of picking up a different job. Is it just you, John, or do you have a family, a wife? No, I have a wife. So, I mean, I'm going to bring it in the income. But I didn't really have gaps in employment or anything. But I was like making $12,000 and then I slowly progressed. We had over the last five years I went from 12 to $200. Well, that is a gap in income. If you tell me you're making $12,000 a year, that's not a big deal. If you tell me you lived on $200,000 worth of borrowed money, that's a gap in income. Or you were spending more than you, you know, one of the two.

1:23:24Yeah, I think it was just the payday loans, like the amount. So, like, because my salaries are at around 200 now, but with the payday loans and stuff, it's like I had to get, I had to pay. How much of the 200 is payday loans? It's probably 35 to 40,000. It's not the payday loans then. You still got $265,000 or $165,000 worth of other stuff. Does your wife know about this? She does. Okay. All of it? Yeah. Okay. All right, how long have you all been married? I don't know, about two, three years, but we've been together for 10 years. Okay. All right. Well, this is a very, very scary thing that you're in and to go through, sir. I've been there and I know how it feels to be standing in the shower and scream and cry because I was so scared. I didn't know what to do next. So, that's a mess. It's a real mess. You're really not bankrupt.

1:24:31And bankruptcies really not going to solve your problem because the chapter 13 is 60 months of paying payments on these. And there's a formula that's going to dictate that you pay a large sum of it, not all of it, but a large sum of it back. And if you're going to pay a large sum of it back in a chapter 13 over 60 months, then you can also pay a deal, work a deal with these people and work it through. We have an advertiser named Guardian Litigation that helps people in these exact situations and it's much easier and quicker than bankruptcy. Your credit is destroyed and it's going to continue to be destroyed. Good because John doesn't need to be borrowing money again. So, that's a good thing. But so just continue that idea. Your credit's destroyed. And then what is the the most efficient way to clean this mess up? Chapter 13 is not. When you run the actual formulas that are required by law against this debt, you're going to pay back a lot of this, not all of it,

1:25:36but a lot of it, because you make a lot. And so if you made $14,000 a year, then you wouldn't be paying back much of it, but the formula is based on your income. And so your, and the law wants you to pay as much as you can pay in bankruptcy or not in chapter 13 that is. And it's called a wage earners plan. So I'm going to put you on hold and we're going to connect you with the folks at Guardian Litigation and see if they can help you. I think they can. And basically what we're going to, what they're going to do is they're going to go through with each one of these and make a deal with them. And stop the interest and lower the balance and then pay it out. And the good news is if you keep paying, you know, $5,000, $7,000 a month, you're going to be out of this in a period of time that's shorter than five years. And you won't have filed bankruptcy. Hang on to your marriage brother. Sit down with your wife. Tell her you love her. You're important. You make a lot of money now. You can clean this mess up and learn from it. I'd never be back here again. I did.

1:26:48If you want to free up margin in your budget, one of the first things you should do is take a hard look at your monthly bills because every dollar you overpay is another dollar you don't have for reaching your financial goals. And overpaying for your phone bill, well that makes zero sense. And it's why I recommend Boost Mobile. Their unlimited plan is just $25 a month forever. No contracts, no hidden fees, no surprise price hikes. If you already have a phone you love, you can keep it and keep your number when you switch. And if you're skeptical, Boost Mobile offers a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can try it risk-free. Listen, your phone bill should fit your budget not the other way around. Reaching your financial goals is easier when you can pay less for the same service. Switching to Boost Mobile now is just a smart money move. Go to boostmobile.com. Slash Ramsey and make the switch today. That's boostmobile.com. Slash Ramsey.

