Don't Play The Part Of The Victim, You're The Hero!

[Music] this is the ramsey show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host kristy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money it's a free call and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it the phone number triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five david is with us in baton rouge to start off this hour hi david how are you good dave how are you better than i deserve what's up so me and my wife um we are running into a little bit of an issue actually teach your class to high school students awesome yes and so i am really trying to follow you by the book by the t but what we're running into right now is i make 26.50 a month take home pay we have eleven thousand dollars in savings and my wife just graduated with her master's in speech therapy in may and she brought in 20 000 in student loans with that now i know your step-by-step says to take 10 000 of our 11 000 and throw it towards the debt but we are expecting in the next two weeks all right first child good well you're not you're not working the baby steps then you push pause on the baby steps you don't push play until baby comes and mommy comes and home and everybody's healthy and everybody's okay but yeah you you would not be paying down debt uh during the pregnancy okay okay so yeah we were planning on setting aside um 10 000 to the separate savings account and attacking it fairly aggressively um but it's still there if we need it and so we're not well you won't need it once you need it once the baby comes home if the baby comes home and mommy and baby are okay why would you why would you need to do that okay yeah that makes sense but if everybody's not okay you got the money right now you know you cover the emergency that's what it's for right now but if you're gonna once they come home and is she going on into speech therapy once uh you know six or eight weeks or whatever from now yeah we're playing that by ear we're not sure exactly when she's gonna start working but i'm hoping in the next uh you know few months after the baby comes home that she's gonna start getting into work is she gonna work somewhere for a practice or a company or she gonna do her own thing no she's gonna be working for a practice okay good well she already had to find stuff and they're being very uh generous with when she can start oh that's wonderful good well she ought to make really good money with that degree and that's a wonderful field and both of you are in great fields and so um you know if you want to hold it until she goes back to work that's okay you know but the bottom line is is really a having a baby that's healthy and everything's going okay it becomes part of your budget then uh whether it's daycare or formula or diapers and uh christy i mean obviously i got not i got the seventh grand baby will be here any minute and and you've got little babes little kids so um you know the the truth is is that your budget doesn't other than daycare your budget does not change that substantially diapers a little bit for me a little bit but it's not like thousands of dollars a month out of your budget just because you had a baby no and what's interesting is after a couple months of living on this new budget with a baby it gives you a sense of confidence of knowing that you can i think it's the unknown that's scary to especially to new parents going oh my gosh how much are diapers how much is formula how much is all this okay give yourself a couple months just like when you set your budget the first time you are learning what this is like it's going to be just like that and sure it'll change a little bit especially if your white wife goes back to work and daycare and all that but you work it into the budget you live the budget a few months and tweak it as necessary and then before you know it like oh this is just our new normal with our family of three which is great and it's not as scary because it's no longer unknown yeah and the little critters are not as expensive as everybody carries home and i mean they're not they're they're expensive but it's not it doesn't break the bank it's not like 200 000 a year or something no and rachel cruz talks about this but you don't need all the things the the list of things you could get for the baby is infinite and you will learn what you actually need and what you actually use and what you actually want and then everything else you can let go so it's just gonna take a couple months to figure that out and that's okay yeah yeah good stuff man congratulations yeah congratulations that's wonderful that's awesome uh christina is in el paso hi christina welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thank you for taking my car i really appreciate it sure how can christy and i help yes so my question is um my uh two four-year-old twins are getting ready to start school and i wanted to you know get in a career to be able to help my husband out so we could get out of debt and i wanted to know if it would be a good idea to invest in a career as a real estate agent in this market right now what's drawing you to that well i mean i really want to be able to help out my husband um he's the only one working right now and he's basically bringing home yeah but why real estate oh real estate well um i was thinking it would be good money and basically i went to school for cosmetology when i was out of high school and that didn't really bring in that much money and we do have a lot of debt and we're just trying to get out of it quick and um you know look into a brighter future soon it's just we we barely started our our debt snowball and we just want to you know get out of it as quickly as possible christina i hear that and that's that's a a noble thing to want i will encourage you that there are a lot of career paths that can make good money and you're going to need to want more than money to be really good at it and to stick with it for the long haul so i think it goes back to dave's question why real estate is it is there anything else that draws you to that particular field other than money because it's gonna need it's gonna need more than money to sustain you especially real estate can be hard and there's some upfront costs and that kind of thing so when you think about what you want to do you work when other people are off yeah weekends nights so think about what you want to do yes well i did want to you know you focus in my career but it's just that i recently got diagnosed with arthritis and basically what i was doing was a nail technician and that's just too much on my hands now but i you know i am interested in selling houses and it looks like a bright future to me but well real estate's really hot right now that's not in question i mean obviously you could get into the business um it's very difficult because there's not much inventory to make a quick sale you know we're hearing multiple offers and all the offers are over asking price and so the few listings that are out there go rather quickly and rather competitively which is tough for a brand new agent uh but it can be done i mean uh you're gonna have a a few dry months you're gonna work for two months or three months or four months with no money coming in and are you if you're prepared to do that that's okay it's a wonderful career i've had my real estate license since i was 18 years old i've not been practicing in the business but other than as an investor in a long time but you can do it if you want to do it if you just think it's quick easy money uh it's not it's not it's not quick and it's not easy this is the ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 825-5225 marissa is with us in trenton hi marissa how are you hi thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up so i am 29 years old i have been working as a nurse for the last six years i am a single mom my daughter is six years old and i made the big financial commitment to go back to nurse anesthesia school wow so yes i paid off my undergraduate loan which was 30 000 my parents did help me and support me through the way um that was paid before going into school as well as my car and i have no credit card debt the school now will cost me about 250 000 and with interest it'll be about 300 000 um i've been with my boyfriend for about four years and besides paying back the loan we're looking to get married in the next few years and have more kids so i just wanted to see what your thoughts were on coming up with a plan i think i could realistically pay off this almost 300 000 in the next three to five years but it's very daunting and i don't know how to balance that with having a wife getting married and having more kids at the same time okay um you've been listening to us not a long time i take it for the past few months my boyfriend actually um turned me onto the show and i've been listening few a few hours every single day i just don't know how to make the baby steps really work for me i staged 30 000 to live on for the three years that i'm in school yeah okay um well to start with let's pretend that you had already graduated and you had this loan you would have you'd be making how much three hundred thousand a year right two hundred thousand a year where um we're on training i would start at 205. okay and you make what now i actually just stopped working because what were you making when you just stopped working i was making 75 okay all right which makes a difference of 140 000 so you could be you could pay off 300 000 in two years if you continue to live like you were living right before you stopped working yeah which would be what i would tell you to do were you already here but you're not already here in 30 years of doing this show i've never told anyone to go into debt to go to school and i'm not going to start today so i'm mr dream killer today i love the idea of you being a nurse anesthetist i love the idea of your income going from 75 to 205 and i think those are accurate numbers by the way i don't think you're living in a dream world i think that's about right based on what i the number of nurse anesthetists i have coached over the years and by the way i think i think 205 is this floor i think that's starting i think it'll head towards 300 pretty quick especially if you pick up ot and other things you could knock that debt out very quickly the problem comes into play in that you're talking to a guy who has coached people where this plan didn't work that your mother became ill your child became ill you became ill there was a car wreck there was something and you're 200 000 into this and you don't complete or you get married you have more babies and you want to stay home and you don't want to work at all which you don't know what you're going to want in three years or five years with a different family and situation but you have that debt anyway i just want to clarify i'm actually in the program already i'm in the second year of the program oh so you've already taken that loan that was not what you said yeah i'm confused you've already taken out the loan for the program you're you're in it i'm in it i'm in the second year so we're living off my boyfriend's income he makes 90 000 by the time i'm finished he'll make 130 000 um so i'm not paying for living expenses right now i'm living off my savings and we're planning when i graduate to put all of my paychecks towards the loan and he continues to pay for living okay when are y'all getting married that's the thing um i think he he says we probably would have been doing that now we really push everything off because of my going back to school taking out this why are you going back to school keep you from getting married you just go down and get married we want a really small wedding okay then just go get married go tomorrow what's this painter get off the ladder yeah and we're renting right now i don't know what's that got to do with it renters get married all the time yeah i just feel guilty i don't have any money to put towards a wedding or a house whether you're married or not you have nothing to feel guilty about you're playing house you might as well get a piece of paper that says it's okay it's gonna bring a different level of being a team and attacking these financial goals together when you're really afraid for you i mean if he decides to walk off there's nothing if he decides to walk off yours or you're screwed i i could live with my my parents if if i had to you kind of missed the point didn't you oh you mean with paying back the loan okay so um i i i don't know what the question is now i think you're i think you have your plan and i guess you need to execute your plan uh it would be a different plan than christie and