Multi-Millionaire Gives FREE Advice for 2 Hours!

this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the dave ramsey show 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 christy wright ramsey personality and number one best-selling author of the book business boutique is my co-host today as we take your questions about life and about money 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 you jump in and we will talk rachel is going to start off this hour she's in washington d.c hi rachel how are you i'm good dave how are you better than i deserve what's up so my question is i have a rental home it used to be my uh home and then i moved out when my husband passed away about uh almost five years ago and so it's been uh it's been about three years i've been renting it so now i'm at a point where i'm trying to decide do i get rid of it or do i do i still keep it i owe about uh 338 on it it was about 525. [Music] and where are you living i i bought another home you bought another home okay all right i did yeah and how's your career going well right now i um in october of 2019 or so um i started a business uh at tax and accounting for small businesses a type of business not not doing too too well right now kind of maybe deciding to jump back into the workforce okay so that little bit of pinch uh on the income side makes you look at this rental yes yeah so he's gonna change why because after all the smoke clears with the occasional vacancy and the occasional repair you're not making a ton on this thing not really i mean it's covering the uh the mortgage and just a little bit over that and that's about it yeah there's not not much wiggle room in this deal so um it just sounds like there's not a lot of reasons to keep it yeah i mean i was kind of holding on to it for thinking about but you know yeah the home that we shared with my husband but yeah at this point i'm at a crossroads a little bit well i understand and you know part of that uh holding on to it went away when you rented it right yeah i mean that that's like you know you're moving it from the home where we did life to now a business transaction but that gave you a little further time to put some distance between you and his passing a little bit more healing right right yeah yeah yeah i mean emotionally letting go of it today is different than it would have been four years ago yeah at the time i wasn't ready yeah i definitely wasn't ready yeah so christy i wonder how her business would be affected if she didn't have this strain yeah i'm just thinking about just the progression even as as you're describing this rachel from like you're saying five years ago and then now because even if you do sell it now it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy it's still you're still gonna have that emotional pull it'll be easier than it was five years ago but it's still not gonna be easy but i just wonder what could be freed up if you did let it go what could be freed up in your emotions in the headache of having to deal with it i mean having a rental is not just free money coming in like that that's work on your part it's maintenance it's the dealing with the day day-to-day of it and so um i i think that while it might be difficult to walk through that to sell it what would be on the other side would be worth it i mean you have a couple hundred thousand dollars in your pocket i'm just wondering if your business might if you took a little strain off of you and just leaned into that business if you can make that business turn the corner rather than head back into the workforce uh sometimes stress and the the weight of several things on you keep you from focusing on the business and i think there might be a release there so i'm definitely selling it um i have no reasons on my list over talking to you to keep it uh you're gonna be free uh i mean the there'll be some sadness but but it doesn't make you any money uh it's it's really at the end of the day from a financial standpoint it's really not a blessing at this point and the uh having the actual money in the bank out of that equity would be and i'll give you some options and stay on the line rachel because i would love to send you my book business boutique there's i cover a lot of different aspects of business in this book it's your plan to win but it also might help you identify what's not working is it your pricing is it your customers is it your marketing what hasn't been working in your small business that you could like dave said improve fix iterate to be able to make that thing work in this new season so stay on the line and kelly can send that to you absolutely yeah all right noah's with us in fort worth texas hi noah how are you good how are you dude better than i deserve how can we help great so i am having a hard time trying to decide between saving up for a down payment on a house or investing i really want to start investing more into my retirement income okay you can do that so uh great so i am 23 years old i just finished baby step three um you know i really i want to start investing more into my retirement just because i see the potential outcome of that and i really don't have house fever right now but i also want to have enough for a down payment and hopefully i guess if i ever wanted to get what are you making i make 70 dollars good for you at 23. what are you doing uh business intelligence very good yeah and that's going to go nowhere but up from there where are you living now right i'm living at home right now but i got an apartment i'm moving into you next month okay that's a good plan i think that's a really good first step and if you're putting 15 percent of your income away and baby step four into retirement can you not save towards the house above that no yeah i can and that was my original plan but i didn't know if i should be sitting because it's like almost an extra six thousand dollars yeah i could be saving for a house but you know well i mean and you know three years from now you'd have 18 000 you'd be 26 years old that's not the end of the world right or at any point you want to dial back baby step four and we'll do what we call baby step three b which is a reduced or temporarily put on hold baby step four while you save aggressively for a down payment more aggressively uh that'll be fine but um you're making good money and here's the thing uh three years from today you're not gonna be making 70 000 in business intelligence that's exactly what i was going to say i was like you're going to be making more so you're already going to make that goal faster yeah i i think you can put 15 away and still have a house in two to three years and i think that's a fine plan there's nothing wrong with that at all awesome thank you i really appreciate the help hey thanks for the call we appreciate you joining us open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five so chrissy when you're running a business or your own budget uh projections are good uh looking out in the future and projecting your numbers are are good uh the first thing we tend to do is we tend to just take what we know today and extend that yeah linearly assuming it's gonna be the exact same thing you know like in his case he's going to make 70 000 for the next three years and you and i are looking at each other going 23 is making 70 already right business intelligence is a hot topic a lot of stuff happening with data right now it's one of the hottest you know career fields you could possibly get into in the tech world right and uh and if he's good at it and leans in which he apparently is because he's already landing stuff then he you know it's very possible folks that he doubles his income in three years right right and so you don't take your business income or your personal income and necessarily project it on a line like i'm making whatever i'm making now i'm always going to make that it's very seldom you do that now some jobs you're in you get cost living raising that's it but other positions you're in wow you can really be on a curve the same thing's true with your business with a product line or anything else that's right this is the ramsey show [Music] so 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] so well this week is national financial literacy month not this week this month is and we always celebrate that by celebrating teachers because christie you and i both know that teachers make the world go around the good ones yes the ones that don't mail it in yes we can all look back in our past and go that teacher influenced me in that area that teacher i mean i can name five or six off the top of my head that had a big impact uh some of the others i don't even remember their name yep that's right but uh but they're all that coaches teachers these kinds of people come across your life they they're life changers yeah the good ones and so we want to honor the teachers we think you're awesome in the past year you've pivoted you've prepared for all scenarios try to say stay safe and still love your kids and teach your kids and make an impact on your kids on the students and that's why we're celebrating educators with our teacher appreciation giveaway it's sponsored by mint mobile the affordable premium wireless provider because of the hard work and dedication of teachers our foundations in personal finance curriculum has now been taught in more than 48 percent of the high schools in america and impacted the lives of over 5 million students to say thanks for inviting teachers to enter our teacher appreciation giveaway we're giving away amazing prizes like for instance the grand prize five thousand dollars cash there's no purchase necessary you just gotta sign up to uh be registered then no need to sign up more than once because that puts you in the hat put your name in the hat and we're going to do a drawing among you amazing teachers you go to ramseysolutions.com teacher to enter the giveaway ends april the 30th speaking of amazing teachers we have amy burns from centerberg ohio zinderberg high school who is a teacher of our high school curriculum the foundations in personal finance hey amy how are you i am fantastic thank you and yourself well just the same i'm honored to speak with you and i'm honored to be with you so you've been teaching uh for how many years overall this is my eighth year teaching i'm a second career teacher wow good for you thank you and so and you've been teaching the finance curriculum the personal finance personal foundations and personal finance curriculum i can't say it uh for how long for about five years now oh so most of the time you've been teaching then absolutely yeah very cool so what's the kids reaction to this they are so excited and mostly because they most of our students recognize you in your face from their their parents going through financial peace university oh okay well that can be good and that can be bad depending depending [Music] tell me about the cli tell me about the class when the students are asking questions what is the what's the initial response or what's the the quest the type of questions that they have when they first are getting it you know introduced to this curriculum you know it just runs the gamut they're just they're all over the board it depends on what year it is what you know what time of the semester it is but mostly those students are wanting to know like what's one thing that they can cut out of their budget that wouldn't make a huge change in their daily life another one would be um you know i still have some moments in their life that they can be very impulsive and what are some tips that they can get out of you know get out of that habit yeah yeah that's that's powerful i'm curious amy so i spoke to teenagers when i first started at this company and one of the things i struggled with and talking to teenagers was that some of them many of them didn't really have an interest because money seemed like this far off topic you know it seemed like that thing i'll have to deal with later and they had the bank of mom and dad a 24-hour atm so they didn't really have an incentive to live on a budget how do you help them get motivated excited you know about learning this right now before they make all those mistakes well i have to say that i am very privileged to to work in a school district where we don't see that a lot oh wow we have very self-sufficient students here with families that encourage them to earn their way and so i i get a very different um atmosphere here but as far as that goes my freshmen don't usually get the whole financial personal finance idea because they haven't had jobs yet they're still