1:27:50$25 forever requires customers to remain active on Boost Mobile and Limited Plan. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Farer Wins Credit Union studio. Jade Washall Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Noah's in Charleston, South Carolina. I know why were you? Hey Dave, I'm good. What's up? Hey, to me and my wife's both work full time and are in ministry full time. We just had our first kid a year ago and we bought a new house whenever we had him just to fit our family better. And now we're in way over our heads and I'm kind of stuck at what to do next. You're in way over your head with your mortgage? Yeah, it's their only

1:28:51their only debt. We don't have car payments, we don't want to steal loans. Did something change that caused you to be in over your head or you were it was kind of like that from the beginning? No, it wasn't always like that. We had a home that we purchased for a good price and we were able to sell it and make a good bit of money on and the next barrier to entry cost-wise for the housing market that we're in was pretty substantial and we thought we could make it work and it's just not working. Okay, so from the day you signed up for this current home you've been over your head. Yeah, pretty much. You bought a house you can't afford, so what are you going to do? Yeah, how much is it? You're either going to make more money or you're going to sell the house, which is it? We're both like in top kind of pay for the jobs that we're in for the

1:29:52ministries that we work for. What do you make a month? Our monthly income is $6,630. And how much is the mortgage? Our mortgage is $2,962.50. 50%. Yeah, but we I mean we luckily put the education you got to go in the ministry didn't include math. Unfortunately. Uh, messing with you, man, because you already knew the answer for you called. You bought a house you can't afford, you don't, you can't keep it. It's going to kill you. We're trying to figure out. It's taking all of your fun. The psalmist says the blessings of the Lord have no sorrow added to them. This is not from God as sorrow.

1:30:54Yeah, would the Charleston just have such a high housing market? Like we're in like the lower entry level housing market. You don't get a pass on math. Yeah, with that phrase. What was the one you sold? So it was built in the 1940s. It had, we had put 30,000 into it before we moved in and then it needed about another 115,000 if we were going to live there because it had really gotten mold and the name planning line needed to be done. I mean that price point of home, that square footage, couldn't that fit a family of three? Yes. Yes. Yeah, but in the market here, that is no 400. That is absolute hogwash. Okay, Charleston, South Carolina is not the most expensive

1:32:02market in the United States where you cannot live on $6,000 a month and buy a home that you can afford. You simply have justified and rationalized buying a house you cannot afford and honey, you're going to have to sell it. It's killing you. You do what you want to do. What you called us. And I think you move out a little bit further and have a little bit more of a commute and get out in the country, so to speak. The suburbs, one county over and you find a home that you can afford that doesn't have mold and you put yourself into that home. I good news is the market in Charleston is strong and so you'll probably be able to sell this and get out of it whole. You're probably not going to lose money and you can probably hang on a little while. You don't have to panic, so you don't have to fire sale the thing but you need to get a sign in the yard this week. And it needs to be gone by Thanksgiving. By we bought something we couldn't afford.

1:33:03Everybody listening to this just about has done that one time or no. Absolutely. It's just harder to go backwards when it's a house. It's easier to take something back to the store but when it's a house you feel a type of way about it. Yeah. Well, it's harder. It's even hard to go and look at houses in the neighborhood that you can afford after you looked at a house in the neighborhood. You've set the bar higher and now you've got a... Yeah, if you go drive a Lamborghini it's hard to settle on an Audi. Oh man. It's just hard. Yeah. I mean, and if you actually owned a Lamborghini that you couldn't afford and you have to sell it to get a used Audi. I don't know why I'm picking on Audi's today but a Volkswagen. It used a Jetta. How's that? Go get you a Jetta. No don't. The secret to have happiness lowered expectations. Exactly. Exactly. Well, the thing is, in an effort to create a good situation for your family, the two of you made a bad math decision that the irony is it has

1:34:07caused your family to be in a bad situation. Yeah. And so while the actual environment is nicer, everything about it reminds you that you've made a mistake. Yeah. And it's... When you drive up in front every day. It's... It's... It was an emotional thing because they knew going in. They couldn't do it. That they couldn't do it but they told themselves, oh we'll just eat peanut butter and junk. God will work it out. No, he won't. God can do math. He doesn't work it out. He says you have to sell your house. That's brutal. He brings miserable. He brings misery to you until you sell it. Yeah. It's hard. I'm sorry Noah. Yeah, that's tough. But now there's no question. You just did something and you got to undo it. You got to go back to the last time you had a good life. And it was before you bought this house. That's the last time. And then, yeah, you're going to move out. But no, Charles, don't believe this line. Charles, then South Freakin, Carolina is so expensive you can't afford to live there. It is expensive. They have expensive houses. They will. They do in

