The Ramsey Show (REPLAY)

[Music] 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 [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice this hour is going to be devoted to [Music] america's largest legalized fraud [Music] timeshares the timeshare industry has milked primarily middle and lower income americans completely dry to the tune of billions and billions of dollars with unbelievably fraudulent sales tactics offering and promising things that they never deliver including an asset that is not an asset an asset by the way by definition in financial terms is something that you can sell and people will give you money for it your couch is more of an asset than a time share is because somebody might actually buy your used couch no one will buy your timeshare it has absolutely no value it has as much value as your reservation at the day's end you want to try to sell your reservation at the days inn nope nobody wants to buy your reservation at the day's end and the only difference is the day's ends are actually there and people actually do get to sleep there occasionally that would be the difference if you have had a time share horror story we're going to devote this hour to giving you a voice you get to speak you get to tell your story call right now the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five i wanna hear your time share horror stories and they will be a warning to unsuspecting people that otherwise might go in the tiger cage if you haven't heard the tiger cage is this you're walking down the street innocently one day and a guy runs up to you and says hey we're going to give you free passes for the entire year to the zoo in order to get those passes though you need to spend two hours in the tiger cage petting the tiger warning the tiger has not been fed in several days and he's a wee bit greedy and hungry and so you go into the tiger cage and you pet the tiger for two hours which of course means you get eaten this is what going to a time share presentation in order to get free tickets to anything is you're going in there they're going to keep you in there 4 to 12 hours they're going to badger the ever loving crud out of you they're gonna use every technique and form a pressure on the planet and suddenly your idea of i got a free room while i'm on vacation i got free tickets to the water park while i'm on vacation has turned into the meeting from hell and in order to just be set free from the tiger cage you will sign anything one of the worst among the timeshare companies is the largest diamond international courthouse news ventura california an 81 year old man claims in court that diamond resorts international a timeshare club defrauded him of fifty thousand dollars and keeps trying to get more lewis wolf claims diamond resorts international club and six affiliates used high pressure sales tactics to open credit cards in his name run up bills on them before the plaintiff even realized the cards existed and charged him more than fifty thousand dollars for quote membership services in diamond resorts international entities wolfe sued diamond resorts on march 8th in superior court he claims the abusive sales pitches on the phone and in person could last four or five hours and despite the fifty thousand dollars they already took from him he says it can they continue to harass him for upgrades to his quote membership he's just a senior with the sort of normal cognitive challenges that comes from being an 81 year old senior senior wolf's attorney eric ridley told courthouse news ridley said his client is typical of many people his age and susceptible to high pressure sales which can be overwhelming get this one diamond international sends buses to senior communities to take them to nevada and once they get a name there will be a non-stop barrage of phone calls one diamond timeshare owner told morgan diamond is much more ambitious and aggressive and downright nasty in their sales presentations diamond just has an amazing reputation of being rough on people they reported 845 million dollars in revenue last year according to the times article which cities which cites two other lawsuits similar to wolves one in florida one in california so maybe you're like the 81 year old louis wolf or you know someone who is or maybe you just went in the tiger cage and you've had an experience some of the stories are downright funny the bizarre behavior of some of these timeshare salespeople they are some unusually scummy people working in an unusually scummy business you don't like me calling you scum well i'll help you you won't be scum when you go get a job where you're not ripping people off you're right there with payday lenders your scum you're screwing people and you know it you should be ashamed of yourself your grandmother should box your little ears for behaving the way you're behaving selling this crap to people it's ridiculous and it's out of control and it's a horrible product i hope i haven't been unclear if you've got a story you call me triple eight eight two five five two two five mario is with us in akron ohio hey mari tell me your story hey dave thanks for having me on today sure um first of all my husband michael and i have used time shares for over 30 years so i probably have a little bit more information on time shares than the average person okay uh one thing that you should know about is in addition to the maintenance fees which most all-time shares you are responsible for if you want to exchange