coming out of middle school but once the kids get in to be sophomores and juniors and especially seniors they're starting to get jobs they're starting to look at getting a car etc etc so um those things are the kids that are sophomores juniors and seniors they have a better grasp that makes sense of what personal finance is and the importance of they're working yeah yeah exactly so in the five years you've been teaching this what are your class sizes and and how many people have gone through it well i'd like you to remember that we have um less than 350 students in our school oh in the whole school in the whole school we're very small we're rural school here in ohio and i have had anywhere from about 15 to a full class of 25. wow that's a lot and within the next two years i hear a rumor coming down the pike that ohio will start requiring personal financial management as a graduation requirement wow i hope so that's awesome i hope so too our guys in the uh our education department are involved in the lobbying in a bunch of states a lot of states have made it mandatory and we get in there and talk to the legislatures as often as we can to let them know that yeah this is what the kids need because all of us that are adults you know we look back and we go why didn't they teach us this in school you know we say that also in the same routine and yet there's teachers like amy and 48 of the high schools that are doing this so very cool thank you so much you're obviously a rock star we appreciate you teaching this and well thank you we appreciate you taking a second to talk to us about it we're so so proud to be associated with you and i'm proud to have you out there so thank you thank you thank you for being one of those superstar teachers that doesn't mail it in that that really does change lives so you know when you're teaching something and you and i have the same experience as teachers we're teachers uh in a different vein in a sense but when we get somebody back five years later that's exactly right and they say man i went to that seminar and it changed my life that's right the information yeah changed my life sometimes i say you changed my life which is not true i didn't or you didn't but what we were teaching them when they applied it did right and that's what amy's doing and so you i can't imagine being a high school teacher that has a 25 year old comeback right what six seven eight years later and said you know when you taught that you set me up to win with my new spouse and my new kid and yeah wow it's really interesting too because i feel like especially in high school you could apply this to any time in life but especially high school a lot of times those students that come in as freshmen and they leave as seniors they're older and they're taller but they're not acting all that different and the teacher it would be easy to feel like oh i didn't make a difference in their life because i didn't see this huge transformation in these four years but the seeds that are planted it's amazing how that continues to grow and they come back at 25 and you hear these success stories and i can think of gosh all the people that poured into me in high school from teachers to coaches my young life leader seeds they planted that now are coming to fruition you're seeing the fruit of that but of course when i left as a senior they probably didn't feel like oh my gosh you know i see a huge change in in christy brown you know at the time and so i just i i hope that's an encouragement to teachers coaches those people that are teaching these classes even if you don't see a huge transformation in your class or in those four years the seeds you're planting are going to produce fruit later and it matters you were a young life leader and you experienced the exact same thing from the leader perspective rachel cruz who was young life leader daniel ramsey my son was a young life leader and so again working that's working ministry with teens but um but i mean you can get some kid who's just stuck on stupid yeah i mean they're just stuck on stupid and yet they're still hearing you yeah and all of a sudden it dislodges the stupid dislodges at some point and they turn a corner and you're you may not be around when that happens right but you still planted the seeds in there that caused it to happen that's right just uh just actually this week i was doing a facebook and instagram live walking through my devotional and i held up my bible i don't think i've ever shown it on you know on camera and i said this is the bible that a friend gave me in high school and it was a friend that saw something in me that i didn't see in myself and i don't even know was present at the time but he saw something in me and i still treasure that bible to this day just thinking of how far that bible has brought me you didn't see it when i was a sophomore or even a senior but you begin to see it over time and sometimes we get those success stories and sometimes we don't but it's just a good reminder that uh that those seeds continue to grow yeah oh by the way the devotional is called living true 40 days to get back to you and you're going through it again on instagram right now right yeah leading people through it in these 40 days after easter when jesus would have appeared to people in the earth it's been a fun journey so far get your copy at christywright.comdevotional or at ramseysolutions.com and if they want to follow you it's at christy wright christina christiebright on instagram on instagram be sure you jump in there if you want to join her on the devotional process this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money it's a free call a triple eight eight two five five two two five kendra is with us kendra's in san antonio texas kendra it says on my screen you are debt free congratulations thank you dave i'm very happy to be making this phone call right now that's awesome how much have you paid off well i paid off 59 1339 in about five years good for you and your range of income during that five years i ranged from about 32 to 52. wow what do you do for a living i'm an environmental scientist okay very good what kind of debt was the 59 000 well i had about 38 of school loans and 21 of my car payment okay all right so this was a struggle for you wasn't it it was um yeah i just kept working hard and putting as much as i could towards that i got a good chunk of change from uh some recent hail damage storm so it made about 8k cosmetic damage and i put it towards my car loan instead so and that cleaned it up the rest of the way huh oh yeah it definitely helped so it's got some dents but i have it paid off and that's that matters more to me so that's the big next step yeah well done well done thank you so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is well just keep keep working hard and putting as much as you can afford to to those loans and stay motivated i had a great support system my my brother and his wife are debt free they paid off a huge chunk they went through a financial piece and they they really helped me along the way yeah i mean you pay off ten thousand dollars a year for five years making 32 that's impressive like that's a long haul what was the hardest part um i guess just making sacrifices seeing that pair of shoes that you really wanted and just send all control and just really putting everything towards those loans yeah staying motivated that's good how does it feel now that you're there it feels incredible was it worth the sacrifice absolutely and i didn't think i'd be here at my age making this phone call right now how old are you i'm 28. 28 years old and you did this over five years so you started when you were 23. yes sir wow very impressive very impressive thank you well done definitely helped me a lot so appreciate it so your brother and sister-in-law were cheerleaders because they had been through financial peace university who else was cheering you on uh definitely my mom and my dad so okay that's good news she had good family support because sometimes family goes you're crazy you're always gonna be a dad yeah some people some people have family that are losers right and uh you got you got winners that are encouraging you and lifting you up that's very very cool well congratulations kendra well done thank you thank you we've got a copy of rachel cruz's latest new york times bestseller it's called know yourself know your money kelly will send that out to you to say thanks for being on and doing your debt free scream i'm so proud of you you're a rock star well done thank you dave all right kendra in san antonio texas 59 000 paid off in five years making 32-52 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm dead [Music] [Applause] that is how it works right there that is impressive over five years that's a long time to sacrifice that's a long time to stay motivated that's a long time to stay focused like two years is long but five years man that's impressive that she stuck with it that's awesome and you know the good news when you're working this stuff and you're single is you don't talk anybody else into it the bad news is there's nobody there to kick your butt no accountability yeah nobody there to encourage you when you're down yeah and nobody nobody to hold you in there and i mean she did that over five years and her only accountability encouragement was her family walking with her but i mean it's easier to cheat when you're single yes and to just give up on the plan you're like oh this is too hard i've i've done it for a period of time i've made progress but gosh it's just i just want to buy the shoes like she said and she just stuck with it that's just so awesome that's very well done very very well done that is awesome stuff zach is with us zach is in rockford illinois hi zach welcome to the ramsay show and thank you dave christie nice to be talking with you how are you guys doing better than we deserve what's up well i am on baby step two and i am debating on whether or not i should refinance my house or sell it and move back into an apartment so i don't have to worry about any home repairs do you have home repairs you expect are there things your maintenance issues right now so right now not really anything like major i mean my furnace is about 15 years water heater's five i just had to pay for a chimney flashing repair but it's an older house so that's kind of where i'm currently debating i mean i've been in it for two years if i would have taken financial peace university before i bought the home i wouldn't have bought the home but i took it four months after but now with the market why would you have not bought the home after financial peace because of where you were in the baby steps or because it's a bad buy where i was in the baby steps it was actually a pretty decent buy uh at the current time i'm saying why would you have not bought the home you said if you took financial peace university first you would not have bought it did i understand you're right yeah i would i wouldn't have bought it because i was in debt oh i should he's in babysitter yeah yeah okay that's what i meant yeah all right cool all right so but now you're out and you're working on the house right uh no no i'm still in baby step two so i got seventy two thousand dollars in student loans um and with the market the way it is i have twenty thousand dollars of equity in the house just because of the market so i'm trying to figure out if i should sell or refinance why would you refinance so i am currently in a 30 year so um you know i would have did that differently back then but it's at 4.25 okay and after talking to mortgage broker uh i could probably get a 2.8 to a three percent interest rate yeah if you're going to stay in the house you're going to stay in the house get in touch with churchill mortgage and do a refi because you can you can get down under three right now on a 15 year fixed while you're at it put it on a 15. um how old are you i am 27. and what do you make a year did you tell me already i have not i'm currently on pace for 60 to 65 so i'm in sales so how much is your house commission right now it's 646. it wouldn't move a lot off of that because you're going to drop two percent down but you're going to kick from a 30 to 15. it'll move up a little but not much yeah it's only about a hundred dollars more yeah um the house is the last thing we sell i'll sell your car in a heartbeat your boat in a heartbeat your motorcycle in a heartbeat they're easier to get out of and into moving is emotionally and financially very expensive it just takes up a lot of your headspace to move and um so it's the last thing