i would sign you up for we hope good things for you we want good things for you we're not mad at you we don't want anything but to come to you but blessings but um yeah i the these plans of going this far into debt to get a valid degree with a great income like becoming an attorney or becoming a medical doctor or becoming a nurse anesthetist they only work when they work but the guy that didn't pass the bar four times will tell you that that 185 000 worth of law school debt is not a freaking guarantee so i i just i worry for you kid i just don't want bad things to happen for you i hope it all works out i hope it all plays through i hope you come out making 205 he's making 135 and he finally gets around to marrying you or you finally get around to marrying him and then you've got a 340 000 or 50 000 household income and you pay off this 300 in like one year 18 months 24 months that's what i would do but um you know i if that's your question yeah that's what i would do i would attack it like a vengeance and the first thing you need to do is quit borrowing if he's got enough income coming in and you're sharing income as if you're married i wouldn't recommend that but apparently that's what you're doing so then maybe if he's got 130 coming in maybe you don't have to take borrows a dadgum much if you're married it'd be no question that would be what you should do i'm not sure he should pay for his girlfriend's education though matter of fact i'm sure he shouldn't let me try that again i've never told anybody do that either so i get so confused you're like what what am i saying what question are what have i committed to what have i signed up for how did we get here man i'm just oh okay so um here's the deal let's backtrack a second because we have about a minute before the break so let's say you're out there and you're facing this exact dilemma the mountainous amount of tuition to get a an equal mountainous amount of income if it all works out perfectly and sometimes it does admittedly but it doesn't always we all have to admit that and we can't act like it's 100 right it's a lock it's not a lock doesn't always happen maybe there's another way to get at this maybe you're working for a hospital company who wants you to commit to being their nurse anesthetist which they're recruiting for and having trouble getting right now and you promise to stay there three years in return they promise to pay your tuition and you probably you don't go ahead and lock down a contractual rate at which you're willing to work um that way you don't have any debt so the ways around it you know or maybe you get a fellowship and you're working a fellowship at a mid school and you're teaching grad classes and other things while you're doing this and you get through it yeah maybe you work overtime like crazy as a nurse and pile up lots and lots and lots of money and you pay cash for your education but it takes you three years longer and you don't have all the risk these are the things we would tell someone facing similar situations to do this is the ramsay show [Music] stop paying your overpriced wireless provider and switch to puretalk they use the same network as the larger providers for much less for just 30 a month get unlimited talk text and six gigs of data with no contract the average family saves over 70 a month by switching to pure top just go to puretalk.com and enter the promo code ramsey to save 50 off your first month pure talk simply smarter wireless [Applause] [Music] [Applause] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five so christy has a passion for the topic of life balance and it's not a subject that i have particularly loved talking about uh because i think sometimes it's code for uh i don't want to work much and uh yet you've hit a nerve talking about this and you found a way to talk about it that um that you and i are both excited about yes you and i love to debate and this is a topic that we have loved to debate about for the last decade but we have found a common ground and i think the thing that frustrates both you and i is the way that it's misunderstood as if somehow we are all seeking this perfect 50 50 split in our life or we're gonna do everything for an equal amount of time we're gonna have you know 15 minutes of quiet time and 15 minutes of exercise and 15 minutes none of that is realistic or even desirable and so as i have been researching this coaching people for you know years and years and certainly trying to create in my own life with three kids in five years and working and traveling and so on i just started asking a different question instead of asking how do i balance it all i started asking what if we could create a sense of balance even in our busy lives and where does that come from and what does that look like in a practical tactical way versus always feeling guilty all the time no matter what we do and it sent me on this search that i think is really helpful not just for people that need more time or feel like they want more hours in a day it's even helpful for the person listening that's trying to pay off their debt that is focusing intensely in this season of life being gazelle intense and saying these are my priorities it helps you understand hey where your money goes where your time goes when you can control those you've got a pretty good handle on how you're spending your life and and and they correlate more than we realize yeah it's you you always say you don't find time you make time you make time for what's important to you and um you know that that's been kind of my thing with this life balance thing it's just so because the people that i know that are successful at anything are not balanced yeah evenly right they're not doing everything everything equally uh at any given time whatever you're i mean if you're a successful parent you are out of balance you spend uh the your children are a priority and they should be okay if you have a successful marriage your marriage is a priority yeah um probably not uh you know memorizing every football statistic of college football in the fall yeah which i love college football but i've never done that but i mean i know football widows and it's not because their husband is a a coach and it's not because their husband's a player it's because his butt is on the couch that's out that's and that's out of balance but it's really not what it is is prioritizing the wrong things it is and you know this this idea of priorities is interesting because when we say priorities we talk about it as if we have one set of priorities that are fixed and they are in concrete these are my priorities god other self and that that's real that sounds like a nice sunday school answer that's not practical in any given season you will say okay in this season i'm all in game on at work or i'm you know it's the summer i'm going to take some vacation i'm going to play with my kids in this season i'm training for a marathon my exercise is a higher priority within each season you're going to have a more specific more current relevant practical tactical set of priorities and you should yeah now if you don't do anything except work seven days a week for six years and you don't know your kids names that's not the top priority that's not okay it is a priority but it's a wrong one yeah there should be an ebb and flow and i think the the the thesis that i have unpacked in my book coming out this fall is life balance is not doing everything for an equal amount of time it's doing the right things at the right time and when you do the right things at the right time whatever that is you feel that sense of balance you've been looking for because when it's game on at work it's game one at work when it's time to go on vacation i'm putting my phone away i'm gonna play in the beach and be with my kids but when you can focus on the right things at the right time it gives you permission to not only actually experience your life but enjoy it and be proud of how you're spending your time finally all the time intentionally pay a price to win so i just thought of it the reason i've been frustrated with the other version of life oh i'm so ready for this i just figured it out i never thought about it all these times we've been arguing about it um was if you live like no one else yeah later you can live and give like no one else is in conflict with this evenly yeah perfectly balanced right nurturing focus because then i get people to call me up and go my poor children will never see their father oh for six months because you work okay get your butt up and work yeah and you know and i'm not saying you never see them but you work a bunch of ot for six months why so you change the rest of your life with your children right that's what i did right and my children aren't in counseling right they're they're not in rehab centers right they're all walking with jesus they're all married and got kids you know i mean they all made it out of old days working and work you know was not a singular priority but there were seasons that we had to do we had to do what it took to go in right and so so a very practical thing i tell people to ask themselves is this and you can start this right now today if you're watching or listening what's right right now what's right right now what's right right now okay there's a million things i could be doing what's right right now i'm on the i'm on the ramsay show that's what's right right now i could be thinking about kids what i would actually be concentrating right right now when i'm at home and my kids are trying to show me what they you know what they did at school or tell me what's right right there i'm gonna focus on them what's right right now and it gives you permission to not say you don't have a lot going on you always have a lot going on what's right right now this thing i'm going to focus on this i'm going to be present here and then in any given season or week or day as your priorities shift you give yourself permission to shift and adapt and change them with the changing seasons yeah i mean my son just did one of these spartan races and so and he's got a new he's got a new baby on the way yep so he you know his workout was really extreme he goes i'm getting this thing knocked out while your baby comes because once baby comes there's no sleep and i'm not i know this because my sisters have babies and so that's what he's saying right and so i've got to go you know but that's right right now uh four months from now that won't be right anymore right yeah and he's got a whole different set of priorities right um you know what and should exactly and what's interesting is when you have things you want to do with your money or your time this is so in alignment with what we teach about money but when you have things you want to do but it's not right right now it helps you let go of that temporarily because you're not saying oh that dream has died forever nursing let's go back to nurse genesis it's not oh that's not never it's just not right now yeah it's not whatever whatever that thing is for you whether it's a something you want to buy somewhere you want to go so you know there's things i'd love to go to europe with my husband matt when i got three little babies that's not right right now we'll go someday but right right now i don't want to be away from my babies for two weeks okay what's right right now it gives you permission to say yes what's right right now and know that something that may come back around at a different time when it's right then and that's okay yeah and that happens so if you have this sense of being overwhelmed this sense of anxiety you know we're getting over into dr dalony's area because there's so many things pulling at you yeah that's a good way of clearing it out not everything pulling at you is right right now and that you know i've noticed this with generosity you know we budget an amount going into the ramsey family foundation did you know that there's always more good things that we can spend that on than there is money that we could invest in in god's name than there is money there's always more good happening in the world than the ramsey family foundation can finance we have a tiny little sliver of the world yeah that we're supposed to take care of and help with that and the rest of them get a no because it's not right though we're gonna pick the ones that are right right now it's still it's prioritizing your money prioritizing your time yep exactly right yeah that's powerful that's good stuff are we are we revealing the book title yet yeah what let's just decide yeah we're yeah let's do it it's yours you can decide we'll do it so we've we've been working on this for a long time and it's really cool to see how all of