your week you are going to deal with either rci which is affiliated with windom or interval international now there is a separate fee to belong to these clubs as well and that's like 100 maybe 149 a year depending on how many years you commit to then when you go to exchange your week even though you have paid your maintenance fees with your own company you're going to pay these exchange companies 249 a week if you're traveling in the u.s 299 a week if you're traveling international oh my god why didn't you just stay at the ritz well it would have been cheaper what exactly i'm just explaining you some of the other fees that people don't even know i know yeah i mean this is amazing hey i want to hear the rest of your story hold on with me through this break i'll be right back with you with what you i mean you paid 25 000 to stay at a hotel i mean that's what you just did this is i mean come on people how in the world do they get away with this ah because we've been letting them not anymore they're my new hobby this is the ramsay show [Music] stop paying your overpriced wireless provider and switch to pure talk they use the same network as the larger providers for much less for just 30 a month get unlimited talk text and six gigs of data with no contract the average family saves over 70 a month by switching to pure top just go to feartalk.com and enter the promo code ramsey to save 50 off your first month pure talk simply smarter wireless [Music] it's a time share hour as we talk about america's largest legalized fraud one company diamond international doing almost a billion dollars a year you know what a billion is that's a thousand million that's a lot of people getting ripped off all right mari is with us she was telling us that she's been been buying and dealing with uh women i did something wrong they're dealing with time shares for uh 30 years and she's talking about the fees for the exchanges the annual fees and then the exchange fee per company and per transaction to change that's if you can get a week lined up and you were i had to cut you off in the middle of a commercial there so tell me the rest of the story mari okay well now i'm going to tell you about somebody who has done this for 30 years who should have been a little bit smarter in february of 2018 we went to vallarta gardens for a presentation this is in mexico just north of puerto vallarta and you know we were in the tigers cage and we did not purchase you know held firm no no don't want it don't want it well you already own some time shares at that point right right and we've bought nars off the secondary market okay yes we had owned but you know nope we didn't want this so these time shares are famous for you're not getting out you've got the exit it's almost like the exit interview but then you know they bring you in something else should have known better dave but i paid 8 100 for travel package it was supposed to be like on the lines of travelocity where you're getting like bulk airfare you know you can do things with like viking cruise lines you know alarms should have been going off but the one thing that made me feel a little bit safe the company we bought it at vallarta gardens in mexico but the company was a united states company getaway travel services in nebraska and i even talked to them when i was in mexico saw the website everything looked good well here it is 2021 i have not been able to book any trips with them use airfare nothing i do still hassle them to this day trying to get the 8 100 back i went to the attorney general for nebraska they couldn't do anything but this week i did let them know that 20 million listeners would be finding out about their company good good very well done okay and so the name of this ripoff organization again is what getaway travel services in nebraska and and what they really mean is now that we got your 8100 would you just get away [Laughter] i am sort of a person that you know what i i'm just gonna harass them yeah i would i would have eighty one hundred dollars worth of fun out of it anyway messing with just messing with them to go in i wonder if you could buy i want to make an ad you could buy like in the local paper or something in nebraska no in puerto vallarta well down there it's a little bit different that's why i was glad that they were in the united states but that really didn't turn out to be good and i don't know but if a tourist happened to be looking through a tourist magazine and one was going to wander into the getaway travel tiger cage and they saw your ad that said i got screwed by getaway stay away from them get away get away um you know that might be fun i don't know you can have all kinds of fun with this you might as well because you've been taken there's no question about that i'm so sorry hey thanks for sharing the story is a warning warning warning douglas is with us in los angeles douglas tell us about your timeshare mess okay well um we've been timeshare owners for uh five years i'm sorry and we bought we we know that time share was not um not a good money investment and we went ahead and did it because it was the first time our whole family or my our family our kids and myself saw my husband relaxed and our kids are in high school so this is the first time he relaxed so um we went ahead and did it it turns out that the trip is what he relaxed not a time share well we've gone on trips before but this place is just really relaxing i'm sure there's other places but anyway um we