i would do and i have a sense that you're just starting your financial peace journey am i right i started about two years ago but you guys were just mentioning the single part so i slowed down a little bit but i re-kicked everything into gear i'm not throwing two thousand dollars a month towards debt yeah um so are you are you are you asking about selling because you just want to make a big huge dent in your debt like is that where the question's coming from yeah and just not having any stress with like the repairs would be on the apartment complex i mean i did the math of you know also considering the water bill and the electricity yeah well let me tell you over the scope of your life you can do the math renting does not keep up with owning owning is better even with the chimney flashing okay over the scope of your life not a short-term situation sometimes owning will be more expensive than renting uh so i think you've just had a repair and you've got a re uh juvenated desire to get out and those two things are combining to push you to sell it i'm gonna tell you to keep it for now uh in the spring next year if you're still limping with this thing a little bit you may want to sell it but i think you're going to refinance it and keep it [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five mason is with us mason is in lansing michigan hi mason how are you hey how are you better than i deserve what's up um so i'm 22 years old and i'm currently living in my parents house and i want to achieve financial freedom through entrepreneurship or starting a uh self-storage business and i have five thousand dollars saved up and i don't know what to do with my next step a self what business storage storage self storage well that's a bit of an expensive transaction dude let's talk about buying a big piece of commercial real estate uh probably not your first step why why that out of curiosity um i know uh a few people in my family who they who've had success in there um they're distant relatives so i don't have a lot of contact with them but um i know that they have a decent amount of money off of that oh it's a cash cash once you get it up and get it running it's a cash cow but we're talking about you know whatever it takes a half million million dollars to get this thing planted in the ground baby i mean this is no small step here that that's usually something you would do after you've gotten something else going so your drive is just to make money right now um to practically yeah yeah so you said entrepreneurship what are you thinking of there um i'm not sure i've looked into quite a few uh different sections but i i haven't landed like pinpointed myself in a direction yet what do you get excited about like what what kind of things get you excited because the self storage business well it's not a bad idea that you want to make money and your family has done it uh business can be hard and so looking deeper for a deeper passion than just money and success those things will come what what are you passionate about what are you excited about what what what keeps you up at night because you man that's so fun i want to work on that i want to help these people i want to solve this problem that's that's the heart of entrepreneurship is solving problems and helping people what is that for you um well i do i do like before i got onto that entrepreneurship trail i was a mechanic and i love working on cars and helping out people that way okay what have you been doing up to this point what kind of work um well like i said i was uh i was a mechanic but do you covet i got laid off and i've been working at a local grocery store stock shelves i make about 16 an hour i love your ambition uh as a serial entrepreneur myself i started cutting grass when i was 12 years old had 27 yards to cut i've always had a p l in my life uh and so i love what you're trying to do i love where your head's at christy teaches uh men and women all over the world how to start and how to operate businesses is what she does she's excellent at it um and i think both of us are stepping back and going uh let me let me ask you this have you ever been someplace and a salesman was trying to sell you something and it felt slimy yes like he was there trying to make a commission and didn't care about you yes yeah that's what an entrepreneur is that starts a business just to make money you smell bad and you don't mean for it to mason it doesn't start out you don't no but you're you're in it for you instead of them and so what you've got to figure out is is there has to be a problem that you're looking for in the world that god puts you on the planet to solve that problem for people and it could be the most honest uh mechanic in the world and you end up owning a hundred shops all over america with your name on them fixing cars 10 years from now i don't know it could be something else but somewhere there's a problem that when you solve it for someone it clicks in your soul and makes you smile oh and i can make money not i'll do anything to make money because let me tell you that that i'll do anything to make money is what's driving the storage thing you had no passion about that at all all you're to do is get some money and we can hear in your voice you're just trying to get some money and that's never going to work business business people who just try to get money smell bad it's all going to give up and when things get hard because they will get hard you're going to give up because that's not enough to keep you going let me give you a couple areas of your life to look at mason as you explore this what are your strengths these are things you're naturally good at what are your skills any education experience the car mechanic would be an example of experience what stuff do you have do you have certain equipment you could use or a laptop or a certain facility you can use for a business idea what would it was social what would you do socially just for fun what would you do as a hobby just because you love it just because you enjoy it look at your story your backstory is there something that man you had a really tough season of life or something you went through that that could inspire a passion for helping people my mom starting a bakery when i was six months old is part of my story that's my passion behind business boutique look at your skills your strengths your stuff your story your uh what you would do socially and look at some of these things you already have in you to try to dig out in mind for what is something that is a business idea i could get excited about and don't get overwhelmed by their there's only one idea just start with an idea that could work try some stuff and see what works but you need to be excited about it if you're going to stick with it for the long haul and if you're not going to feel salesy and desperate for money which is what dave was talking about so start with some of those i call them my s's these are my my five s's start with some of those s's and let that give you direction for maybe a business idea that you'd be more excited about than the storage right now and more cost effective by the way now nothing smells quite as bad as a broke salesperson or a greedy salesperson and when you open a business and you're all about what money you can extract from the customer that's the spirit you're operating in and that's what you want to avoid and the problem is there's nothing evil about wanting to be ambitious and wanting to win and going want to go i'm going to want to start a business i'm going to go in the marketplace and succeed i want you to do all of that but what is the problem that you're going to solve that we can't keep you from doing it once you get lit on fire i mean when i started doing the very first thing i ever did with money was i was just counseling people at our church as a ministry for free helping people that were in foreclosure stop a foreclosure help them get on a budget after we went broke i had a heart for hurting people right that were where sharon and i had been and i had the skills to stop to help them right and i was doing it for free right uh you couldn't keep me from doing it yeah and uh you know now it's a 350 million dollar business right you know and uh but it started with that and that's also why i can't be canceled because i won't stop yeah i don't need someone's approval to do this i don't need someone's admiration to do this i don't even need their money to do this i'll just go i'm gonna do it anyway i'm just gonna do it yeah and then what that does is it pierces through the darkness and pierces through the bs yeah that is out there in business but the first time you hit a hard roadblock like christie said folks out there running a business you quit yeah if if you if you're not if your butt's not burning if you ain't got this thing in your stomach or you're just wired up man and you just can't be denied you i'm going you know it's not about me being rich no that's a by-product yeah and i think people miss it because they focus on what they get not on what they give business and life by the way is focusing on what you give you give value solutions help to people i see this all the time dave at our events i'll have someone come through my book signing line and they'll say i want to do what you do i want to be a speaker and every time i'll say why because if if they don't have an answer of like i want to help these people i want to solve these problems then they're in it for the spotlight they're in it for the followers doing it for the fame they want the admiration your audience will feel that you can tell the difference between a speaker who walks on a stage and they're looking for what they can get i can i get a laugh can i get a standing ovation versus a speaker that comes on stage and says i want to give value i want to give solutions and it's the same in business if you are in it for what you can get your customers will feel it and if you're in it for what you can give your customers will feel it our friend ken blanchard says profit is the applause that your customers give you well done well done that's what they're saying it's a wrap by product of it mason that's a really good question i'm so glad you called in to ask it and you probably got more than you bargained for but i i predict good things in your future sir you're a sharp young man that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the box did you know you can listen to the ramsay show on your smart speaker just tell alexa google assistant or siri to play the ramsay show podcast check out all ramsay network shows on your smart speaker today [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 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 and host of the christy wright podcast which is a big exploding movement i is my co-host today as we answer your questions the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five ryan is with us to start off this hour in waterbury connecticut hey ryan how are you good dave how you doing better than i deserve sir what's up um i'm 27 years old and i'm on baby steps four and six and i was wondering if it would be ridiculous or wise to stop making extra payments on my mortgage to save up and build a basketball court in my backyard a basketball court in your backyard what does like a real court like like not just like a goal like an actual court yeah like a concrete slab oh my like a a full court or half court do a half half a half okay um what would it cost uh between three and six grand and um what uh what do you make a year uh last year i made 65 but this year i'm looking to make closer to 85. what's your house worth uh 228 okay and you just love i'm just curious why you just love basketball you want to play all the time yeah or is this just kind of like a ridiculous thing to do because i'm trying to be wise you know and build wealth and i was planning on paying the house off within five to seven years um but other than that i was just curious on you know i mean it's no it's not ridiculous i mean people put tennis courts in their backyard people put pools in their backyard they do all kinds of things let's talk about it from a real estate perspective no it's not ridiculous but let's talk through is there a is there a better way to do this than a and a worse way to do this and the answer is yeah i think there is probably from a real estate person's perspective is how i'm going to put that hat on for a minute um yeah i'm going to build it if i if i'm doing this the for the least money possible number one because it's not going to add a dime of value to the house right so like if you