1:35:07every town. Yeah. I'm just saying you don't have to pick one of those. Freakin' Amarillo has expensive houses, but that you can't afford to live in. But every town has a house that you can't afford to live in, or seven, or 16, or 17,000. I don't know. And some counties you can't even afford to live in. The county we live in is the 11th wealthiest county in the United States, Williams and county Tennessee, just south of Nashville. And it's full of big, old, thinking houses that are hard to buy a house in this county. But you know, and you don't probably don't live in this county if you make $5,000 a month. You probably don't unless your grandmother gave you a house. You know, I mean, that's it. But that's okay. You can live one county over and there's lots of houses. That's right. Because, in my life and I were kind of doing our drive around yesterday and we drove down into one of the counties and went, look, nice, affordable homes. And they're not that far out of town. You can

1:36:08actually do it. You just have to drive in that direction instead of the other direction. Listen guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go so you can stop wondering where

1:37:08it went. So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget. And the easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the every dollar budget app. It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free. So no excuses. Download every dollar in the App Store or Google Play today. Are you sick and tired of working hard and having nothing to show for it? Well, that's normal. Normal sucks. You don't want to be normal. You don't want to live that way. Our every dollar budgeting app helps you find extra money every month and build you a personal plan to beat debt and build wealth. In 15 minutes, you're going to find thousands of dollars

1:38:08in hidden margin. And we will walk you right up the baby steps, right through the process. So you can go from broke to millionaire. And it's not quick and it's not easy. It's hard. The only thing I'll guarantee you is that it works. Don't live normal when you can live like no one else. Start every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play. Brandies with us, Brandies and Indianapolis. Hi, Brandie. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I just wanted to call in and see what your opinion is on this. So I have an opportunity to buy my cousin's company. He has been running it for a very long time, like about 36 years. And he's, you know, he's getting on the order. So he's wanting to sell his company, but keep it in the family. And he he's wanting to sell it for 4.2 million. It is like

1:39:12quoted at like 6.6. So I don't know what it is. Who quoted it is 6.6? Well, he said it was estimated because he was going to sell it. So I'm not sure what revenues he went down to get like how much it's. And what does the company do? So it is a blind company. It's a wooden blind company and shape. Do you work that with window covering? No, it's a, it's my mom's cousin. So I know. Okay. So have you ever run a business or a window blind company or anything like that? So I run a program where I work now, but it's not like a company or a business. You run a, what kind of program? When you said you run a program? I run an emergency housing program out of Vermont for the state of the moment.

1:40:12Okay. So you've never run a business. You don't know anything about business. You work for the government. And what makes you want to do this? So he has made himself like, I mean he makes really good money doing it. I can very successful. It's something that you know I've always had like a desire to and I've always told him like, hey, you know, I really want to take over that company when you're ready. So how many employees does he have? He has 12. Okay. And do you have any idea what the gross revenues or profits are on this business? He said, I think I like ask her like taxes everything. The gross was 800,000 a year. Okay. If that, you think that's the net profit.

1:41:15Yes. Well, he said it was four million, but like after everything is 800,000. Okay. All right. I love the idea of you making a lot of money and winning. I love the idea of you owning a business and having a desire to run a business. I'm really scared that you've got a cap that you've got to close in your knowledge level of what a business is, how it runs and how to run one. Because you're going from zero to 120 seconds here and you've never done anything like this. And there's a lot more to it than it looks like from the outside. And I don't want your dream to turn into a nightmare. And I'll give you one indicator. Okay. When I ask you what the gross revenues or the net profit was, you didn't even know what I meant. And that's accounting 101,

1:42:20which you have to understand to be able to run a business. Okay. And I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying you've got a gap of knowledge that you've got to fill or you're going to get your head taken off in this deal. I also think you have to be bought into maybe you're not in love with wooden blinds, but at least the mission of what they're doing to be the owner of this company. I feel like you're very interested in the money you might make and maybe less interested in what it is that the company does. Running a business is very hard to Jade's point. She and Sam own one, I own one. And it's a lot of work. And it's going to be when you work for yourself, you've got the meanest boss in the world. That you know, you'll drive yourself harder than anybody. So goal number one for Brandy before you go forward is you're going to have to go on a crash course on basic business and basic business terms. And if you could get your uncle to your cousin,