the uh stories i've heard have really led to this so the book launches for pre-sale july 12th and it is titled dramaal take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance guilt-free let's get rid of that guilt take back your time take there's so much action in that you know i love that take it back take it back take back your time i love it so if you uh want more tips and encouragement about life balance for free christy wright will participate with you in that just text her text life balance 233 444 text life balance to 33 [Music] [Applause] 444. [Music] [Applause] [Music] chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five dan is in iowa city iowa hi dan how are you veteran i deserve days how are you just the same sir what's up awesome first i just wanted to say thank you to you and christy for everything you guys do you guys are so awesome and such an inspiration so i really appreciate you guys thank you for saying that my question today dave is about early retirement so for background context i'm 24. my annual income is about 37 000 a year i have no debt my car's paid for and i heard you say you know a couple times that when you before you get married when you buy a house and then you get married you realize you bought the wrong house yeah so i don't know when i'm getting married but i wanted to call in and see like what what would you prioritize in my situation would you prioritize early retirement if if the goal was reachable in say five years or would you put the money in a mutual fund towards a sizable down payment or preferably a a cash purchase on a home a small home [Music] okay let's go back a second because you're 24 and early retirement is in five years so you're from 29 years old on for the rest of your life what are you going to do i would like to start my own company um i want to do something in e-commerce that um sort of like is my ministry tool i'm a part-time photographer outdoor photographer and i you know a lot of my friends like 98 of my friends okay so by retirement you don't mean go fishing by retirement you mean and you don't have to work a regular job and you can go live your dream of owning your own business yeah exactly just financial freedom and just supplemental income from investments gotcha okay all right good um well i think you can start making moves towards that now i don't think that requires that you be financially independent a lot of people don't right as a matter of fact it might be your shortest path to financial independence because if you got your business up and running you might make more than thirty seven thousand dollars that's true yeah yeah what made me ask the question dave is because um i i listen every day and have for about a year now and um i'm on i'm on baby step i guess you'd say i guess you'd say four um so i've been investing fifteen percent um but wanted to know like okay what do i prioritize because my expenses are so low yeah so like rent aside um my my yearly expenses dave are only two thousand dollars a year that's why um just with my my only bills are car insurance phone so you're living at home that's really it um no so i just i usually i move around a lot so my rent is kind of hard to say like what it is for a full year but it's usually between 350 and 450 and so that's more than 2 000 a year yeah i just wanted to do retirement just so i could like um basically set up early retirement so that when i'm in the place where i don't have a rent or mortgage payment um i i would be able to focus on that okay let's let's change the word from retirement to you just want to build some wealth okay sure and um so i think you can begin to work on your new idea for your business as a side hustle don't you christy yeah sure start that now you're gonna learn a lot in the process you don't have to wait till some magic five years from now or certain income to be able to do it start now and learn about what you want to do and what the market needs yeah let's get that going and let's um uh uh you know start that and and get your income up and when the income gets close to what you make now go ahead and start working and living your dream don't wait until you have a pile of money to go live your dream it's not necessary um sure i i haven't i started two businesses both of which were very successful one of which failed later my real estate business but i started both of them with literally nothing um and got started so you can do that now and ease into this and organically let you can take all the money you make in the business pour it back into the business and just live off of your day job and that's fine until you get the thing up and running um and so if that's working then that doesn't require any investing then we can say oh let's redirect all your cash towards paying cash for your first house and that's probably what i would do at that point i would just go that direction so uh because you know and then if you do buy a house and it's the wrong one you can sell it another one if you get married all that kind of that joke and all that stuff that we talk about but it's joke based in fact but um but the uh uh but yeah that's that's you know i i i don't think that you need a half a million dollars in a paid for house in order to start your business you know what's interesting is you know he's young asking this question and it's actually similar to what we were just talking about before the break where your priorities change and when you're young and you you have a small sense of what you want to do but you can't predict the future none of us can you can say okay what do i want to do based on what i know today based on what i know today is i want to build wealth i want to start a business let's start it on the side i'd like to get married but i'm not dating anybody i'd like to buy a house but i don't have the money yet so let's just do what we can do today with what we know today what we have today that's one of your phrases you said earlier what's right right now right and then in three years five years get married by house what's right then good robertson san antonio hey robert how are you hey dave's doing great how are you better than i deserve what's up that's what i thought hey listen i got a business decision i've got to make i'm 66 years old i've got a business that um having some offers on and i'm a veterinarian and some of these corporate run uh some of these corporations buy veterinary clinics offer three to three and a half times the gross and that doesn't include real estate now i don't have any sort of money i'm in pretty good shape i just don't know if i should sell or not well what's the long term plan if you don't i'm just going to keep on working till when you're gone what happens to it when you die until the day they bear me i'm gonna keep working okay what happens when you die what happens what happens then go to my wife grant my kids yeah and then they sell it for three times gross i'm sure they'll just appreciate their value yeah okay so what's the pressure to sell it now i don't hear any well i mean it's a lot of money and sometimes i get locked into just my life and working and all my hobbies and things and i i don't look you know and that's why i need a different perspective yeah well i i will you know it sounds to me like you would have some joy stolen from you if you weren't working down there oh yeah that's that's what's happening go ahead go ahead you go ahead well the hard part robert is sometimes people call in and this is a similar question where you can do either but we can't tell you what you want and it kind of comes down to what do you want you're 66 years old what do you want i think you want to work it another 10 years anyway that's what i think just listening to you i want to keep working and fingers if i sell the damn thing i'd have to work for the corporations yeah no thanks you don't want to do that no thank you you've done this yourself too long this is your baby let me uh let me tell you here's what i would do before you make the decision i think this will answer your question order a book when you hang up uh you can jump on amazon or whatever from simon sinek the book is called infinite game yeah what you're being tempted by is a finite game and putting closure on this and turning the key and the infinite game is you just keep playing and that's that's the temptation that's in front of you um and there's something in our culture that says if you don't take the uh take the cash off the table while the hand is hot that you've done something wrong and i've got good friends i have a good friend that sold this business for 400 million dollars and the last time i was with him he cried he hates his life he works for this publicly traded company now and they he said i hate my life i would give them an extra 50 million on top of the 400 million if i could buy the thing back and let me have my soul back that was his comment and i kind of think i'm hearing a little bit of that in your discussion i got a question dave about about the terms of something like this because is it always the case where uh in robert's case or your friend's case where you have to work in the business or can you sell it and walk you could sell it and walk but they probably want him to stay a while because you're probably a big part of the secret sauce of that one yeah yeah oh yeah i'm part of the recipe i think you're not going to want to be wanting to work for a corporation i'm just listening to you i'm not telling you what i would do i know what i would do i wouldn't work for him but uh um and so i i do think you need a long-term handoff that's better than tossing the keys as you fall back into the grave that's not a good handoff but but i don't know that you're ready to sell it and work for a corporation for 10 more years either so somewhere in between there is probably a better plan hybrid but read that book infinite game by my friend simon i think you'll like it [Music] this is james childs producer of the ramsay show you can listen to all our shows with the ramsay network app on your smartphone browse by topic or even sync clips to your friends download the ramsay network app in your favorite app store today [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host thank you for joining us christy wright ramsey personality is my co-host open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five james is with us to start off this hour james is in wilmington north carolina hi james how are you hi dave good yourself better than i deserve what's up awesome um so i was curious i'm 38 married um and uh my 401 is about a little over 600 000 and i didn't know if i should borrow from it to pay off my house and or car no no okay i would stop adding to it stop adding to it temporarily until you get your car paid off even if the company matches even if the company match you need to get your car paid off how much do you own your car uh just bought it to 32. and you borrowed all of that what's that yes do you have any money no no i haven't borrowed it i haven't borrowed it uh i thought you said borrow against your 401k to pay off your car if i should borrow against my 401 to pay it off yeah so have you do you owe money on your car yes 32 000 you borrowed money on the car that's what i was talking about so how much money do you have uh i have about 3 000 in savings and 10 000 for like an emergency mm-hmm okay well james we teach a process that is the shortest distance between where you are and wealth you've done an extremely good job with your investing you've done a very poor job with some of the other areas of your money so you're way ahead on investing in your way behind on some of the other things your goal should be to be debt free not counting your house and have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses before you start investing so we're temporarily going to stop investing temporarily i want you to hold one thousand dollars back as a beginner starter emergency fund and i want you to throw everything else at the car what do you make uh my base salary is 71.5 but with overtime usually about 90 a year okay so how quick if we throw ten thousand dollars at this car or twelve thousand dollars at this car how quickly are you uh gonna knock out the other twenty thousand like six months yeah possibly yeah just depends on my wife's business too so okay good oh i'm sorry i didn't ask what she made but what does she make okay uh she makes she pays herself twelve thousand for her base salary and then it just uh all the clients her practice see so it kind of varies well russell roughly what does she make a year taxable income oh i have no idea more than me more than 90. yes okay yeah then you should pay off the car