spend six thousand dollars the house is not worth six thousand dollars more because of it as a matter of fact if you do it poorly the house might be less marketable because it's kind of got this weird thing in the backyard for somebody that doesn't play basketball right that's what i was that's what i was worried about down the line like i looked at a really nice vacation property the other day that like a super super nice one i don't play tennis and it had a fabulous tennis court in the backyard and i kind of looked at that as a negative not a positive it's like a thing back there that i don't need or want and you know it's like a like a problem not a not an opportunity so that's a if you do it wrong that's how you do it so depending on how you're i mean i'm just thinking about properties that i've owned or lived in number one growing up in nashville we had turnarounds you back out of the garage and you drive away and most of the neighborhood kids including when my kids were little we had a nice turnaround that was paved in our case it wasn't concrete and we put a basketball goal on the house or put one on a pole on the edge of the turnaround and it didn't really a cost anything extra to put the actual surface in it was a little bit of money to put a goal up but b it didn't weird people out there weren't basketball people when they came to buy the house they just went well i'll take the pole down right if i don't like one don't worry back and so do you have like a turnaround you could do that with i don't but my other idea was to build a patio on the back of the house you know closer to the house and it would be a smaller patio but also i could play basketball on it and then that would be the same kind of thing that makes a lot more sense and then you you know and then the buyer can visualize i'm just going to pull the goal out or you could even pull the goal out yourself before you put it on the market and then you've just got a nice patio you built now we're not messing with the marketability of the house okay and that is less weird the only other thing i can think of is i don't again a driveway configuration matters here but if you don't have a turnaround if you have a your driveway pulls up and you can simply extend the driveway back and put the pad there it gives additional parking spaces or maybe a slab to put an extension or to put a a an exterior garage on some day if it wasn't a basketball court that kind of thing so we've got again like like the patio thing it's got multiple uses right so i i just want you thinking that way don't stick it back there and make it a problem for the buyer how long are you planning to stay in this house out of curiosity uh well i wanted to pay it off as soon as possible and that looks about five to seven years and then my plan was to either use it as a rental or you know resell it and move up in house gotcha okay okay so yeah yeah i think you just use some of these ideas we're batting around here and try to make it a a multi-use type of thing yeah where it's got possible other uses so it doesn't just look like a problem concrete slab in the backyard yeah yeah like why is that there i wanted to grow tomatoes there you know and that you know that that's what people will that's what that stinking tennis court i mean i think it's wonderful if you play tennis but i don't play tennis well and even can i turn it into a shooting ring the thing is the percentage of people that might buy your house that like basketball is small and then the people that would want to play is even smaller than the people that would want that in their backyard is like tiny yeah so you're talking about a very small percentage of people that someone would actually like that so the rest of the people you're isolating and it'll turn off build it in such a way that it can be something else yeah in addition to that and the least possible cost as well because you're not doing that and then and the more you move in that direction the less you are on the ridiculous side and the more you are on the wise side there you go good question interesting chuck's with us in kansas city hi chuck how are you i'm doing good thanks babe yeah i i i'm 57 and i just came into some money and i was wanting to invest it for retirement and one of the options i looked at was indexed annuities and i was curious what you thought about that option it's okay i wouldn't use it for an actual retirement account because an annuity grows tax deferred and a retirement account also grows tax deferred so it's kind of redundant in that sense or tax-free if it's a roth and you're paying an extra fee for it to be in the annuity so you just buy the index you buy an index mutual fund inside of your roth if you were going to do that um the other thing i want you to be aware of is i don't i'm 60 and i don't use them uh because they've got extra fees the commissions are much higher on them for the seller uh the the financial advisor that's selling them than a simple mutual fund transaction and so instead what i do with a lump sum like that is i invest it just in an index fund i use an s p 500 index fund i just drop some money in there and it grows without taxes by and large until you take it out because it's capital gains growth it is not dividend growth and they have what's called a low turnover ratio so study and learn a little bit about low turnover ratio mutual funds that would be my suggestion but the variable in od as long as it's got good mutual funds in it is not horrible in your situation [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] so [Music] here at ramsey solutions we want to transform so many lives that disruption spreads like wildfire across this country if you haven't noticed our culture has become toxic and the only way to remove that toxicity is to displace it with clean good real ideas imagine a world where it's weird to have a student loan that you get an education and you pay for it imagine a world where the majority people pay cash for their car imagine a world where the credit card is the cigarette of the financial world imagine a world where ladies are empowered and know exactly how to start and run their businesses the way christy teaches at ramsey solutions we work on this level of disruption every day and it's why we have a just under a thousand folks on our team right now and they create digital products and services to help people transform their lives with the goal of disrupting the toxic culture in america today and if you want to join us on that crusade we're currently on the hunt for software engineers with expertise in ruby on rails java c-sharp front-end technologies if you're a ux designer an seo content marketing specialist uh digital creative we'd love to talk with you we've got about 300 jobs we need to fill this year to be able to do the different initiatives that we've got to help people in america today if you want to talk about joining us find out about all the available jobs by texting work that matters to 33 789 text work that matters to 33789 to find out about our open opportunities and you can of course also i go to ramseysolutions.com and click on the right hand tab that says we are hiring lucy is in california hi lucy welcome to the ramsay show hi dave how are you better than i deserve how can christy and i help so i actually just started listening to you about a week and a half ago and i started the cash envelope system and started budgeting because i am a horrible horrible spender um so i want to change my habits i do have a student loan for about 37 000 that i haven't made a payment to since 2017 and i also have a title loan that i pay about 96 interest and my principal balance is about 5 000. um i just because i am sort of new to this uh budgeting and i'm trying to be debt free i just want your advice on how to attack um these loans that i have because i i do have a six-month-old baby that i want to plan for for her future good for you so you're a single mom um no i have a boyfriend okay all right so you're a single mom okay okay and i mean you're not married right no we're not married okay and uh what do you make of here 55 000 okay that's good news well congratulations on stepping up and saying hey this is an area of my life that's caused me pain and i want to fix it i'm proud of you yeah thank you very very well done very cool stuff good for you so um having sat in this seat for almost 30 years now here's what i think i heard you say in the background behind the words um how old are you 33 33 okay and so you've kind of just lived your life and money happened to you you never happened to it and the baby comes and you went oh crap i got to be a grown-up yeah is that right yeah okay good for you i'm so proud of you yeah that's awesome thank you thank you so much and i can tell some of that because the the only way anybody takes out a title loan is they're desperate yeah you felt cornered at some point and out of money and scared because otherwise you wouldn't have signed up for 96 interest everyone knows including you that that that's not a winning proposition right yeah no so the great news about your story is is that once you once the switch flipped inside your brain in the last few months uh and you said no more i've had it i'm not living like this anymore you're gonna change things fast so fast it's gonna be amazing because you're so ready i don't have to talk you into stuff you're like over it am i is that right yes i am okay completely well obviously then what we're going to do is we're going to get on a detailed type budget beans and rice rice and beans no life i don't want you going out to eat i don't want to hear about a vacation you have a mess girl and it's time to clean it up and we're going to do our whole life right now is clean up debt complete focused intensity like okay okay all right and the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna get rid of this stupid butt title loan and get those people out of your life and don't you ever go back on that property or call those people ever again the rest of your life okay i won't i won't ever in fact you can take your pinky out and wave it at them as you drive by every time from now on because i am never going to go in this place again they screw people right no they do for sure and i i know this because i am in the financial industry myself but i yeah well you had a brain lapse because you got desperate every time i get desperate right after that i get stupid that's what happens to me it happens to me too and i teach this stuff so we're going to attack that thing we're going to be on a detailed written budget i'm going to put you into ramsey plus for one year it's our online access to everything it's the cadillac the bentley all right it's going to put you into financial peace university into the uh extended version of every dollar the world's best budgeting app i'm going to pay for all of it it's going to be free for you but you have to promise me you're going to get in there and do everything we tell you to do and one year from today you're going to have a completely different life if you do that oh my god yes i'm sorry i told you she was ready didn't i yeah yeah you're awesome i am so proud of you so you go through financial peace university you drag boyfriend in there by the ear and uh tell him he's gonna watch it with you and we're gonna start getting our act together and get our life together and get this stress off of you okay you're gonna do this lucy and when you do i want you to call us back and you tell us your story and you do your debt-free scream okay oh my god yes you're gonna do this we've been binge watching on youtube i've been listening to your podcast and um he has a sprained ankle right now so he was stuck with me in my room all day yesterday while i was working and i said i'm going to play this because this is what i've been listening to while i work and he's also been so motivated and he's like wow this just puts you like in the right mind like you know we want to buy a house and want to start a savings for our baby girl so i mean i think he's he's better with his money than i am but um i'm so ready for this thank you guys so much you don't even know how much i appreciate this well we are honored to help you it's what we do and you hang on kelly will pick up we'll get you signed up and you call us back anytime you need help while you're walking through this and call us back and when you score the touchdown and let us know and we'll do your debt free scream with you how fun that is so cool i love that her boyfriend was a captive audience and she's like your ankle is sprained i'm