went and um july 19th i mean july 2019 we upgraded from a presidential to a penthouse suite wow that must be nice and this how was this week um was it nice yes it's very nice how many times have you stayed in um just one because we've only upgraded one oh i see okay okay so anyway this last trip at the beginning of this month we um they put us in a presidential suite thinking that we had a presidential but really we have a penthouse so we we wanted to upgrade you know we wanted something bigger for our next vacation so we met with a salesperson on our own will unfortunately and um we asked her for a copy of our contract we asked her twice and so we could verify what we owned and she left the table twice both times returning to the table without anything in her hand and instead she confirmed that we had a presidential contract and that's the one that we signed in 2018 which is now void or which is void so um she basically um brought in the inducement i mean she tricked us into thinking we had a presidential when we all the time had a penthouse you'd already paid for the upgrade once and then you paid for it again exactly oh my gosh i just want your listeners to be yeah which company is this this is it's called it's in cabo san lucas it's a small company called grand solmar they have four properties um three of them are right next door to each other and then there's a brand new one out a ways and um i just want everyone to be to realize what we did do is um i had a lawyer help me with the letter we wrote a letter um to the manager the sales manager who's still there and he's american and he's the one who sold us in 2019 so we know fedex a letter that you have to have a signature for they don't have certified mail down in mexico and um within 30 days if they don't respond favorably we will um the letter says we will contact the bb the better business bureau of las vegas which that's where their financial handling company is and we will open the case with the mexican federal consumer protection department which is called pro-feco so i don't know how this is going to end but um because we just fedex the letter yesterday but i want your listeners to be aware that you know we asked for that you can tell a timeshare salesman is lying if his mouth is moving yes and we're like you know they they she's she was an expert she we she got our trust from the get-go we shared family stories pictures of her kids i mean it was just and you know so from now on i mean we we learned we learned cheaper in a hotel you know even if we if even if we can just recoup our even if we give up our deposit and we don't have to pay the rest of the contract i mean we'll be happy yeah i know that sounds awful but no it doesn't sound awful it sounds like you got screwed and they should let you go i mean that's what fraud does even in mexico go figure wow amazing what a scummy scummy business wow this is the ramsay show [Applause] [Music] [Music] we're talking time shares this hour and what a horrible thing they are and what former people worked in that business it's absolutely out of control diamond international west gate marriott windham diamond being purchased now for billions by hilton so hilton's going to go ahead and mess up their name by buying the largest timeshare company out there that screws more people than anyone else see what happens is people buy these things for 15 or 20 thousand dollars and they're almost never able to actually use them let's protect not even on the week that they bought that this comes up time and time and time again the aarp put out the 10 costliest scams to the elderly number one romance scams 83 million number seven time share sales 17 million number 10 timeshare resales 12 million 30 million dollars a year that the aarp estimates is being stolen from the elderly scams is what they called it scams go figure that man something else stacia is with us in tampa florida hi stasia is estacia stasi how do you say it it's it's stacia stacia i didn't even get close sorry about that how can i help well thanks for having me on your show and um thanks for having this um i think it's an important segment to help get the facts out to people before they spend money on these programs so um back in 2001 i received an offer in the mail this is one that i couldn't refuse right yeah right i think it was for 450 dollars for five days and four nights including a rental car and it was at a marriott property on maui how could i pass that up maui so i knew that a timeshare presentation was included so my eyes were sort of open and i had friends that had time shares and they seemed to enjoy it but we never really talked about the money part anyway and i'm strong i'm not going to buy a stinking time share i'm just going to enjoy and treat my mom to an inexpensive right right so we know i bought or i wouldn't be on a segment right yeah so you went the tiger cage and you got eaten oh yeah so as i was preparing for early retirement i put it on my list of things to do to get rid of the annual expense um you know i could spend the money going elsewhere and getting to hawaii from florida to was way too much travel so i kicked the can down the road because i listened to your program now i'm not saying that you advise procrastination i just heard all the horror stories and so i procrastinated because i didn't i didn't want to deal with it which is very rare for me so over the years i did simple math to see without if i was getting the value but i