within a month or two or three something like that and then you need the baby step three build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then you would start putting 15 percent of your income away towards retirement that's baby step four five is start saving for kids college if that's applicable in your situation and six is we begin to any other money we can be beyond fifteen percent of your income that you can find any other money you can get your hands on i would get the house paid off early and that walks you right up what we call our baby steps they're outlined in in my best-selling book called the total money makeover i'll give you a copy of it hold on kelly will pick up and we'll send you a copy of the total money makeover it shows you exactly how to work the baby steps exactly what to do sarah is in tennessee hi sarah your question for christy and me all right so i am 16 years old i just graduated high school and i want to start my own photography business hopefully at the end of the beginning of next year and i was wondering how much money should i take and spend towards starting my business up sarah that's awesome you're 16 and just graduated yeah okay well congratulations that's amazing early so you're like one of those smart kids one of those go-getters that's awesome that's awesome well let me ask you a couple really basic questions because this is not uh it's not super complicated doesn't have to be do you have a camera oh yeah i do okay but i'm gonna need to upgrade it so i was just wondering what's a reasonable amount of money to spend towards all upgrading and stuff well do you know uh photoshop lighting do you know the basics of how to take photos you know the basics how do you kind of work it okay so here's what i want you to do sarah you can start your business now with the camera that you have jeremy jeremy cowart who is one of the world renowned photographers started with a three megapixel digital camera that's like a hundred dollars you can start with what you have and use the cash that you get from these photo sessions to save uh for a better camera but you don't need to have that upfront cost to get your business started because you have a camera that works and you know how to use it you can use that now and then just set aside a percentage of your money decide what that is you probably don't have any expenses except most of it if you want and save up and get you a better camera but i don't want you to feel like you have to wait uh to have a better camera to start you can start right now with what you have way to go that's awesome what's your long-term plan what do you want to be doing when you're 29 uh photography hopefully okay you're just going to continue to build this business and study photography and build it and study photography and build it yeah good for you hey sarah i would love to send you a copy of my book business boutique it's a real easy read you can even skip around if you don't want to read the whole thing but one of the things i talk about there in the book that's super important for you is word of mouth marketing because a photography business is a referral based businesses people want to get photos from someone that took their friends photos and did a good job so stay on the line and kelly can send you a copy of my book and you can check out learn a little bit about how to incentivize that activate your customers to talk about your business for you to get even more clients to grow your business but well done that's awesome that's really really cool she graduated from high school a year and a half early it doesn't have to be an easy rate she can have no she she's going to she can take this she can handle it she can handle your books she can handle any book i wrote she can handle it she's going to make it fly this one's going to be okay she's driven so yeah sarah the only other thing i would add is just cont be a continual learner because i can promise you uh in the last 10 years the photography world has changed to the technology world um it's it's moved dramatically in 10 years to the point that most of us carry around in the version of our cell phone a camera that is much nicer than professional photographers used 10 years ago and uh the little three-eyed iphone is a beast of a camera and um and so is the you know the google phones and all the you know these things the cameras that these things have in them are ridiculous so stay on top of the technology stay on top of photography continue to take classes be an apprentice shadow people yeah shadow hang out with in photography groups where you can learn and and that's just amazing jeremy started with a three megapixel yep i didn't really know that like a long time yeah well i know he was cheap but oh my gosh now he's a friend of ours he's a wonderful guy that's just too funny i i did not know that part of the story though that's amazing this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] yes [Music] still on baby step number one how'd you guess with health care costs rising learn how christian healthcare ministries can help you make the most out of your budget visit chministries.org budget don't worry it's worth it [Music] christie wright ramsay personality is my co-host today i'm dave ramsey this is the ramsey show our question of the day comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee i love this guarantee i love this company these are great guys it means even if you mismeasure if you mess up if you pick the wrong color they'll remake your window blind for free wow you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal today's question comes from karen in montana i work from home full time and will be selling my car to pay down debt we will be a one car household for about six months until we can pay cash for a replacement we are currently in a rural part of montana due to my fiance traveling for work and there are no towns within walking distance what are some side hustles i can do remotely i like this question um i'll tell you my answer for karen is really for any of you that are listening right now and you want some extra money to pay down debt or reach your financial goals my advice is to start with what you have your skills your strengths and your stuff your skills would be your education your experience credentials certifications anything you know and are trained to do that knowledge that you have your strengths are maybe things you're just really good at but you've never been officially trained in it so man you're a really great singer you could be a vocal coach or you're a really great painter you could paint sell paintings on etsy whatever that looks like and then your stuff do you have a computer you can write a sewing machine you can sew a swimming pool you can teach some lessons when you start with what you have you make it so much easier on yourself to win and make money faster so my advice to you karen in montana even though it is a rural part of montana if you start with what you have and you structure your business online whether that's online selling products and services through etsy or social media or a different platform or online through service based business coaching consulting something like that you can make money from home and you're not limited to a specific retail store front you're not limited to foot traffic that type of thing it just opens up options for you start with what you have your skills your strengths your stuff and that will give you direction on what a business idea that would be good for you in your specific situation my friend dan miller who wrote a best-selling book many years ago called the called 48 days to the work you love he always said um gather a bouquet of flowers from those that are within reach start with what you have that's what you're saying and that's that makes a lot of sense i'm amazed that the number of people that uh play the piano well and forget they can give piano lessons or that you know instead we have to go reinvent the moon somewhere online tutoring is yeah virtual assistant if you are if you are you know online bookkeeping uh it's amazing what you can do remotely uh that's just task based right just simple task based things so i don't know we don't know what her career field is she didn't say but yeah that that's really that really is the key what christie was saying is to uh gather the bouquet of flowers from those that are within reach what do you have skills stuff what was the third one strengths and strengths that you can use that's really good dan is in portland oregon hi dan welcome to the ramsey show hi gabe uh thank you christy for taking my call uh i live in a nice condo complex in portland and i sit on the hoa board about three years ago we had a stepdad who is a kind of a prominent attorney in the area decided to buy one of the condos for his two stepdaughters who shortly thereafter decided to turn the condo into a meth lab oh god so basically what occurred is about two months before hazmat and the drug interjection team raided the location step dad did a quick claim deed handing it over to the two step-daughters so now since then the unit's been closed up we had the locks changed on it hazmat took the uh toxic chemicals out of the location however they left everything else in there all the garbage the needles the syringes i've got the pictures it's horrific uh on the inside of this condo and they're nice condos so we've been trying to figure out how do we go about trying to get this unit cleaned up do we take it out of our hoa funds and clean it up and put it under a lien uh and can you go back on a quick plan deed and challenge it or um currently the the courts are backed up on foreclosures and uh and putting it up for auction so we figure it's another year or two before it'll even come up for auction we don't want to let this unit sit and draw rats and and any other vermin uh that may come in um it's about ten thousand own and the property taxes six thousand and the hoa uh fees that we have a lien on but we can't get the state or the city to come in and clean it up so uh do you know do you have any idea what to owe on the condo uh the skippy idp cash floor okay and the two the the two brats are in jail uh not to be found they're gone where are they i mean we need to find nobody nobody knows nobody knows we've had our attorney try to locate him and can't be found so talk to stepdad um we have not talked to stepdad because he did a quick plan deed that's why i'm asking no i'm just trying to find them i want i just want to make them an offer and buy the condo so if we could go to them and say we'll buy it for 20 000 yeah we'll give you money and then i mean and you'd have to get the i don't know if the condo association is authorized to do that with condo fees i doubt it uh you're not exactly authorized to you're not you're a non-profit you're not authorized to do investing on behalf of the hoa uh right but but um dude something you gotta do something how it's a condo worth if it didn't have all this crap going on so i bought my condo three years ago for uh 225 and yeah they're going for over 300. so scratch around find somebody's got 40 grand and find these brats and offer them 40 grand and then let's clean and let the investor clean the mess up you you don't own the condo i i mean you're gonna have to contact the attorney that represents your hoa but in my opinion you don't need to be going in that thing at all unless you have hoa documents that allow you to break and enter and clean up a mess and put a lien against it on your on the behalf of the hoa i don't you could get yourself in a real mess here plus it's dangerous you don't want to you don't want to mess with a dadgum meth lab man that's a that's a explosion looking for a place to happen exactly exactly and even though they took the toxic chemicals out they left all the garbage and everything that the let me tell you if they baked meth in there the toxic chemicals are not gone they're in the wall all right you're gonna have to strip that thing down somebody's gonna strip that thing down to the studs if it was a house out in the country we would throw dynamite in the middle of it and call the fire department let them practice on it right it's a disaster to get that mess out of there the fumes go into everything it's baked into the walls now it's a problem man i mean somebody but if you can buy it for 50 grand spend another 100 on it you're still in there way under as an investor if you know what how to do the recidivism work on the thing or the that's not what it's called but anyway clean the mess up no and i'm talking about the baked in mess it's like man it's it's almost as bad as cat smell i mean it's almost impossible