just going to play the dave ramsey show for hey that's going to be our new answer of how to get people to break their pages break their ankle hobble them hobble them and they can't how do i get my spouse on board you hit their ankle with a sledgehammer and then just press play that's great i love it that's awesome les brown the great motivator i was i did an event with him about i was walking through the hallway my picture with him back here the other day and i stopped and looked at it because he's such a good man he lives over in l.a and um he just says you have to be hungry you know you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired and people change their lives when they say i've had it i've had it i've had it and you know what no amount of intellect offsets that no no amount of academic discussion of some freaking theory offsets that you have to get this belly burning thing happening where you go that's it i'm not living like this anymore this sucks and when you change that that's when it changes your my favorite quote of you is you can wander into debt you cannot wander out you gotta get mad i love it you gotta get fired up man and it's just a decision and that's where lucy is she just decided and then we stumbled across her path how serendipitous thank you lord [Music] [Music] christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today as we talk to you about your life and your money in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage baby they're here nick and brody are with us uh which can only mean one thing they're debt-free hey guys hi hi christy hi dave hi where do you guys live nome alaska wow quite a trek you win the furthest travel for a debt-free scream award oh my gosh wow very cool and any excuse to get down south huh right it was negative 30 with wind chill when we left which is unseasonably cold but wow can't breathe we're melting man well i'm so glad you're here how much do you pay off 267 800 845 wow how long did that take well um it took nine and a half years okay and your range of income during that decade we started off at 75 000 went up to 150 and then down to 124. okay what kind of debt was this i'm guessing with that length of time and that amount of money you might have paid off your house we did we did wow look at the weird people oh how old are you two weird people i was 35 when we paid it off we paid it off uh three weeks before my 36th birthday there you go and i'm 39. ding ding well done you guys what are you do in gnome alaska i'm a court administrator and i work for an airline okay very cool now i've been to anchorage where is gnome i can't see it in my head it's uh northwest of anchorage about 500 miles oh just a wee bit you can only of anchorage alaska where do you live north of anchorage yes okay that'll work wow okay yeah well you can only fly half the places in alaska i heard you have more airline there are more people that have airline light air pilot slices than driver's license wow man very cool so what's this house worth two hundred and twenty thousand dollars was what we paid for it yeah it's at least 260 now yeah yeah very good and was the 268 all the mortgage or other things too we had about 47 000 in consumer debt when we first started um paid that all off and in about seven months and then we uh lived life for a while and after paying uh off that debt we moved we uh cash flowed that move um we bought a house we saved for the down payment for this house and then in 2015 we bought this house and uh we really weren't focused on paying off like we were doing our budget every month and uh we were throwing extra at the principal but i don't think either of us nick brought home a thermometer for us to fill in every time we paid it off we'd fill it in a little bit much a lot of people do that but it takes on a new meaning in nome alaska well when nick brought it home it just felt overwhelming um it just was there was a lot of lines right it didn't seem like we were making much progress on it and i think when it really kicked in was december of 2018 when we decided to throw a chunk of money at it and we were at the halfway mark and i can see the light like oh we can do this and um before um we really became focused around three and a half years ago when our daughter was born our oldest and we're like why are we just you know we're not really focused on the house we're doing all these other things buying gear there's so much gear that you can buy for things in alaska outdoor gear crafts and snow machines snow machines and four-wheeler i mean just you name it and it's all expensive it's really cheap and so we'd been cash flowing those different things and then when our daughter was born we were like um at different times before that we'd kind of look at each other and be like are you ready to pay off really focus and one of us would be like no look squirrel i want that thing over there let's do that thing then we'll do it yeah then we'll do it but once our daughter was born we really dug in and uh and we paid it off in february of this year so how does it feel to be 35 39 years old with a paid for house i don't know if it's really sunk in yet we just paid it off in february and so april 1st was our first budget meeting where we didn't have a mortgage payment for march or april and so that i think it's starting to sink in but we're not we haven't fully realized it's a lot of money yeah yeah it's a lot of money wow good for you i'm so proud of you thanks very cool who are your biggest cheerleaders oh man you know we were pretty private about the journey um we've certainly talked to our friends about it and the friends that we've talked to have all been like wow you guys are doing it that's awesome and but um our parents have been supportive my mom's taken financial peace university we've taught a couple financial university courses thank you um so that keeps you on track it really did when you start teaching it you have to do it yeah you could go to the class and sort of do it but when you teach it you have to do it yeah it forced us to do an insurance double check oh there you go yeah we had some updating to do on all that too yeah very good very good what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is uh for me with the house it was really patience because we had you know been cash flowing things for a while and um having that large number and just breaking it down into small chunks and being able to just be patient and wait um yeah how do you eat an elephant a bite at a time yeah that thermometer one line at a time yeah that's so interesting too because research shows that seeing progress is the most motivating thing and once you guys got to the halfway mark like it gave you that extra push so it's just so cool to see how those small things all added up to you guys sticking with it well done that's amazing yeah you just won't you won't stick with it if you don't see the progress and that's that's good the incremental wins that's so good you guys you did it you are that free house and everything completely so weird i love it and you brought the kiddos with you to do the debt-free scream what are their names and ages this is lydia she is three and a half years old sweet and this is adrian she turned one a week after we paid off the house wow that's awesome we've got a pretty lydia in our family too not much older than that oh yeah very cool you guys congratulations we've got a copy of rachel cruz's book for you her latest new york times bestseller know yourself know your money nick and brodie and lydia and adrian 268 000 paid off in nine and a half years 75 to 150 to 124 house and everything they are weird count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one [Applause] [Applause] that's so cool wow gosh her face it was like just the joy it was just like you could feel it man oh my gosh well what people don't realize is when you don't have that payment it's a math thing for a while it's kind of an emotional thing for a while but when it's gone it's a spiritual thing yeah you feel something click in the spirit you know and you're like i had no idea i was a slave and now i'm not yeah the borrower is slave to the lender there's something yeah the freedom in that there's a release yeah like that breath of cold mountain air yeah you probably don't use cold air in their example with gnome alaska but yeah there's a sense of cleanliness going down into your lungs you know i mean there's this like i'm wow i'm in a whole different place yeah because you are yeah yeah you're set up to win and that's just the first step that's right you're living like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else so you can put yourself in a position to win like you've never done before and completely change those babies family tree what great what a great young couple rock stars that's awesome that is so fun this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] our question today comes from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings 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 it's magic you'll get the best deal today's question comes from shelly in ohio i'm a 52 year old woman with a ba in art and mba and management i've been a stay at home mom for the last 10 years but i'm ready to go back to work i'd love to get into interior design however most jobs require design training which i don't have our community college offers a two-year course and i can cash flow their program is this something worth doing at my age this is such an interesting question and i think there's some different variables that i want to point out first of all at her age i'm like absolutely you can do that if you want to and you can cash flow but what's more interesting to me is if you think you want to do it i encourage people to do this a lot how can you get some experience in that to make sure you want to do it before you go take the courses because even if you have to have some uh education and training in this to do you know a full uh interior design full-time job it doesn't mean you have to have that in order to get started or to intern or to shadow or to have some position where you could make sure this is what you want to do before you do it so i would encourage maybe a baby step but as far as her age i'm like no you absolutely can do that people switch careers they have encore careers what's the example of the um colonel sanders 63 years old before he ever um fried his first chicken brought his first chicken yeah yeah i mean there's a lot of grandma moses never paid a painting until she was 88 years old she did 1500 works of art before she died at 100. and so you're not done do you quit don't talk to me about your age you're 52 i'm 60 you're pissing me off so you're not done here you're not done but the um you know the thing on interior design uh there's so many ways to get at that and there are many many many world-class designers who never had a class on interior design they just they had an eye for it a knack for it and they developed it over time they studied with and around other people but they didn't necessarily go get a degree in interior design there's a lot of them uh that do very very well and and you've got an mba in business so you know to run the business part uh so i i'm with you i think i would use that ken coleman proximity principle and let's find an interior designer in your area and even if uh you did something really weird uh you're not making any money right now so why don't you just go work for them for free for 90 days and say i want to prove that i'm worth having me around uh and then work for them for a year and learn how they do what they do you're probably going to figure out that you can pick fabric yeah without a two-year degree that's probably going to figure out you can pick a paint color without a two-year degree and maybe maybe there's some for example maybe there's some program that a lot of interior designers use to mock up what a room would look like to present to a potential client you learn that on the job or you learn that in this uh company that you don't have to go get a degree to do anyway so even if there is some technical aspect that you want to know that would help you you might be able to just learn it there yeah almost in an apprentice type of a setting use that proximity principle yeah i'm with you i think i'd get my feet wet um i don't think what you need is more education i think you need some confidence that's right you're looking for confidence and it's not found in education it's amazing how many people ask me such a similar question dave of well i need to go get another