1:43:24I mean, to hire you for a year and mentor you in how to operate the business, that would increase your probability of success light years. Yeah, he had mentioned doing like a business class with him. They have three a year here in Indiana. And then also working with them like mentoring. Mentoring. Yeah, I want him to mentor you on how business works and what the problems are that he's facing and be truthful in everything. Now, I'll take you the first step in, okay, to help you with this because I think, well, I can't tell from the numbers you've given me because of the definition of terms. But I'm afraid this business might be overpriced even at 4.2. And I assume he's going to finance it for you and you're going to pay him out of the profits, correct? Um, yes. Okay. It would be like a 10 year like pay back. That's how it needs to be. It needs to be what do you make today? What's your income today?

1:44:25I'm like 120,000. Okay. I mean, I want you to pay yourself 120,000. And I want you to give him all the other profits until you reach the agreed number if the agreed numbers 4.2. And you can do that in three or four years. That's the thing to do and get it done. Get it over with. Don't stretch it out 10 years and don't make it fixed payments, make it a percentage of profits. Profits, percentage of profit. After all expenses are paid, that's profit. Yeah, that's going to save your butt too. Okay. Now, gross revenue is the total dollars that come in. That's at the top line they call it of the profit and loss statement, the PNL. Every other expense that comes out down the page, what's left at the bottom before you pay income tax, not before you pay other tax, but before you pay income tax is your taxable profit on the business. This business is worth a maximum of four times that number. I'm a little bit afraid that number is 800,000, which means that this business

1:45:32is worth 3.2, not 4.2 or 6.6. Okay. So you need to get a good valuation on it and I recommend an outside party give you an evaluation like an accounting firm and you're going to pay them a thousand bucks or more out of your pocket to give you an evaluation, place a value on the company. Okay. And obviously we're not going to pay more than that. But your success is going to be based on two things. One is that you pay a reasonable price and two is that you get a crash course in running a business from your cousin and from everything you can read between now and the time he walks out the door for the last time. You become a maniac in personal growth on running a business because it is a different pace. Whatever pace you're used to working for for the state of Vermont, the pace of running your own business is two or three X. You're about to go from

1:46:33wandering along to full on freaking sprint and you're going to stay in sprint until you collapse. That's what it takes to run a business. It's not for everybody and you need to do some soul searching and go, do I want to busted at that level because 60 hour weeks are normal for the self-employed. And guess what? You own the business. You don't get sick time. You take a Tylenol and you go to work when you own the business. You don't get time off for anxiety. You go to work and increase your anxiety. Hey guys, George Campbell here. Do you ever feel like insurance companies only care about your money

1:47:41and not what you actually need? Well, there's a better way. When you go to Ramsey's insurance resource hub, you'll start feeling confident that you're getting the right coverage that's truly best for you. You'll find helpful info on everything from life insurance, health insurance, identity theft protection and more. And when you're ready to get the coverage you need, you can connect with a Ramsey trusted insurance pro who will only get you what you need at the best price. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash insurance ramseysolutions.com slash insurance. Cheryl is in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi Cheryl, how are you? Hi Dave, I'm well thank you. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I found you guys about five years ago, but that was like two months after I opened a Robinette account, which I've basically done nothing with because I don't know anything about the stop

1:48:44market. And it has a small balance in it of roughly $3,000. And I'm just trying to figure out should I close this account and apply it to one of the other steps that I'm following or do I just leave it alone? How's it invested? In the random stocks that I know nothing about. I basically just picked some stocks that I knew Apple Amazon. Are you on baby step two? I'm on baby step four. Baby step four. Okay, you know, are you investing with your 401k at work? Yes, I do 15% at work. I would take the money out of Robinhood and I would just invest it in a Roth IRA and I would do it through I'm going to call a more reputable brokerage is what I would choose. Yeah, like a smart investor pro sit down with them or take it out and go on a cruise. I don't care. Yeah, but everything you said everything you said about it says you've already made