to get it out of there so yeah you got wow i i would hesitate to start acting on behalf of the hoa without legal counsel right right and we're trying to figure this out how do we get this thing cleaned up rather than let it set for two years yeah i think you asked your lawyer about that but in the meantime for on a practical level if you can get the ownership transferred and get an investor to come in and clean the mess and do the full hazmat strip down on a meth lab good god and um yeah it's i mean these things these people die because the whole house explodes sometimes is there a liability on the condos on either side it's potential i mean the hoa you know has they have uh the hoa would have structural insurance on all the condos but yeah it's it's uh it's a problem yeah so i i would be looking for the brats and get you know offer them some money with an investor in tow and let that investor come in and clean the mess up and or meantime i'd be checking with my lawyer that represents the hoa you need legal counsel on this hoa be careful because everything you walk in there and touch i have no idea what you're getting into it's dangerous stuff this is the ramsey show [Music] [Applause] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today corey is on the line in fargo north dakota says on my screen corey you're debt-free way to go thank you dave it's an honor to talk to you you too how much did you pay off uh fifty five thousand dollars awesome five five or six five uh 55 55 000 and how long did that take uh 16 months good for you and your range of income during that time uh 55 000 a year okay what do you do for a living i'm a parts guy at a ford dealership say that again i'm a parts guy dealer parts guy what does parts guy mean oh you work in the parks department at the ford dealer yep oh okay okay that's okay good for you man your phone's kind of breaking up we're having trouble hearing you but that's okay good for you man so what kind of debt was the 55 000 everything dave it was uh a truckload credit card medical debt uh like you name it student loans good for you wow so how old are you uh i'm 31 okay you're single uh now i am okay all right so you had all this debt and you're 31 years old and 16 months ago what happened that inspired you to get out of debt um i started a divorce that my wife had taken care of the finances all the time and i didn't realize what kind of trouble we were in until uh it all started raining down so you ended up with all the dead or just part of the debt from the divorce uh just part of it and uh and i decided that it was a time for a change and i was led to you by my sister who gifted me a total money makeover my goodness well way to go and 16 months later because it's all up to you you just decide you're gonna live on nothing and knock this out you worked the plan yeah i worked i worked your plan i i i sold my truck bought something with cash uh and just just got to it i found everything i could get rid of got rid of it and uh yeah it was it truly changes your life yeah way to go i'm so proud of you how much did you sell the truck for uh i ended up with uh 8 000 in equity that i just bought a new truck with uh it was uh 26 grand it was a 2016 f-150 it was my dream dream truck i was gonna say did you cry a little when that one left uh that was emotionally like the hardest thing to do because as a guy your truck is your identity yeah well and you're at a ford dealer and you're in fargo north dakota i mean there's just so there's a lot going on here there's a lot working against you there way to go man i'm proud of you that was very brave yeah very brave good stuff so how does it feel especially with everything you've gone through corey in the last few years like to now be debt free and you've got a clean slate and a fresh start debt-free how does it feel it feels great like just i feel like i could tackle a lot of different goals right now and i and i plan on doing that all right wow good for making a better life for me and my kids what do you tell people the key to getting out of that is just uh don't let your emotions get in your way and make a plan and stick to it will you ever go back in debt now uh no no i watched all right well way to go corey very very proud of you congratulations i'm sorry you went through all this trouble at home with the divorce and the whole process but i'm very proud that you cleaned this mess up and you've got yourself a clean slate to start forward with you can save up and buy a move back up and truck as you go along you're going to be just fine you're going to make a lot of money in your life very very proud of you i've got a copy of the legacy journey for you to say congratulations that's your next uh chapter in your story to completely reset your legacy and then uh of course another copy of the total money makeover for you to give to someone like someone gave it to you and you can pay it forward because other people are gonna be asking you how'd you do that right so good stuff man good stuff all right cory in fargo north dakota 55 000 paid off in 16 months making 55 000 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt-free [Applause] way to go dude excellent job very very well done very well done lee is with us in ohio hi lee welcome to the ramsey show hi i just have a quick question about refinancing my house okay uh we are currently on an fha 30-year with 5.25 we have 28 years left and then last year we found you and we became debt free we have our emergency fund and we're on baby step six way to go wow good for you what do you owe on the house um 119 okay and are you planning to stay there yes good for you yes you need to refinance is your credit bad oh there's nothing on our credit good okay get in touch with churchill mortgage what's the house worth do you think i got 150 we got a thing from our mortgage company today and they kind of did some quick numbers and told us that they could refinance our house to do an 18-year fixed rate at 2.99 18 why not 15. i had no idea it sounds like that's and that sounds like that's an fha as well is it yeah she said was it fha streamlined yeah qualify for the conventional who doesn't qualify for the conventional we don't because we own our own business and we have not been in business for two years and they need two years of tax returns she would be correct okay so the streamline the streamline does limit the difference in years it does not allow you to drop down more than so many years that's why they're giving you the 18 years there's guidelines on that you're still probably will have pmi with a streamline and it's a little bit higher interest rate should be zero closing costs though is that what they quoted you correct yeah did she wait could she wait to do it until after she's been in business a couple years would it be yeah but i wouldn't because the five percent's so stinking high and we're dropping it two percent saving two thousand dollars a year and we're knocking ten years off right immediately plus you can yeah i'm doing this it doesn't take any money and it's a cheaper rate and it's a lesser year number of years uh you you may even end up refinancing it again later if rates stay down but i doubt it i think you'll probably just pay this one off okay yeah i think they've i think they offered you a good deal usually a streamline is higher this is also a very small loan a lot of mortgage companies don't want to ride alone this small so a streamline is usually a higher interest rate than market this is higher but it's only slightly higher and that's not a bad rate at all yeah i'm taking that deal if i'm in your shoes no closing costs and you know you immediately are saving two and a quarter two and three-quarter percent and you're dropping down ten years and you can pay early on it there's nothing that keeps you from doing that the only downside is you're probably still going to have that the mip on it the mortgage insurance premium so i think that's still going to be with you wow that's a good deal yeah so the streamline is fha to fha it's an fha program it's not really um that allows mortgage companies to do this and the reason there's no closing costs is the interest rate is slightly higher and they make their money off of that difference and that covers the closing costs okay they can sell the loan at a premium because the interest rate's at a premium okay they can flip that loan back out of that bank and make more on it extra because of the higher slightly higher interest rate than the closing costs and then some yeah so it's it's not a bad deal for her at all though just the same yeah just the same it's worth doing and getting out of that higher interest rate loan and taking advantage of that even with the baby business you got there good stuff christy wright ramsey personality is my co-host this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] well if you've been paying attention to the real estate market you've noticed competition between buyers out there it's pretty intense inventory is really low and it's driving prices up pretty dramatically when inventories load simply means there are more buyers buying than sellers selling and it turns out the pressure turns the pressure up for everyone buyers want to snag the right house sellers want the right offer this is not a time to play amateur hour guys low inventory is a big deal and to win in this market you need a pro by your side that's why we find vet and endorse top real estate agents across the country called endorsed local providers to help you buy or sell our agents have years of industry success and refuse to compromise your financial goals no matter how tough the competition is they're going to keep you in line with common sense you can instantly connect with an endorsed local provider in your area go to ramsey solutions dot com slash agent you can find a ramsey trusted agent near you ramsey solutions.com slash agent tracy is with us in memphis hi tracy how are you hi dave i'm doing well how are you better than i deserve what's up uh my husband and i have a rental property in south carolina that we would like to sell it currently has renters in it their lease is up in december and our property manager is telling us that due to covid the renters do not have to let anyone into the home so for a personal health issue they have decided they don't want anyone in the house not even to take pictures so we can post it online so my husband and i were thinking about talking to some of these investment groups that keep calling and want to buy our house but we were hoping to get some wisdom on that situation before we started it because we haven't done this we never sold a home period so i think i would go to an endorsed local provider like i was just talking about at ramsey solutions and find one of those in their areas i don't know anything about the current status of covid restrictions in south carolina but i'm calling bs i was going to say is that even legal like can they even do that does your lease not have the right to inspect the property uh i would have to read it i think i think you have a wuss for a property manager okay but i do have the spiritual gift of cynicism so uh i might be wrong okay but i'm first calling that because i'm kind of like old school like if i own a house i'd like to go in at any time i want within reason they have the right under the law of what's called quiet enjoyment meaning i don't get to harass them but for them to stiff arm you call covid when there's not really a coveted problem at their house uh i'm just thinking this is a bunch of crap so i think your elp a good real estate agent who would have an incentive to help you sell the house could probably give you more accurate information you may need to fire your property manager okay i just i that would make me frustrated yeah i'm approaching it approaching angry yeah approaching angry you're a little more gentle this hour you know well i mean it would i'm just trying to think i mean i wouldn't now if they've got a sick child or the the person's in chemo or something then i'm gonna have a lot of compassion and i'll back off of that stance but if they're just being butts and using covid to be a butt then i can help you with your butt problem you know i'll remove your butt right and so that's a that's a possibility uh i it just doesn't make sense i i now it could be south carolina has some crazy butt you're just sticking with a theme here with it yeah uh but uh uh uh uh regulation on the books right it's possible yeah but i mean we we most places had like moratoriums on eviction last summer for a while some areas have got link more lengthy moratoriums of eviction we had one in our area that lasted for i don't know 90 days