degree and another degree and another degree and what they're really looking for is permission they're waiting for some piece of paper that's going to give them permission like you don't need permission to go do this thing to go try this thing to go help people and learn the the degree you think is going to be your gateway of permission and more often than not it's you actually doing the thing that makes you feel the confidence you're looking for you have a four-year degree in art if you decide you're an interior designer you just are one you just decided that's right print you some business cards baby that's right and then go pick some paint colors and will you get better over time yeah will you stumble around a little bit yeah you don't know how to necessarily source the lines of furniture or the fabrics or the paintings or whatever is needed to decorate that home and make it look like magazine city but i think you probably know enough to start today but if you want to build a little confidence go work for somebody for a little bit and and getting your feet wet will give you not only the confidence but it'll give you the skills dave i think i took one class in college on speaking and that's just because it was a part of my business management program you know how i learned how to be a speaker is by speaking for the last 10 years yeah and reviewing and every time you did a talk watching the video watching and looking at surveys learning watching from other people it's just brutal to watch yourself yes it is you know you go back and review your own work in any work you'll find the errors more than anybody else will find them and you'll correct course correct course great get better get better get better that's called experience and um but you know how you become a writer you're right that's right you know you become a speaker you speak you know how you become an interior designer you and do interior design that's right and uh so i i there's not a license required uh you don't need permission you can just go but if you need more confidence then uh we've decorated oh i can't think i can't count now thoroughly decorated and or redecorated using five different decorators over the years uh or interior designers over the years and some of them with big time credentials some of them without uh but you know what we cared about we didn't care a thing about their credentials what we cared about was the work that they had done and we're going to do can you do a good job and can i get there and that's all i cared about yeah i didn't know you know as a matter of fact i kind of preferred they didn't have uh a long list of letters after their name from some school in france because that means they're going to charge me triple to pick to go i need a white wall while i already knew they needed a white wall you know i mean so don't you know i just i i didn't you know it was less joy for me that way more joy for sharon probably but less joy for me so uh and that's not to say you can't learn things from um in that field but but um but getting started is probably your best bet yeah it's good it's a big deal uh melissa is in boise idaho hi melissa welcome to the ramsey show thank you hi dave and christie hi um hi i moved from california to idaho in 2017 and now i have a job i really love but i kept my house in california and i plan to retire in four years and maybe move back but what i'm thinking now is should i keep the house for the whole four years sell it and then put it into an investment property and then just and pay cash for it and let it cash flow and then i just ran and live around and travel around or is it better to just have that as my primary residence or would you recommend i didn't sell it now i'll show it now like that because i wouldn't long distance landlord for 20 seconds it's a nightmare and i don't know i don't know i own a bunch of rental property and i don't recommend it i just i don't recommend it and i don't know what california real estate is going to do it has done well in the past um obviously it has also been uh in my lifetime of 40 years working lifetime of 40 years watching real estate it has been the most volatile market overall uh meaning it goes way up and then it busts and goes way up and then it busts and with the number of people leaving that state right now i don't know what's going to happen to prices there i'm a little shocked honestly with the level of the level of exodus from california that prices haven't already gotten soft there but they haven't they're having it they're white hot they they're quite hot so no inventory yeah yeah no it's no inventory we're in the united states i mean uh so the kovacs even though you play recapture right now because if i right now i'm using it as my primary and paying california taxes and my doing a roommate situation and gave him reduced rent and i think if i wait until january to sell it i won't have to pay 56 000 a recapture or would you just take this january 50 but i'm not gonna keep it five years and you know i wouldn't have kept it in the first place and so i'm gonna begin the process of divesting and saying you know i'm gonna live in idaho my investments are gonna be in idaho and when i leave idaho my investments will also leave idaho and um that that's what i would have you to do um it's not it's all almost never i mean so close to never that i can just say never a good idea to become a landlord by default in other words would you have gone and bought that house to use it as rental property while you lived in idaho answer one thousand times is no i live in idaho i'm gonna go to buy a house that looks like something i would live in in california for rental no you wouldn't do that and so since you wouldn't do that then keeping it is becoming a landlord by default and it seldom turns out to be a great decision seldom i mean can you get out of it make some money yeah yeah if you can 56 000 help on the recapture by january fine i'm good with that but but long term i'm not holding that puppy thank you for the call christy good show thanks so much thanks for having me this is the ramsey show [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer and phone screener for the ramsay show if you would like to do your debt free scream live on the show make sure you visit theramsieshow.com and register we would love for you to come to nashville and tell dave your story [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 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 may mean you're an everyday millionaire it's an everyday millionaire's theme hour we want you to call in if you're a real millionaire we're gonna talk to you this hour and for the rest of you we're going to teach you what real millionaires do not what your broke brother-in-law thinks and not what some idiot hack political person with an axe to grind who wants us to move towards socialism thinks we're going to teach you where real millionaires come from spoiler alert you can do it you can do it when you live like no one else later you can live as a millionaire and give like no one else now because there are political idiots out there and people who have entered the conversation in the name of wealth equality or inequality or whatever the discussion needs to be with that we have to address a couple of basic definitions millionaire is an accounting term you don't get to make up your own definition there is a singular one definition that is the truth a millionaire is not someone that makes a million dollars a year a millionaire is not someone that has a million dollars cash although that person could also be a millionaire millionaire refers to billionaire also refers to net worth your net worth is what you own minus what you owe now various people in different accounting functions will include some assets and don't include some assets i mean you can put your clothing in there if you want but your clothing's not really worth anything so that's a bunch of crap okay so but what do you actually own that you can turn into money and what do you owe what you own minus what you owe your assets minus your liabilities equals your net worth when you do that in that bottom right hand corner that number is a million dollars or greater you are a millionaire it's not a feeling i don't feel like a millionaire it doesn't matter million dollars isn't enough anymore doesn't matter we're not discussing feelings and we're not discussing what's enough we're telling you how you become a millionaire it's when you have a one million dollar or greater net worth does it solve all your problems well crap no it actually brings you new ones okay does it but but one problem you don't have is you can afford the tylenol for the headache okay one problem you don't have is you don't have to worry about putting tires on your car anymore one problem you don't have is you're not going to retire and retire and count on social insecurity to take care of your butt which is an absolute nightmare you actually have some money that's what a millionaire is so we're gonna talk to real millionaires ask them what they did how it's made up and how they got there because there's a lot of mythology around millionaires the phone number here is triple eight eight two five five five i don't care how you became a millionaire i want to talk to you because we want to tell real people what real millionaires do how they did it so that real people can say i want to do it that way if all of you won the lottery then we'll all line up for the lottery which by the way that isn't how it worked okay but you know whatever it is we want to copy you millionaires so we can be one of you that's the purpose of this hour the everyday millionaire theme hour clint is our first millionaire up in chattanooga tennessee hi clint how are you i'm doing great dave how are you better than i deserve what's your net worth uh 1.3 million good for you break that down for me by category how much in your retirement how much in your house and so forth uh we've got about 620 000 in retirement savings we've got between our home and a piece of land we own that's about 380 000 and we've got 300 000 in cash and other savings good for you well done how old are you 37 years old wow young millionaire so how much of this did you inherit sir none zero and what was your range of income your best working year and your worst working year best would have been last year we made about 225 000 and worse would have been when we first got married we started at about 84 000. what do you guys do for a living what do you do i'm a vice president of a construction company in the estimating side and my wife she's a quality manager at a major carpet manufacturer gotcha and you have a four-year degree we do we both have bachelor's degrees okay what's your degree in uh construction management and brittany's is in industrial engineering and you're both using it good what's your gpa what was your gpa in college uh we were mid threes nothing real good but nothing real bad either gotcha okay how much of this 1.3 million dollars in net worth at 37 years old do you think you have because you borrowed money to create wealth well i i learned about you my senior year of college and i've seen debt as the arch enemy of wealth since then so zero zero so you haven't leveraged your way into this so to speak okay no sir all right you did this really quick i'm very proud of you very impressive so there's a 22 year old guy who's in construction management listening to you right now how did you do this in 15 years what do you tell him well my my mom was going through financial peace university and handed me the cds from the class and said you need to listen to this guy um and it clicked as soon as i listened to it and um i would say probably uh the number one thing would be choose your spouse wisely because yeah yeah if you've got somebody that's willing to lock arms with you and claw scrape sacrifice to meet any goal there's really nothing you can't do and if you can eliminate the number one cause of divorce in your marriage early on then you know the other things are minuscule compared to that so yeah that's so impressive that's very very insightful um okay so sometimes people think that if you did this this quick um that that you have had no life during the last 15 years do you all go on vacations and have you enjoyed your life during the last 15 years no absolutely there's there's portions of the baby steps where you know you're you're sacrificing the fun of life at times but we we do plenty of things and right now we do pretty much anything we want to do yeah i guess so man congratulations yeah