corrected my simple math when i started sending information to your show and i learned that my simple math was really me lying to myself and i didn't want you to catch me and ignoring the truth so my original payment was for ten thousand nine hundred dollars for every other year to to um stay in maui and then i upgraded to their point system i think that was around 2011. um i guess i imagine the salesperson's children were going without shoes and food or something i don't know what i what i was thinking but that upgrade was two thousand dollars so by this time i'm in it for a sump cost of 12 900. i paid maintenance every year for an every other year program and that started at 450 dollars in 2001 and it ended at 1300 in 2020. and in that time frame this property is falling apart all that maintenance well in every other year at occupancy so i only use it nine times so i reached out to marriott in january 2020 and they paid me three thousand dollars to take back my twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand niner dollars is current cost um i thought it was a bargain given the horror stories i've heard it was pretty simple process marriott actually gave you three thousand dollars yes sir wow you really came out but i didn't no i know you didn't but i mean compared i mean because marriott i mean there's some good people that work at the hotels and stuff but the leadership team at marriott man you could tell they're lying if their mouth's moving too oh my god we've had all kinds of trouble with those people it's a horrible company at the top so i'm really shocked wow look at you and i got out i got out before the for the pandemic so i don't know what that would look like today i don't know what those fees would raise up to today but you did good i mean really i mean i know you i know you feel like you got messed up you could get messed over but but i mean that's impressive if i if everybody could get three thousand dollars back from marriott that had been screwed by marriott on a timeshare well they'd be shut down maybe it was because it was so old you know i purchased back in 2001 somewhere i don't know you just caught the right person on a bad day wow i love it that's good that's good news well hey i'll just tell you if you're out there and you have a marriott time share and you went out of it i'd call them and try to do what she did that's pretty incredible it'd be great if marriott got hit by three thousand dollars for everybody they've screwed on a timeshare that'd be amazing i don't think they'd be open anymore but um that'd be amazing very cool hey man thanks for thanks for sharing your story if you have a time share story good or bad maybe you love your time share the three percent of people do three percent of people that have a time share just love it i mean what kind of comp what kind of an industry stays open with a 97 dissatisfaction ratio i mean who can stay no restaurant in the world i mean if you started going okay 97 of mcdonald's customers think they suck three percent thinks it's nutritious and awesome you know but they can't stay open on that right can you imagine i mean 97 of coca-cola drinkers hate it how do you stay open oh my gosh if 97 of dave ramsey listeners thought i was horrible they would quit listening hypothetically oh my gosh that's i mean that'd be like this is amazing marriott here's another mayor out here's a note i just got on marriott by the way if you have a time sharing story call right now triple eight eight two five five two marriott vacation club salespeople are super trained used car sales people this is a posting online they tell you how easy it is to book trust me it is all fabrication i could not book a week in october eleven months in advance costs how about twenty thousand dollars for your week of time share seven hundred fifty dollars for annual maintenance fees 104 dollars to trade your week for points 99 for interval membership 84 to book your week and oh yeah 79 to cancel after canceling even due to death and immediate family you have 60 days to use your week at a resort good luck with that check the figures booking fancy hotels is much cheaper and you don't have to stay a full week at the same location and you get the week you want without booking it a full year in advance trust me stay away from marriott vacation clubs trust me signed a true sucker this is an online post right here and this stuff just goes on and on and on and on and on oh here's another diamond resort one these guys in 2019 we were visiting a diamond resorts location and were offered a discount four-day trip to palm springs if we attended a time share presentation while there the staff pressured us relentlessly into making a purchase while at the presentation we were told that these resorts were for the exclusive use of members that this was a real estate investment it's not and that not traveling more with our family made us bad parents see that's when you should have punched the guy and left finally we felt that we needed to make a purchase not only to leave but so that our children could experience the lifestyle that the representative was promising oh my god after that day we continued to get hounded with calls from diamond employees asking us when we would be attending a welcome presentation every time we tried to book it nothing was available not only can we not book rooms that would accommodate our family we receive bills for maintenance fees that continue to rise what are we continuing