1:49:44up your mind. Okay, you since you opened the account, you've spent some time with us and others somewhere that made you realize I should not be putting money in things I don't understand. You phrased your sentence that way, correct? Yes, that's true. Okay, and so that you've got money in things you don't understand. So we should do away with that. Okay, we got money in single stocks, which I don't own a single single stock, not one. Okay, I do away with that. And lastly, I'm engaged in paying monthly for a service that I'm not using. I have a Roth IRA that I had from an old 401k from another job that I just rolled into a Roth. Should I just roll it into that one? You technically can't because it's not a Roth. You just have to open a Roth a separate. It'll it'll it'll it'll it'll it'll it'll be in the same mutual fund. It could all be with a smart vester pro. It could all end up on one statement, but it'll be two lines and two account numbers. Okay, because you can't technically combine

1:50:45separate accounts like that. You just so like if you had a if you had a Roth 401k with a smart vester already and you rolled over a 401k from an old job and you put it over there with a smart vester, it'll still be there and it can still be in the same mutual funds, but it'll be a separate account number because each account rollover is a separate account number. They technically don't combine, but other than that, yeah, you could you could roll put it all in a way that you are comfortable with the way it works. You understand it and you're not paying a monthly fee for a service you're not using. Okay. Now the purpose of Robinhood, the app that they they're stated purposes to democratize, meaning make available to everyone, the ability to buy and sell single stocks. Okay, and they do that. They do that very well. They most famously got in the news during the GameStop debacle when there was some people playing margin and just about broke them screwing

1:51:46around with the GameStop stock. But they, but but if you want to buy and sell single stocks as a hobby or you know, gradually not day trading, it's not a day trading platform, but you want to screw around with buying and selling single stocks and owning single stocks. That's what Robinhood is for. That's what it does. And we don't teach people to do that. So obviously we don't we're not mad at Robinhood, but I just don't, I the people that buy and sell single stocks on average make about seven percent and the market makes about 12. So you can throw it in a S&P 500 or better mutual fund either one and end up with almost double what you would end up buying and selling single stocks on your own account anywhere, including Robinhood. Take from the rich and give to the poor, right? Yeah, that's democratize. Now that's the idea.

1:52:47However, you're not. You're taking from the poor because that's who's playing single stocks on Robinhood. Rich people learn on there doing that. This is people that they read that they wanted to buy stocks and this was a way to do it. That's and like her, she's got three thousand dollars. Okay, this is not rich. So there you go. It's interesting. Very interesting. The only other time I've heard a corporate entity say democratize, they did it was at the formation of Southwest Air. The founder of Southwest Air said, I want to democratize air travel. I want to make it available to the regular people, common man. That's democratized. And they did. They they changed up the no seating and they lowered prices and they limited their their destinations. They didn't have, you know, just one or two destinations at the start and they were very efficient. They run one type of airplane. So the parts are all interchangeable. They did a lot

1:53:49of things to keep prices down, prices down to make air travel available to the regular guy. That's the only other time I remember hearing democratize in a corporate statement. But and they in both cases they did do it. You know, Robinhood, we don't teach to do it. They do, but they did make the trading of stocks with an app very easy for someone that wants to screw around that we don't recommend it, but they did they did follow through on their mission. Yeah. All right, Mason is in Nashville. Mason, how are you? You doing pretty good. Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I had a feeling you'd say that. So long story short, I've been at my current job for about eight, nine months now. And frankly, I am miserable. I left them. What was kind of a dream job for me to do what I'm doing now, you know, better stability for the family. I'm married. I got two kids three and one month old. And I'm just it's mind-numbing if I'm being completely honest. And for the last

1:54:51five or six years, I've been flukin four wheelers and motorcycles and that kind of stuff. An hour for hours, that is starting to start to surpass by no small margin what I'm making at my current job. And it's kind of got me thinking when does the side job become the main thing? I don't care what you're making per hour. I care what you're making. Yeah. How often do you make more doing the flips than you do at your real job? I flip it. It's you know, in a month, what are you making on flips? On flips, I call you about two profits, you grand. And what do you make at your job? I'm 27 an hour there. I just don't have the time to put into the four wheelers and side by side. I've done that kind of stuff. How many hours are you working? 40 plus and it's an hour commute each way. 40 plus. Just one? Yeah, 42, 43. I'm like that. Whoopee. You got plenty of time to do flips.