you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year not a payment in the world a million three net worth 37 so that means that my guesstimate is you're probably going to be worth 10 to 20 million dollars at 65. that would be the goal yeah that's kind of mind-blowing starting from nothing so it absolutely can be done that's the moral of the story folks so there he is a construction management guy he's not a star in the nba he doesn't have his own state farm commercial [Music] you don't know his name and at 37 years old he's worth 1.3 million dollars i'm telling you folks you can do this and i'm going to continue to show you you can do it and i'm going to continue to punch people in the mouth that say you can't do it this is the ramsay show [Music] we were drawn to christian healthcare ministries because we both had young families and we wanted to have more children and we had also just started a real estate company and needed to find health care coverage that would meet our needs we were attracted to chm because of its low monthly costs and the ability to negotiate medical costs down established in 1981 and accredited by the better business bureau chm is here to meet the needs of your growing family or small business check us out at chministries.org backslash budget we absolutely believe in it [Music] it's an everyday millionaire theme hour this is the ramsey show we're talking to real millionaires mythology is out there about where wealth comes from in america by the way you will hear on this show and you will hear from the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america airtight research that the vast majority of millionaires did not inherit their wealth as a matter of fact 79 of the millionaires were inherited zero another five percent inherited a small amount like five thousand dollars not enough to make any difference at all towards becoming a millionaire and another five percent inherited money after they were already millionaires so let me help you that 79 plus 10 is 89 that's 9 out of 10 millionaires are not millionaires because of inherited money that's a statistical fact not a fruit loop writing a blog in his mother's basement what's that matter it matters because you can do it is what this says and oh by the way in the top five professions teacher was number three in the largest study of millionaires ever done webster's with us in the lobby on the debt-free stage to do his to tell us about being an everyday millionaire so where do you live here in nashville talahoma talahama just down the road just down the road yeah i love it i've got a lake house right down by yeah you should do yeah cool stuff so what's your net worth webster 1.4 million good for you and give me a little breakdown on that retirement real estate so forth uh 250 000 is the house uh one million dollars in retirement and then two hundred thousand in cash and a taxable investment account good for you well done how old are you 64. great but then you're supposed to say webster you don't look like yourself you don't look like you're 64 webster you you look like you're now you look like you're over here you look like you're on the 32nd anniversary of your 32nd birthday and so um what was your what's your range of income in your working life your best year working your worst year working well worst year was when i first started in it in uh 1977 making a whopping 400 a month okay 4 800 a year yeah yeah all right up to a high of 180 180. good for you way to go very cool so how much of the 1.4 million did you inherit two hundred thousand two hundred thousand okay were you already a millionaire when you got that no so we got out of debt uh september 2005 and then my in-laws were at their final stages of life so we got some gifts from them and then in 2008 my father-in-law passed we inherited the house that was paid for when we moved to tullahoma in august of 2008 we sold that paid for house so we got a hundred and something thousand dollars for the house and then plus other gifts so from my wife's side of the family we inherited 200 000 yeah 160 000 gotcha and then when my parents passed uh we got about another additional 40 000 but by that time we were millionaires okay but you almost were before that then yeah yeah okay all right cool so i i think it it boosted you but i don't think we say you are a millionaire because of inherited money no no but it it definitely gave you a leg up it def it started the the the first uh money into the first ira came from the gifts from the in-laws cool and you said your career was i.t id okay very good very good and uh what was your gpa in college uh i have no degree no degree zero degree so high school education yes okay good for you and you wandered into i.t in the 70s and have been self-taught since yes and or courses or whatever right yeah a lot of certificates a couple hundred certifications yeah i bet mainly because um i listened to you i've been listening to you since um november 1999 and so over the years listen to you listen to others especially when entre leadership started yeah invest in yourself invest in your skills invest in your knowledge so when we started our so our we just had our 20-year dave ramsey anniversary on march 25th wow so when we started i was making 36 000 a year okay and then over the four and a half years that we paid off 197 thousand dollars uh our average income was 48 000. you know there's an interesting insight there and man i really appreciate the history together and i'm proud of that that i'm proud of you guys with what you've done but here's the interesting insight this idea that okay you ever just run a calculation you say if you invest this much a month you'll be a millionaire you know if you just invest if you invest a hundred dollars a month from age 25 to age 65 at 12 it's one point it's 1 million 176 thousand dollars okay so 100 a month you know so that that'll make you think about where you spend 100 bucks right so you just run that but here's the thing it's never that simple yeah because what's happened is is the only way your money grew was you continued to grow yes as a person yes it was a holistic thing going on here your spiritual walk your relationship uh your marriage all of those things have to continue to grow and blossom as well or the little math formula quits working doesn't it yeah i mean you've grown you faster than this money grew even yes is what it amounts to that's beautiful i love that i have never seen that before that's a very interesting insight so what advice do you have to a 25 year old techie that's out there can they become a millionaire yes they can um my advice to my 25 year old self would have been to have listened to a very wise woman that i knew at the time mrs campbell she was day before david's days and her advice was always pay cash never have debt always save and always invest for your future and always give yes yeah and i wish my pig-headed stubborn obnoxious arrogant 20-something self would have listened to her yeah yeah this would be four million [Laughter] but you did okay webster you still got a million four i'm so proud of you congratulations sir you're living the american dream thank you for taking time very very nice brian is with us brian's in raleigh north carolina brian what's your net worth uh 1.1 million days good for you give me a little breakdown by category on that how much retirement how much real estate so forth sure um i'm pretty uh real estate heavy um i got about eight eight fifty in real estate and then the remainder of that would be in retirement 401k okay so like 300 in that then all right yeah about that yep good for you how old are you uh 27. wow look at you dude well done so all this real estate is paid for oh yes sir wow all right so tell me about this what was your best year i mean in the four years you've been working what's the best five years your seven years you've been working what's your best year and worst year on income um uh that's just a little over 200 um when i started out maybe 60. okay what do you do oh but i got married in there too so that adds a lot to it sure sure what do you do for a living i do i.t work i t good for you okay there we go and this is theme right here and uh how much of this money did you inherit uh none of it dave other than i mean i got a car when i turned at the average price and the rest i've kind of worked on i've done on my own okay so did you get a four-year degree or you work in certs uh no i'd get a 40 i did get a four-year degree from university yep nit your science yeah computer science no computer science yeah okay and what was yours your gpa uh about 3.9 good for you okay all right so tell me the story because this is you did a large amount in a short period of time it looks like every dollar you made went into paid for real estate yeah i've always liked real estate i was really fortunate i work all through even middle school i worked all the summers high school i worked after work after school i worked full time how old were you when you bought your first piece of paid for real estate [Music] um i bought uh i paid 50 down on my first house when i was 21. wow way to go brian man what a great story hey thank you for sharing that it's an everyday millionaire theme hour here on the ramsey show [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] if you do not believe that you can become a millionaire that you can build wealth in america today there is a one thousand percent chance that you will not build wealth because you will not go do the things that will cause you to build wealth because you don't think they're going to work you think the game is rigged that you don't have a chance to win and you do have a chance to win so it is my job to help you with your belief and the way i do that is i use facts not mythology not political jargon not made up things but detailed in-depth research and talking to real people who have become wealthy during their lifetime one definition of wealth is your net worth it is the most used definition of wealth to be a millionaire what you own minus what you owe so if you have at least a million dollar net worth and you're in that situation call me i want to tell people what everyday millionaires really look like not what the media says not what the left wing nuts say because oh there are systemic problems with our economy and the little men can't get ahead you can't get ahead if you're a woman you can't get ahead of your minority you can't get ahead if you're a bald boomer which would be me you can't get ahead i'm so stupid guys i had to do it twice i was a millionaire by the time i was 28 and i lost everything because i was stupid i borrowed up to my eyeballs i got rich quick i built a house of cards and it caved in and i had to go do it again the second time i did it i did it using the principles i've taught you for the last 30 years since going broke so i've done it twice you can become a millionaire you can build wealth in america but see a farmer that believes that if he plants seeds that no crop will grow would never plant seeds that would be weird you have there requires a level of faith the level of belief that if i plant something i'm going to grow something if i save and sacrifice and stay out of debt and actually be a grown-up adults devise a plan and follow a children do what feels good then i can become a millionaire if you do not believe that because the systemic problems in the economy the the deck is stacked and people say stuff like i mean i grew up i heard people saying the little man can't get ahead little man can't get ahead you just work for the man like eeyore is your freaking spirit animal you're never going to get ahead life's rough life's a life's a beach and then you die you know oh my god you defeat us fatalistic idiot but i tell you what man you don't have to be that way you can choose to plant corn and voila corn will grow if you save money you will have some if you stay out of debt and live on less than you make you will eventually build wealth even if you screw it up you'll eventually get there kevin is our next millionaire he's in mobile alabama kevin what is your net worth sir um we just crossed the threshold 1 million and forty two thousand dollars love it good for you give me a little breakdown on that by category how much real estate how much retirement so forth all right we have right at this is probably a low ball number three hundred thousand is our home and it's paid for 680 000 and our investments 401k our rate roth rra and so forth and then 62 000 in our emergency fund money market you know cash and other savings how old are you 60 i just turned 63. good