to pay for this has become such a burden on us and diamond is unwilling to help well of course they're unwilling to help the tiger eats until the tiger is full and then he yawns and takes a nap this is the ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] america's largest legalized fraud timeshares we spend an hour on it occasionally just to make sure you know that you are getting screwed if you love your timeshare or you hate your timeshare or you have a great story we'd love to talk to you the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five larry loves his time share hey larry how are you doing good dave thank you cool so tell me tell me what you like about it and where is it well uh we won one in branson and one in eureka springs arkansas our first one was eureka springs um i i did have a timeshare in colorado that i bought in a bankruptcy that was used for skiing we went ahead and let that one go because the the yearlies did go up um but the two i have uh the yearly fees have not gone up over gosh darn 25 years so what are the what's the annual what's the annual the one is 4 40 a year the other is seven and a quarter um for a week we use them for go ahead so for one week yeah that's for a week uh but we use them we use them to trade and if you if you know johnny morris he owns big cedar down in branson their sister resort the wilderness club is right next door we trade into their day yeah we enjoy the heck out of it uh we use the branson resort strictly for family reunions that we go to yearly and and we've we've traded all over the country but we've we've as i told the screener you know my father did not vacation and when i got out of veterinary school third floor our very first time here down in eureka springs the gentleman was very low pressure he gave us the tour he said we're not high pressure here go have dinner if this is something you like come back tomorrow we'll pay we'll sign papers and and we liked what we saw and for us the experience was wonderful now those are those independently owned or they owned by one of these other companies that we were talking about uh well they're you know they're they're related rci at the resort exchange company but that's just an association that's not they don't they're they're in who owns them uh i the well the homeowners as far as holiday island down in eureka springs and in branson unit owners you know it's i couldn't tell you who owns it per se all i know is it's been good to us because we've known how to use it you know so you bought one of them point of sale you bought it on the property did you buy the and you bought one out of bankruptcy that you let go out in colorado the the other one did you buy it on the property or did you buy it on out of bankruptcy we did we did uh down in branson we bought that one on property okay um and um i'll be honest we wish we'd gone out to the wilderness club first because the wilderness club is absolutely beautiful um right on lake uh right on table rock lake and if folks are you know folks are listening they know what i'm talking about um but but again i understand the times time share scam i've had quite a few clients that we've talked about it but uh you know i've i've sold my weeks to clients they've gone down there enjoyed the heck out of them um i've used them for auctions in churches and the parishioners have used them and so i've i've had a variety of reasons for using mine um i definitely understand the scams what did you what did you pay for them up front uh the eureka springs we paid 4 500 the bankruptcies were 1700. now branson at grand crown uh was 12 grand okay um and and so uh but i had specific reasons uh we weren't you know we knew what we were getting into when we bought them and we go to a nice place every year for our reunion uh we trade into we trade into the wilderness club every january and take a week off before we start our our practices for the year it's a r r for us and and we get the shelter for the family and um you don't want to leave that resort yeah i mean look up look up big cedar and you'll understand johnny morris doesn't do anything wrong i understand got you cool well i'm glad you're liking it good i appreciate your reporting in that's fair that's a fair part of the part of the story as well we appreciate you thanks larry appreciate you sharing that open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five if you have a time share story uh according to a survey done by the university of central florida 87 percent of people hate their time shares according to a study done by the time share industry 87 percent of people love their time shares i wonder who's telling the truth and we saw a survey the other day a different one that was 97 that i referenced earlier we're actually doing some research right now in the timeshare industry ramsey research our research arm and i can't wait to get to report that to you guys it's gonna be amazing uh our guys are they know how to do the actual research it'll be it'll be straight now it won't just be let's confirm dave's opinion now they actually get real solid statistical evidence of exactly what is going on in the marketplace we do it for all kinds of things and around the money space and where we get we see the consumer getting screwed wholesale like this then we uh we want to step in and find out what's really happening because see people like hilton are buying diamond and these executives that made all this money all these years are