1:55:51Well, you got a phone in your car for your hour commute you're doing flips. Yes, sir. It's a lot of time in labor and stuff. I'm doing restorations more or less. I've just taken up stuff that's already running and driving and stuff. So you're not doing flips? You're buying and doing restros. Correct. Yes, sir. That's different. And so hour by hour, you're not making anything when you're doing $2,000 on that. My record is 61, almost 62 an hour, all the way down to, you know, there's some I've made 25, but that's on the low side. I'm making 27 at my job current. We're going to run your own business. You're going to cook, working by the hour. You need to start working by the month. Correct. Yes. And you're making $2,000 a month. You're not making spit. So you're not making enough at the flips to get away from your miserable day job. And you're bringing home $4,000 a month from your day job? You were at $1,10 a year. Call it 7.

1:56:52I'm sorry. You broke up. My wife and I were making $1,10 a year combined. So call it 7 a month between the two of us. Oh, what do you make? Me? Yeah, probably $35 to $4,000. Okay. So when you make $4,000 a month, three months in a row from your flip, you can quit your day job. Okay. Okay. Three profit. Yes, absolutely. Not $61 an hour for one hour. Right. No, no. Monthly profit. So in other words, when you make the leap from the day job to the business, don't make it a leap, make it a step. The boat should be right beside the dock. Just step in it. Don't jump and hope you get there. Otherwise, you'll be in the lake wet. So I hope if I could just work more, I could make more. Now you got plenty of time. You're only working 40 hours. You go in business for yourself. You're going to find out 80s. Pretty standard.

1:58:09All right. Let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at Ramsey Solutions.com slash agent. That's Ramsey Solutions.com slash hour. Scripture of the day proverbs 25 and four remove the dross from silver and a silver smith can produce a vessel. Thomas Sewell said those who complain that the government is not supporting the creative arts have just never looked at federal bookkeeping. That's pretty good. I have not heard that one. Joe's an anchor. Hey, Chai, Joe, how are you?

1:59:13So I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. I pleasure. How can we help? It's in my question. You should I sell a rental property that I bought back in 2023. And I'm happy to give you details in the backstory or you can go ahead and ask me questions that you think are relevant. Why would you sell it? So I don't I don't live in it. And it's ultimately it's costing me about $800 a month with a property manager that I'm bleeding between an HOA payment and mortgage. So you have a rental property that's losing $800 a month. That's correct. I would sell that. Okay. What would keep you from wanting to sell it? You sounded hesitant. So I bought it for 365. There's about 358 left on the mortgage. And CMAs are telling me right now that it costs about 300 or the value is about 330. So I think it would cost me a couple of down in value. So correct. Why? I'm not sure. But it's not unique to the house. It's

2:00:17a townhouse. So there's a lot of similar properties in the neighborhood and they're all just going down. So there's been sales as well. So it's going down in value and you're paying every month to own it. That's correct. Wow. So how are you going to get out of it if you're upside down? Well, I can just continue to pay the, you know, if you sold it, do you have the $30,000 so that you're in the hall alone? Yes, I do. So I've got my wife and I. So we're in the army. We bought this house because we thought we were going to get out down in Colorado Springs where I bought it. But ultimately I did not end up getting out of the army. I'm now up in Alaska. And we're playing out getting out again here in about two years. I'm sorry, but so it's not in Anchorage. It's in Colorado Springs. Yes, sure. Yeah. Colorado Springs. Correct. These are not, that market is not struggling. It's going up. Is there something wrong with the property? Anything? No, there's not. I think I just

2:01:19have a pay for it. I'm going to be completely honest. Okay. Well, there's three strikes. It's gone down in value. It's out of town and you're losing money on it. No reason. This sounds like a nightmare. There's nothing here that's positive. So yeah, I'm definitely getting it out if you can get out. But get on, get online at ramsysolutionsand.com and find one of our trut ramsysrested real estate pros and make sure that the CMAs that you got are correct. Because I mean, you've owned it since 23. This is 26. It should have gone up in value not down in Colorado Springs. Unless you got some kind of a unique problem to that neighborhood. And maybe that neighborhood's got a micro problem. But macro wise, Colorado Springs is a healthy market. Unless he really overbought what's that on there? He may have overpaid me. And you know, huge army base in Colorado Springs are spoken there. It's a wonderful, wonderful place. And