for you and how much of this did you inherit zero okay and what has been your working income your best year range and your worst year uh well last year was mostly my income my wife retired in january of last year my income last year was right at 80. probably 86 000. what did she make when she was working uh she probably making 60 plus okay she had 150 000 household income as a high point yeah yes sir and what was your low point household income uh probably you know i'm i'm guessing uh you know 40 yeah okay and uh what was your career well i'm still working uh i'm i'm i work in um production inventory control logistics warehouse management basically logistics and warehouse management gotcha and do you have a four-year degree no sir i do not two-year okay in what uh industrial management yeah and then you used it good okay and what was your gpa in that two-year uh well well i was up there i was i did it real late in life i graduated when i was 50. so after all my squander chances i probably was right at 3.9 4.0 yeah good for you yeah because you actually understood what you're supposed to do yeah yes sir yes sir good for you good for you so what do you tell a young man with a high school education who's working in logistics who can go get his two-year associates later and he's running his career can he still be a millionaire yes sir um you know my story is kind of like yours i messed up and my 39 years old i lost everything long story won't go there but so i had the second half of my life i've done a lot better bear bryant is quoted as saying there's a lot of blood sweat and guts between dreams and success another quote he says is don't give up at halftime concentrate on winning the second half and that's what i've done second half of my life we buckle down and concentrated and here we are i've learned that heroes are not somebody you see on a movie screen wearing capes heroes sometimes wear hard hats and steel toes but whining yeah yes sir so good for you man good for you i'm proud of you well done well done thank you sir i appreciate you calling and sharing your story and congratulations on that breaking that plane baby you did it touchdown whoo yeah jessica is with us jessica is in sacramento hi jessica what's your net worth hi dave our net worth is 1.2 million good for you and give me a little breakdown by category how much real estate and retirement and so forth so real estate you know we are in california our house has paid off and it's worth just over six hundred thousand good and then we have about 600 000 in roth ira mutual funds 401ks etc gotcha and then about 50 000 cash good for you well done how old are you i am 39 and my husband is 41. good for you young millionaires good how much of this 1.2 did you inherit well we were fortunate we had grandparents and great grandparents who left us a little bit of money so about 70 000 of that was from them 50 000 though when i was 18 so there wasn't much left after very long okay so are you a millionaire because of this inheritance or it gave you a boost it gave us a boost okay but you you obviously didn't inherit a million dollars okay and your income range what was your best in your household income and your worst year household income since you've been working our worst year was when we both got off of active duty and it was about fifteen thousand and our best year was this last year about two hundred and forty three thousand cool what do you do for a living i am a registered nurse and an air force reservist okay cool and obviously you have a nursing degree what was your gpa from that degree was 4.0 4.0 you got it get after it i love it okay so a young nurse is out there you're a young nurse but even younger just coming out of school passing her boards can she still become a millionaire absolutely what do you tell her to do quick uh choose your life partner wisely and always move at the state of town if you get love it move at the speed of cash and avoid debt like the plague you're listening to real millionaires who have built real wealth this is not theory these are real people that are doing it you can too this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] our scripture of the day proverbs 13 11 dishonest money dwindles away but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow oh stephen king said what separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work well that's true when people are hurting we want to make it as easy as possible for them to get the guidance and the resources they need to get better and that's why we do this every day we help people over the past year my team has been really working hard building a brand new website that makes it so much easier for you to find all the different things you need the content the tools the products the services you need to win in any aspect of your life not just money but everything and guess what it launches this week it's called ramseysolutions.com no kidding so instead of daveramsey.com we are now ramsey solutions.com it's slick it's your one-stop shop for everything ramsay you'll find all our ramsey personalities there including rachel ken anthony christie dr john and of course me all in one spot and all the things having to do with us with no wild goose chase so just go to ramseysolutions.com check it out surf around a little bit see what's happening at the new site it's beautiful and it's easy to find stuff uh the other one had been built like a country house we just kept adding rooms over the years and the architecture was just a wee bit unstable to say the least so we're so excited about how strong and powerful and easy this new one is just for you guys so well done this is a millionaire theme hour as we talk to real millionaires people with a million dollar net worth more greater to get from them how they've lived how they did that to convince you that you too can do this ryan is in indianapolis ryan what is your net worth uh 1.1 1.1 million give me a little breakdown on that uh mix between everything 200 farmland 350 retirement 450 equity in the house 100 000 in investments and restless miscellaneous cars toys good for you how old are you 35 and my wife's 41. wow young millionaires today lots of them uh how much of this did you inherit zero okay and what was your best household income working year and your worst household income working year um zero and uh we're about 200 now cool what do y'all do for a living uh i expedite freight my wife works she's an orthopedic surgical manager okay all right cool and you have a four-year degree no no degree uh my wife has a bachelor's so you got a high school and she's got a bachelor's correct okay cool cool so how do you become a millionaire at 35 what's the secret um uh there is no secret you just gotta work hard and uh save um i i think that as long as you're having fun working on sacrificing and pretending like it's 1800s you don't ever need borrow money and just let it live below your means before we had kids there was spence where i'd work 16 to 20 hour days and we were living in a rented trailer and we did that to build a solid foundation and to save uh to build our house okay and and you've got a paid for farm and a house with a bunch of equity in it a bunch of money in retirement all at 35 years old yes sir yeah way to go man that house we just saw a picture of it pop up on youtube it's beautiful that's a good looking house man well done i love it congratulations i'm proud of you guys okay so today all of the net worths were slightly over a million one point three one point four one point one one one point two one point one there are no ten million dollars calling it today no five million or even two million calling it today but the ages were unusually young today 37 27 41 35 and 64 and 63. uh by the way the statistical average of a millionaire in america today is 52. on average it took them 17 years to get there from the time they got their crap together and started working on it okay because we all a lot of people go through the you know the blue period where they just do stupid stuff like i lost everything in my 20s i just start over right and so then 17 years later quicker than 17 i had my next million back they always say the second millions easier you know it is you know why it is because you've done it and you know you can do it when you've never done it before you don't know you can do it you think you can do it you see other people do it you think this is going to work you can do the math you can do the projections but once you've lived in it and done it you felt it you walked in it you go oh yeah i can do that and then you go i need you know i think i need to work on 10 million and then i need to work on 30 million and then you need to you know you just once you've done it you know you what's the next thing you're going to do what's the next process and so these guys did it and by the way out of them uh one of them inherited 200 one of them inherited 70. both of them said those were booster seats they were not the reason they became a millionaire but it did help and obviously if you get 100 or 200 000 or something like that it does help you become a millionaire but let me tell you what the mythology is if you do take a mic and go down the street the man on the street interviews right you say tell me about wealthy people well they inherited their wealth and see if you believe that and you don't have a rich uncle that means you're screwed so why when why go out there and save why go out there and try to be successful because the only way to be wealthy is inherit your money the game is rigged and if you don't happen to win the dna lottery in a wealthy family you're not going to get there that's what that's the problem with that mythology is it destroys hope and the bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick here's another one wealthy people are all crooks that's how they got their money well i didn't talk to any crooks today i talked to a construction manager a couple i.t guys a logistics guy a a nurse and a and a and a guy who's a freight distributor i didn't talk to any crooks there were no no no movies gonna be made about these people stealing them bernie madoff was not on the show today so this idea that wealthy people are all crooks is insulting to those of us that saved and worked our butts off and didn't steal a dime and provided service to the marketplace pisses us off when you say that quit saying it it's wrong it's a lie well all wealthy people are famous people they're entertainers they're rock stars country music stars they play professional sports the statistically less than one percent of america's millionaires are recognizable names due to them being in the spotlight they're not professional athletes statistically less than one percent are actors entertainers professional athletes and i've worked with the nfl we've worked with the nhl we've even worked with the nba a couple of times and let me tell you what nfl stands for not for long their average career length is 3.7 years the number of guys that become millionaires playing football is very low and a lot of them as we all know screw that up oh in order to be a millionaire and be wealthy you have to be inordinately brilliant another lie gpas today were all in the threes except one 4.0 no one had six phds no one had them all with 4.00 no one invented a a a a chemistry formula that's going to get them the nobel peace prize these are working people that lived on less than they make doing it nursing logistics and construction management now let me just tell you too i will tell you that the average millionaire is above a 2.5 gpa because they applied themselves to their studies they had a level of discipline by the way if you go to class most of the time you get a 2.5 if you just go to class i mean really and quit playing beer pong i mean just go to class and you'll get a 2.5 but most of us that are wealthy are not 4.2 my gpa was 2.97 in college yes i'm pissed off about the three one hundredths of a point i missed it by three one hundredths of a point so but you know what hadn't held me back at all i've done okay the point of this everyday millionaire theme hour is you can do it and you should do it and i fully expect you to do it and i want to hear from you on this hour when you do it i want to celebrate you you're america's heroes that puts this hour of the dave ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsay 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

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Id: 52YruMwWNgk

Length: 120min 54sec (7254 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021