or something and uh i had one tenant go crazy start beating his wife and all this she had to leave i had to get him out of there because i don't deal with people like that very well i don't have any tolerance for that kind of white trash and so um this expensive house but anyway they they i couldn't get him out because of stinking coven moratorium on evicting people uh but it had nothing to do with covet it had to do with who's an idiot right so uh but anyway you still idiots were protected too under it so uh but the that's that's the kind of stuff runs through my head tracy as a landlord for 30 years that uh first and foremost now again i'm also the other side of that is if someone is in need we have the ability to be very compassionate and very slow and i'm certainly not trying to bring harm to someone on the other hand so i need more information about why these people are stiff arming you if i'm you and i need more information about this law and i'm going to check with an elp and find that out because i think your property manager is full of crap i could be wrong now you people from south carolina y'all can all write me right now i'm going oh there's a law dave you don't know what you're talking about because i don't know what i'm talking about i'm just saying it just smells like tenant misbehavior not covid related so yeah is there any element of the property manager has no motivation because they want to continue to manage the property yeah yeah or or they're one of these companies that doesn't want to ruffle any feathers which really you shouldn't be in property management if you don't want to ruffle feathers because it's kind of like the definition of property management you ruffle feathers for a living you collect rent and you move renters along that don't you know and this is what you do right this is the feather ruffling business right so i feel like you're in a similar business dave you just ruffle feathers on the show all day every day all right we're just gonna start that that's our new that's our new thing everybody do your fingers okay oh the youtube people are the only ones understand what we're talking about oh my gosh yeah the uh yeah yeah just cause a ruckus but i um no i don't think you have to give the house away my first step is not to give it away at wholesale to an investor who doesn't even need to see the inside because what they're gonna do is buy the house as cheap as they can to cover the fact that they don't know what's inside what they're getting into are these people in there running a crack house and you know they're going to burn the thing down or are they in there they got 73 cats and you're gonna have to strip out the plywood all the way down to this joist because there's no getting a cat smell out of a property and so that kind of stuff i mean what have you got in there what's going on in there that they don't want you in there or are they just trying to be hard to get along with because you know but you there there's a limited thing depending on what your lease says and depending on what south carolina actually has as a regulation but i i think you're onto something with the property manager i really do i think all shucks they won't let us in sorry anyway you see okay remember all those nine million times people out there that i tell you don't do long-distance landlording i've never heard you say that don't do long-distance landlording remember that that's it right there he says it every day everyone every time someone calls with the house out of town i say don't do it that's it that's the reason right there i don't know how tracy got in this mess bless her heart she's a sweet lady and um those folks that are living there are lucky they have tracy yeah because i'm not as compassionate unless i need to be compassionate and then i can be compassionate but i'm i'm just not going to be well and there's an element too of this aside from even if they do learn there's stuff you got to do to get the house ready to sell and not just take pictures you got to make it look presentable for well you can just go in and start rehabbing a house with a tenant in there that's not legal i mean you have to wait till they leave to get it ready but um but for them zero access yeah little well not in most states now maybe in the socialist republic of california or something like that it's possible there or maybe one of these other areas where you know the laws are just wacky but most states have reasonable tenant protections and reasonable owner landlords right protections right and there's a way that the law interfaces to create a fair transaction a fair uh justice and mercy can be both implemented there in a way where yes compassion is available but not if you're just misbehaving within reason well hopefully an elp will help her and then she can get it sold and not have this long distance rental and not have to deal with it anymore there we go she said she's getting on the market in december but this is june oh yeah yeah it's got a bit of a bit of a waste um yeah i'm wondering if there's i'll start to get yeah that's good i think i think we got her on the run there that's good that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books christy wright my co-host this hour i am dave ramsey and we'll be back [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer for the ramsay show this episode is over but if you heard about an event product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down don't worry we list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to the ramsay show.com thanks for listening [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host christy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author of the book business boutique is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five ashley is in sacramento to start off this hour hi ashley how are you hi i'm good um so dave i've become a single mom and i have a carmax vehicle appraisal for 45 thousand dollars and i'm still in a divorce process and so i owe my husband half and that leaves me 22 500 to spend on a used car of course i'm not going to use that whole amount and i need help making a decision whether to sell it through tread privately or trade in at carmax or i don't know any anything you can think of to help me to make it easier would be great and i do have young kids so i said yeah i might not work i think is the car paid off yes it's paid off okay what other assets are are being divvied up in the divorce uh we have uh mutual funds and we have the house sales proceeds um how much and whatever's in the bank uh well the calculation came to uh recently came to i think i get like 12 000 after everything else twelve thousand your part from the sale of the house yes what about the mutual funds uh he went and divided uh six out of sixty six thousand he he decided to transfer about 33 000 to uh charles schwab account for me but it's still a joint account so i that's still being um to be determined how i don't know okay but so that is the divorce decree final or are you guys still in you're still in mediation and negotiation exactly the financial part of it anyways yes is what is in negotiation yeah it's still in negotiation it's been over a year which i don't know why taking so long so why do you need to sell the car now um that's what i want your advice uh on because it's paid off and i i just uh it's hot it's expensive for me to maintain um since i get oil change is like a hundred dollars i do get one more free oil change it's a fairly new car i i don't think i should rush into uh training or anything did you say you're working have you got a career i've been a fellow mom for um five six years six six and a half years so and i i recently um got a instacart job and uh to do on the side when my husband has a kid and i also do uber and list and go puff and you name it for now it's temporary what's your long-term plan on your career i know i don't want uh to go into uh school debt and then i'm starting to wonder if i go to trade school or something become a surgical check um that i don't know if i should do that because i have such a young kid i have to find a stable uh babysitting and i've been working on that what'd you do before you had kids did you work i did some computer work um and i did like iphone repairs and just uh network like computer network but it i you know i had not done that for a long time is that i i wanted to sort of steer away from that but i i'm going back and forth whether i should just go back to that you know what i what i used to do um and well what you used to do didn't exist anymore it's five years ago there's no such thing anymore um technology moves faster than that i'm not saying you shouldn't go back into technology but what you used to do is not there what so uh go ahead well i'll let dave speak to the money in the car and all that but here i just want to call out something i hear in your voice ashley what i would love to see you do is take small steps of action that are going to get your confidence up so if it takes leaning on your previous skills and computer work and now you're going to look at being a virtual assistant that you can do from home during naps after your kids go to bed after school pick up that's going to get your confidence up i hear it in your voice like you've been through the ringer this last year you've got all these looming decisions that are overwhelming you i want you to take small steps get quick wins that are going to get your confidence up and help you see hey i can do this i can do this i am doing this i'm going to do this and so i just want to encourage you whether that's looking at the skills you had in the past and exploring how to use those now in a creative way through a side business or home-based business that's my advice to you from the work side and then i would i would find every aspect of your life to in this season while you're overwhelmed make it as easy on you as possible what can you do to make your life as easy on you as possible as you as you walk this out and come out on the other side through healing yeah absolutely so have you got an attorney obviously she's so expensive i i owe her i think um about nine thousand dollars in debt and i can't even let go of her services until her tear off so okay uh you need to verify with one phone call not a big long hourly rate or something that how you get those mutual funds that 33 000 out of a joint account into just your name it is i have access to it no you have access to it you said it was a joint account yeah they don't want us moving any money right now um well he did and he moved it into an account that still has his name on it yeah he did and i don't know what they're going to do about that i i tried to take uh 9 000 out of the mutual fund to pay my lawyer so that way i can you know let her go and they i guess his lawyer made a huge fit about it and so i had to put all of that money back into the mutual fund the charles schwab that's how serious they are so how are they letting you sell the car then uh it has to be written by my husband and he did give me written email um you know letting me know that he he will allow me to sell it for under these conditions but i still have to give him half of it yeah i know that and he but the mutual fund is already your half so i don't understand why if he took the other half and you got half white still has his name on it or is under his control it's uh not that it's under his control except the courts have not made a decision yet yeah so where'd the other 33 000 go uh he put it in a different i think he put it in a different um mutual fund company i smell a rat so i'm worried about that yes you need to sell the car at and even if you do it at a carmax that's fine and then get you a car for about 10 000 and start working on your career side what i was trying to do is get you in control of some of this money which will give you some of that confidence that christy was talking about that's where i want you to head towards as fast as this ridiculous legal system will allow you to do that and get your attorney paid and move on your way but you've got to create an income going forward that's my big concern for you right now about a ten thousand dollar car is what i would do if i were in your shoes hey folks i got a great option to help you pay for your education the army national guard the army national guard believes you are the next greatest generation because you have proven that even in adversity that you have what it takes to succeed that's why they offer benefits like tuition assistance career training and a paycheck to help you avoid debt no matter what your goals are the army national guard can help you get there visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at eight eight two five five two two five if there's one thing that 2020 taught us about investing it's this you cannot invest alone you absolutely need someone in your life who knows the market better than you and helps you make smart decisions not emotional ones look i love do-it-yourselfers but diy d-i-y-n investors well i lack the experience to make good investing decisions especially in a global crisis you invest in the wrong things you get caught up in trends you make rookie mistakes you get greedy you get scared and you build a portfolio based on what you read on reddit and i gotta tell you 99.9 of what's on reddit shouldn't even be read so just help you with that period what a black hole of nothingness trust me you don't need to add any unnecessary stress in your life stop winging it get an investment pro in your corner like one of our smart vester pros let 2020 be your wake-up call never again let your retirement be at the mercy of a global crisis or your emotions go to ramseysolutions.com smart vester get a rock solid investing plan with rock solid people in your corner today this is the ramsey show kyle is with us in columbus ohio hey kyle how are you good dave how are you better than i deserve what's up um so i have we're trying to decide how we're going to be getting a lawsuit settlement here in the next week or so and i'm trying to decide what's the best way to use it whether we should you know take away whatever we think we might owe the irs which i have no idea what that would be and then pay off what that we can with it or we are also planning on moving out of state to either south carolina or tennessee in the next year and a half so we are also thinking of trying to take that money and put it into our house and we have an opportunity to rent a house that's about 150 less than our mortgages right now and then just sell our house now while the market is hot and get as much as we can for it and then whatever we get from that use that to pay off all of our debt that way when we are ready to move we can just pick up and go and then not have to worry about the house gotcha okay a lot going on with you so uh what was the nature of the lawsuit what happened uh it was an employer discrimination suit okay and you're you guys were the employee yes and how much is coming uh the settlement is for forty five thousand and then i would have to pay i believe nine thousand an attorney fees and then whatever the irs takes from it okay uh well you need to see a tax pro on this because it'll depend on whether it's considered punitive or compensatory meaning it's compensation as to whether whether it's taxed or how it's taxed so and i'm not sure uh all i know are though it's a government office it's probably there was no punitive so i believe it would all be taxable okay so it's probably taxable at your standard rate than uh your tax rate but talk to a tax pro don't just guess okay yeah but my guess is that you're probably gonna set aside another nine or ten for taxes okay that's my guess uh because it would be net of attorney's fees it wouldn't be uh i think i think so i think you know the uh a fourth of the 36 would get you there pretty close so uh we'll set aside another nine for that nine for the attorney uh that puts us at 20 uh what 27 that you've got left over now how much in repairs are due on the house and how much debt do you have uh the house is mostly cosmetic it's you know carpet painting uh deep cleaning stuff like that it's mostly cosmetics uh minus our mortgage probably around 70 to 80 and that includes student loans and vehicle and credit cards okay what's your smallest debt and my student loans are probably about four to six thousand maybe maybe four thousand and we have credit cards that are smaller than that but in general enough they're more than that and how much do you owe on the cars uh probably about 15 to 20 and then the other car maybe a couple of thousands okay and what's your household income uh probably about 105. and and what is your house worth between me and my husband if you fix the house what's it worth we just refinanced like six to eight months ago and it was appraised at 180 but the houses in our neighborhood right now because of the market are have sold for no less than 215. okay all right and what do you owe uh probably around 140. okay all right so yeah i'm with you let's fix the house and sell it and pay off all your debt okay but that's what we're leaning towards let me tell you the hole in your whole plan you're guessing at all your numbers you don't know a single number you don't even know your income everything's kind of another couple of dollars everything's sort of close i don't know i don't know you need to get exact bids on the rehab don't spend 30 but yeah 10 makes sense but exact bids run a project here run a budget and then you need exact bids on all of your debt now when you sell your house and you and you become 100 debt free paying off everything which you should have enough to do that with the extra 17 000 you've got on this too then you have to change your habits for the rest of your life so you have to cut up your stupid credit cards tonight i am more than willing it's getting the other half to do all that well then don't sell your house and pay off the debt because if you sell your house and pay off the debt and you don't change your habits you're going to be right back in debt and this whole exercise was for nothing i know we haven't been using a credit card he just does he's uncomfortable not having anything i'm uncomfortable with how stupid you all have handled money i am very much also we have been trying to dig ourselves out of this hole for the last 10 years and we had a very small shovel yeah well no you have a 105 000 shovel you've not put much effort towards the digging well that's accumulated in the last year or two the bigger we have significantly raised our wages in the last two years yeah so here's the thing okay you don't know your numbers and he's not serious you guys are gonna mess this up if you don't change your your your spirit on how you're approaching this i i don't care it's not gonna affect me you do whatever you want but this advice might be bad advice if you don't change your spirit if he doesn't say i'm chopping up the credit cards we're going to get on a budget we're never coming back here again because you just gave up your house for a stupid car and some credit cards all the all that equity it made me think of uh dave i you know i went to the university of central florida in orlando in my last semester there so this was first semester of my sophomore year i did terrible in school i wasn't focused and i got bad grades well when i transferred to ut knoxville they took my credits but my gpa started over and i was so grateful you got a do-over i was so grateful i busted it and got a 4.0 you've got to care you've got to see this for what it is yeah it's a fresh start clean slate if you if not you'll mess it up again and you'll be in the same boat but not have a house to bail you out the next time i did not know that's why your gpa was fought i didn't know you not no your fabulous gpa was a false it was not false i earned it i just earned it a year no you didn't i earned it sophomore year youtube senior year it's not an accumulation of all your grades it's accumulation of two and a half years yeah well the thing is it you did learn your lesson and you didn't start over so good good yeah good metaphor yeah yeah we'll discuss the other part later yeah hey hey i got the piece of paper that proves it i got it that's the story i'm sticking to it you know what and we didn't even ask your gpa when we hired you so you don't care get your work done oh that's fun this is the ramsey show [Music] so [Music] [Music] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today i'm dave ramsey your host thank you for joining us open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five scott is in tampa florida hey scott how are you i'm well dave how you doing better than i deserve what's up so so i i just had a really quick question for you i've been listening since 2018 i didn't know it but i was on the dave ramsey plan to get debt free but didn't have the right mindset so thank you for that um so over the last i don't know 10-15 years you know i've had different jobs and a 401k here and i rolled it into annuity which was a bad idea um that has now been transferred to another uh traditional ira so what i have now is um my nest egg if you will divided among three different locations my question is whether or not that should be one place or it's okay to be three it's not the end of the world i like all of them i have all of my mutual fund investments uh with one financial advisor now there's a different account numbers i have many many different accounts from different events that have gone on you know every time you roll over a 401k to an ira that creates a different account you can't combine those and so you know i moved to sep one time and then i changed it to a roth and you know and so i've done some moves like that so i've got multiple accounts but they're all with one advisor and that's just by choice you just yeah yeah because you're here two benefits i get of that one is my three benefits one is my wife knows where all the money is if i die okay she calls one guy uh two uh i get a consolidated statement of all those different uh uh accounts and i don't have to try to pull them together myself i can just look down at the email click on it it opens up and there it all is right real simple and and three uh you know my investment at uh uh directives and that particular smart investor pro that handles my personal stuff and i are in a line so i don't have to think about one account as being managed by someone that thinks differently than i do i've got one guy that thinks like i think we're in agreement we're in alignment and so it's very very smooth and he can call me up and go hey there's this going on maybe you want to do this and i went yeah that's a good idea let's do it and that kind of stuff and they'll remind me once a year to do my backdoor roths and uh all those kinds of things so it's just a it's a a streamlining of information of values of location there's not any technical mathematical advantage to that if you had three accounts with one advisor and they were in the exact same thing that they're in with three different advisors you're going to make exactly the same money unless the advisor is charging you differently in some way but other than that there's not any big big savings with that but now if you've got like for instance let's say you have a certain mutual fund company fidelity or american or something like that and you've got them with two different advisors you may not be getting your break points that you deserve on your commissions and your fees because once you get above 50 000 there's a break point you get above 100 000 there's another one above a half million there's another one and you start saving money but they might not be showing them as consolidated under your name because there were three different people you might be overpaying fees that way but it wouldn't be a huge chance of that happening it's likely that they've pulled them together but maybe they haven't you know so i just use one just because it's very clean i don't have seven different insurance guys i got one insurance guy zander he handles all my insurance i was emailing him at the break just to make sure i had a car i just bought i got to get it covered and so that kind of stuff and i don't have to i don't have seven different people i deal with on that um uh you know if i can help it um now but anyway that's just the the cleanliness is like you have your your little own uh advisory group that your real estate person one real estate person one insurance person one tax person one lawyer general family law a state law uh the different things like that so you build a kind of a group around you to manage the the the wealth it's just more convenient like you said less to deal with less to think about of all the people you've got to go to you've got one guy got one person that can help you with it so yeah i would think it would just take some of the headache out of it yep william is with us in oklahoma city hi william how are you hello i'm doing well how are you better than i deserve how can i help thanks i was going to call and get your opinion on um on if you think that i would be better off to stay at my current um job or pursue another um another option staying within the same field um i am a dentist and i currently work at a government public health type clinic and i would be