getting a real payday when hilton comes in and buys that company out so this is uh this is ding ding for them they are ringing the bell at the bar like they do when they get a tip yeah and it's i got a lot of zeros on it it's amazing how much money those guys are made off of you andrew's in indianapolis hi andrew welcome to the ramsey show tell me your story hi dave how are you great how can we help um yeah a couple of years ago um probably 2013. i know 2014 i'm sorry we my wife and i went to tennessee on a time fair that my sister-in-law and brother-in-law gave us for our anniversary along with our two very little kids and um so you were using their week yes sir we were using third week in the gatlinburg or pigeon forge area where in tennessee uh yeah it's got time sure crawling all over it like termites okay yes it does and uh so we had uh my daughter was three at the time my son was probably maybe one and a half two at the oldest and they told us oh it'll be just a 30 45 minute meeting or so and i kind of rolled my eyes it's been like i've heard this before but okay we'll we'll bite the bull we already told you no but okay we'll just you know they trick you with that little gift or so and uh what was the gift what was the gift to get you into the meeting uh you know what it must have not been that big of a deal because i don't remember it actually okay uh i just remember it wasn't 30 minutes how long were you in there uh we were there for five and a half hours very little children yes um and at the one point or so so the salesperson he was very nice very nice and as soon as we started saying no and he started realizing we weren't interested it flipped on a dime and he became the most hateful person to us he even called over his manager and the manager got really angry with us or so at the time my three-year-old she was getting very fussy and he kind of gave her a very dirty look at the and i'm very normally a very quiet reserved person or so my wife said that uh it looked like i went i'm kind of blacked out and i got up i said don't you ever talk to my child like that ever again looked at my wife said grab the kids we are leaving i said if you bar me from this thing i will not hesitate to call the local authorities wow so you walked out it was a very i'm sorry what so after five and a half hours you walked out after they were rude to you and finally call it called down your kid yes yeah you remember the company name uh no it uh the place we were staying at it was blue green it was that's the company of them yeah blue green is number four um they're the number four largest one and they they get more complaints oh my god what a horrible company wow yeah oh my gosh well there it is folks this is the time share industry if you look up scum in the dictionary you'll see their picture this is the ramsey show [Music] 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 [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice can coleman ramsey personality number one best-selling author of the proximity principle is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five sarah is going to start us off this hour in saratoga springs new york hi sarah how are you hi dave hi ken how are you great how can we help great um my husband and i are on data step 3b and we just closed on a house and we were wondering how soon after we moved into the house should we restart the retirement again well what do you think i think about three to four months so we can get used to the new budget in the house but my husband feels anxious that we haven't been putting it into retirement and he wants to start it as soon as possible yeah why would you wait um just because the house payment and house expenses are a little bit different than what it is in our apartment so i just wanted to get a better handle on what it's actually going to be per month well you want to know they gave you the payment amount at the closing true what is it you're going to discover i guess of like repairs and stuff like that you just bought the house does it need repairs it's just like a new furnace it's like a 25 year old furnace so they suggested um replacing it soon so we were going to do that within the first couple months okay get some bids on a furnace okay so here's the thing okay you you you should not have all of these unknowns and then once you don't have the unknowns then that tells you when you can start the retirement or should start the retirement but i'm with your husband i've got an urgency to get going on it but i don't want to start your retirement and then finance a furnace so you know i know but the balance is we got to figure out how we're going to pay for this furnace right and so go ahead and get you know we know what the payment house payment is and uh shouldn't be hard to pull up the electric bill you can get copies of that from the former owner or even ask the utility company they'll give you the history on that so you have to lay your budget out within a few dollars and then you say then you get three bids on the furnace and you go okay we're going to spend x number of dollars on a furnace and so that's going to mean we start the retire we start retirement back after the furnace is saved and that's going to be here you ought to be able to lay all of this out but but the idea we're going to kick the can down the road for vague unknowns that you should search out the answer to is not a good plan okay does that make sense to you total sense yeah so