2:02:20there's a lot of military there. So it's possible that a young military guy got taken advantage of. It's possible. I hope not. I hope somebody wouldn't do that to our military, but somebody does every day. So I'm sorry. Wow. Chris is in Detroit. Chris, how are you? I'm doing great. And I hope you both are doing great too today. Better than I deserve. How can we help? Right. Right. Okay. Here it is. Last week, I lost my cousin. I was in charge of lost meaning she died. I was in charge of money that she left behind and also funeral expenses. So after funeral expenses, I'm left with about $23,000. She was raising her eight year old granddaughter due to mom and dad both being addicts. The little girl now she's going to a good living situation. But

2:03:23now I have the $23,000. I would like to invest that money. However, I hesitate to put it into her name because what happens at age 25 or 30 if for, you know, some reason she was to fall into that thing. Was there was there a will? There was no will. And I was whose name is on the account with the $23,000. Mine. It's in your name. It's not in your cousin's name. It's in my name. Right. My cousin who passed away, if I was a joint holder on that account with her, we were the only two names on that account. Okay. Well, I appreciate what you're trying to do. What I would do is get with a smart vester pro and you can just open an account. And on behalf of the child and manage it and just keep up with the whereabouts of the child so that at some point you'll be able to turn it over

2:04:26to her as it makes money, you're going to be taxed if it's in your name. Okay. And I'm not positive that you're operating on. I'm not positive. You're operating on correct assumptions. So I want I want you to have the smart vester pro. Look at the way the account was titled. Did she have on the account a POD paid on death to you? Yes. Okay. Then it is it is your money now. And you can do with your money what you want to do with your money. I would not put it in the name of this child. I agree with you. And if you want to use it on the, you know, um, uh, the memory of your cousin, if you want to use it for the good of the child, just open a mutual fund and just watch that mutual fund and just keep a label on the file and the file drawer that that I've earmarked this for this kid and let your family know that this is actually not your money, but you're managing it in your name.

2:05:29Yeah. Yep. I've already done that. So mutual funds in other words, uh, is that the same as a high yield savings account? No, it's much more. It'll do better than high yield savings. Yeah, because you got a long term. I mean, you got 10, 15, 20 years before the child's going to need this one. Yeah. She's only eight. Yeah. She's eight years old. And so yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate that. Appreciate what you guys doing. Thank you so much for taking my call today. Thank you for being there for that baby. Yeah. Yeah. High yield savings account is very different from a mutual fund in that way. If you have it in a high yield savings account, it's sitting at a bank and making 3.5%. If you invested in mutual funds, hopefully your upwards between 10 to 12 and it's invested money, which is what you're looking for, which is why we suggested a smart investor probe to help teach you about that. You learn about it and you do a good job investing at the growth. Exactly right. And so, um, guys, the situation that Chris found herself in there can that one went well. That can go sideways in a heartbeat. If you don't properly do the

2:06:34documentation. And so her cousin who was ill needed to have left a will with Mama Bear legal forms or somebody to dictate how all this was to go down and to clarify that the money was left not to her daughter, but to Chris. If that had not had a paid on death on that account, probably half of the 23,000 had to go the eight year old today. Oh, and that's scary because there's no will. And that money was her mom's money and it goes to her blood relative in most states. But if it had paid on death to Chris, which is what Chris said, then none of it went to the child and all went to Chris. Chris's half and her cousin's half now goes to her on death. Then there's no nothing. But I mean, that's it. That one little change on that account and that eight year old will be sitting on 11,500 dollars. And in this better situation, whoever knows how that money

2:07:34goes. Well, gosh, yeah, because without a will, the state is now even deciding where the eight year old goes guardianship wise, which is tough. Well, sounds like they've gotten something lined up and that was approved by the state, but the same exact thing. Your child is left at the behest of the state. And the last thing you want is the same people that run the DMV deciding anything for your kid. So no, so this is why you need detailed power of attorney prior to death, healthcare power of attorney. You need a will. And it's really not that expensive, that hard to do at Mama Bear. And that's why we have endorsed them. Chris pulled this one off. They pulled this off. They got out. But truthfully, one little stroke of the pen and this could have been a nightmare. That's right. I put this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you a bit for you know what in the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.