looking to possibly go out to the private practice sector well my guess is in the private sector you would make a lot more money is that correct there is the potential too yes what do you make now uh around gross around 150. okay yeah there's definitely potential to make more than that as a dentist in private practice assuming you grow your practice and i mean you might not the first year it might take a few years have you got an opportunity to join a practice i do and the dentist that i went to growing up who actually did shadowing hours to get into dental school and i go and work out at his office a couple times a month it would be his practice that i would that i would purchase oh you would purchase a practice yes okay so what's it making um the production is about 1.2 million a year and the collection is about 98 so it's pretty close to that what's the profit um the profits i i don't know i'm not into that for that level of it yet well you need to be because i mean if you made a million two in gross revenues and you spent a million three to do it it's probably not a good idea yes so the the gross revenue is interesting but only to the extent it creates profit so let's find out what he's spending to get that and what he's netting i'll give you a guess that he's pulling a half million a year out of that would you guess that um yeah at least yeah i think the overhead is typically in the range of about 35 percent yeah i was just i may be a little low then but yeah somewhere in there so what's he want for the practice um the initial um we haven't done like any type of um consulting or whatever for it yet but initial would be around a half million if it's profiting a half a million a year and you can buy it for a half a million what i would do is work for free for a year almost and pay him off in one year and that's a deal yeah that's a deal why is he selling it so cheap um i think basically it's just because it's me my whole life yeah it's like like a little nostalgia he wants to leave it leave his baby with someone that he trusts pass it down yeah kind of mentorship yeah let me just tell you dude it might be worth four times that okay uh whatever the net is after everybody's been paid it's probably worth about 4x that and so half a million on the surface here we're i'm guessing at the net and you are too but i'm going to guess and say that that's what's known as a bargain right there uh if it's you know top line of a million too that that's that's the deal i suspect i could be wrong but i i i and yes i think you should do that and leave 150 000 behind here's the other thing william and i will say why would you not do it well i'm i'm pretty it's kind of one of those things where it's uh it's pretty a comfortable yeah job position that i'm in right now and it's as feels as safe as possible you know yeah here's one thing i'll say william uh read on trade leadership read all the business books you can if you do this you're not just a dentist anymore you need to learn how to run a business and that's different i've talked to a lot of dentists that are broke because they don't know how to run a business learn how to run a business if you do this and you'll you'll do we've got a bunch of them in entree leadership elite and in the advisory groups in our small business stuff that'll help you you probably ought to check that out for sure that's a good point christy yeah and hey man yeah you need to do [Music] this [Music] [Music] [Music] our scripture of the day proverbs 2 6 and 7 for the lord grants wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding he grants a treasure of common sense to the honest he is a shield to those who walk with integrity robert schuler said never underestimate your problem or your ability to deal with it this is true open phones this hour i'm dave ramsey your host christy wright ramsey personality is my co-host it is a free call at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five hunter is with us in idaho falls idaho hi hunter how are you good how are you better than i deserve how can i help yeah so uh just to kind of jump into this my wife and i are about 80 000 in debt our current take-home pay is 83 k um we were looking into selling our house to possibly pay off the debt uh we've talked to realtors we currently owe 205k and they're telling us that we could sell it for 300. um which one of your thoughts on if that was a good idea or not so you owe 80 000 in debt on what so most of it student loans um it's about 55 000. we have a car that's 16 000 and then we did some home repairs and that's the rest of the month that's about 14. okay and uh what's your household income take home is 83 000. do you like your home yeah we like it um it's not a forever home like no home is a forever home heaven is your forever home i guess that's true uh yeah we were planning on maybe building in maybe five or six years depending on how fast we can get out of debt so so the hot real estate market kind of got your attention and you're thinking it's an easy way out of debt correct okay uh no i wouldn't sell it i'd roll up my sleeves and get on beans and rice rice and beans it's gonna take you a little over two years uh you're gonna live on nothing uh you might even sell the car i don't know but you're gonna go crazy here and clear up 80 000 worth of debt with the money you make you can do that let's say you did 40 a year for two years that'd be living on nothing and you'd be debt-free in two years so it's between a two and a three year get out of debt plan you're probably working extra you're probably selling some stuff you may be selling that car uh you may have some savings that's not retirement savings set aside that you didn't mention to me that you could use to throw at this and accelerate it that's what i would do i wouldn't sell your house because i think your house is going to continue to go up in value and you're going to you may you know you don't want to step out of this housing market unless you're stepping right back into this housing market because it's crazy out there if you step out it's going to be you know and you wait two years it may be hard to get in it it will be harder it's not impossible but it'll be harder to get in and so i um you know the problem the great news is in this market you can sell a house for a lot of money the bad news is you buy another house for a lot of money uh and so it doesn't no i i think you keep this house and i think you roll up your sleeves and get really really aggressive don't you yeah it's interesting because there's no other motivation to sell it other than the debt they want they're living there now they're they're fine you know what i mean it's not like oh we need to move anyway for a job or something there's no there's no life transition that calls for this other than just wanting to speed up the debt process well in this hot market gets your attention and you get saying oh i could get out of debt yeah right that's well no i think you need to get out of debt but i don't think this is now yeah stephanie's in jefferson city missouri hi stephanie welcome to the ramsey show thank you how are you guys better than i deserve what's up that's awesome well i um have been talking to my mom recently and i feel like i'm in a good place with money and i'm actually kind of at a loss on what to do with our extra income um i know like it's such a good place to be in but i'm just i will give you an address maybe it's a dave's cabo fun right i know it's great so i just want to tell you we do have a mortgage of about a hundred and ten thousand um i actually paid off our house about two years ago um but then we bought the connecting land next to us um hence why we have a mortgage again because it's part of our mortgage plan now okay how much do you have in savings um well right now i have about sixty thousand dollars and then we actually sold four acres of that and are making seventy thousand dollars okay so you're going to be you're going to pay off the land then completely i do have a car loan but i could clearly pay that off i mean it's zero percent interest which i know how you feel about that yeah pay it today so i can pay it any time today okay i will do it i will do it so i maxed out my roth i own my own business so i maxed out my ross i maxed out a roth from my husband i'm also going to max out a step which is 25 of my income my husband also has a pension hopefully he will have a pension in 25 years you know that's the goal um and so i just i does he have a 401k available at his work he does but they don't contribute anything it's literally just through his company which is why i did the roth house but i mean if you're if you're completely debt free you still want to max out his 401k because it keeps the government's hands off the money especially if it's a roth you want to do it can you do a roth 401k at his place i would have to ask so i need to look into a raw 401k so i can do just a traditional like a roth you can do a traditional 401k or a roth ira 401k whatever they have available i'd do roth if you can get it in the mutual fund types that we talk about and then you load your for you roll those load those roth iras and you load that sep now we've kept the government's hands off of as much of your money as we possibly can because your baby steps seven at this point right way to go and so like is there anything do you recommend any other investing accounts i mean if i'm i'm a hairdresser and i'm one i love my job but do i want to stand for 10 hours a day when i'm 55. so my goal is that i can retire early now will i maybe i don't know but i don't know yeah i think just the the wealth gives you options we don't have to call it retirement but it gives you options you could buy you could buy the salon and sit behind the desk right so do you think the sep the 25 of my income going into my step and then my roth and his roth are maxed out i mean is that enough what i'm doing i mean i can't do more you're not going to be able to access yeah but you're not able to access any of that until 59 and a half okay so keep doing what i'm doing so keep doing what you're doing max out his 401k and then if you've even got more that's the money that would bridge you between 55 and 59. that money would be just a traditional mutual fund with your smartvestor pro they can help you invest it in what's called a low turnover mutual fund where the taxes aren't activated until you pull it much and um you know there's all kinds of stuff you're going to be able to do at baby step 7. make sure you're sitting down with the smartvestor pro and let them start teaching you about what all is available to you guys okay and you know i i'm kind of got myself in trouble i have only one ross with edward jones but it's my brother-in-law and i don't know how to get out of that so i'm like i don't love that he knows all my business uh what i would do is go over you know jump online to a smart vester pro and uh and if you like the smartvestor pro after you meet with them and you feel comfortable and they've got the heart of a teacher like we say they do and you want to move your accounts over there i think you can just tell your brother-in-law i'm uncomfortable uh and i i you know it's just a boundaries thing with me i'm uncomfortable yeah and so i i've got to have a guy that's that's a little more arm's length and i know you'll understand that besides that my roth's not that big a deal right right and just blow it off and you know it depends i don't know how classy he is but he'll probably get over it yeah definitely well and i did buy your book the um legacy yeah thank you well i think you're on your path here she's impressive and i love that she's content what else can i do and that's awesome and what else can i do that's right so good good stuff good stuff well thanks to ben hill our producer and of filling in for james childs who's doing something else and uh kelly daniel our associate producer and phone screener i'm dave ramsey your host we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsey advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the day podcast it's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes check out the ramsey call of the day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

Views: 28,959

Rating: 4.8850574 out of 5

Keywords: dave ramsay live, dave ramsey, dave ramsey channel, dave ramsey live, dave ramsey live show, dave ramsey live stream, dave ramsey podcast, dave ramsey radio show, dave ramsey show, dave ramsey show full show, dave ramsey show live, ramsey, ramsey solutions, the dave ramsey show, the dave ramsey show live

Id: o-Hh1h6gl6I

Length: 121min 55sec (7315 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021