go ahead and just dial it in and if you get dialed in you're okay ken yeah and you know one other thing i'd say there is who's they and let's get two or three veys to look at that furnace and say do we need to replace it now or do we think it's got six months to your life go ahead and save up for it get the quote of what it's going to cost get three four quotes and save it up but i i've been scared before dave i remember when i was a new homeowner and i all you need to do this you need to do that well you need to do this well do we really yeah that's all you're still going to save up for it prepare for it stinking thing might last five years it could be the efficiency on it too would be worth going ahead and doing it but you also want to catch it on seasonality that's true meaning you don't want to you don't want to do a replacement when uh there's a line of people out the door doing replacements because because the season changed right that's correct you want to do it in the off season where they're catching when they're not working and they give you a good deal yeah and so the timing on it would be a good idea too but you're right you can go ahead and save up and be ready for executing on a certain timing or just be ready when the thing lays down to fix it at that point anthony's with us anthony is in tampa florida hi anthony welcome to the ramsay show hey dave such an honor to chat with you how you doing you do how can we help um just wondering on which baby step can we start updating kitchen updating pool uh that kind of thing well we teach folks to not do anything until they're through baby step three out of debt okay and have your emergency fund in place because updating the kitchen is not an emergency so you need your emergency fund in place and be out of debt first now then at the point that you're at baby steps four five and six you move from intense meaning not doing anything except those things to intentional and intentional means that there's some other stuff in our life we're going to do while we're doing retirement kids college and paying extra on the house but we're also going on vacation buy new couch update the kitchen do the pool whatever those things get woven into the budget at that point of course paying cash for them and but um right there's a different rhythm there ken in those uh three in four five six yeah i like the distinction between intense and then intentional you know okay look we just talked about this a previous caller we've got some real expenses what would we consider higher priority what's lower priority what's just well we'd really like to do it but it's really not going to affect our life negative or positive one way or the other and i think that's the intentionality that you're speaking to and i gotta tell you that's really helped us from time to time go well i want this but we don't need this good distinction the king coleman show is broadcast on 75 plus radio stations sirius xm and as a podcast every day he is helping folks with their careers with their jobs with their promotions with uh finding their dream with finding work that matters and plugging in every day does that recruiters spend an average of 7.4 seconds on an initial resume screening gosh that's probably double what i spend and uh it's never been more difficult for your resume to stand out among the sea of participants and that's why we uh ken created a six easy to use resume templates to get you noticed uh there are a whole 9.99 six of them and these are instructions for building your resume the 10 do's and don'ts of job applications text resume to 33 789 you can get dialed in on that resume two three three seven eight nine and of course you can follow ken on the ken coleman show on facebook ken coleman on instagram making coleman show on youtube he's everywhere helping people with their careers including here today to help you if you want to talk careers jump in at triple eight eight two five five two two five triple eight eight two five five two two five kelsey says in my office there's a job opening that would be considered a promotion what can i do to show my boss i'm qualified yeah i love this i sit down with them uh after we've looked at the actual job description and make sure you are qualified you just don't want to be qualified in this uh particular question it's all right we want to sit down if you've got the qualifications and go hey i'm really interested in this opportunity here's why don't just lead with qualifications lead with enthusiasm see this is what a leader wants to know they want to know not just that you're qualified but you're raising your hand not just for a promotion for you but because you are really really deeply excited about this opportunity to grow yourself by adding more value to the company they're going to go for enthusiasm some passion more than just qualification and lay it out there i'm really interested i want the shot what can i do to get the shot well man coach that's it but hunger right not with an attitude of hey give me the thing i'm the guy that you're supposed to put in the game no i want the shot coach put me in coach i'll prove it that's it i'll prove it hunger humility i got it this is the ramsey show [Music] life is full of firsts [Music] as the first and longest serving christian health cost sharing ministry chm has shared medical expenses for its members since 1981. we believe you should have the freedom to focus on your health while being supported by a community of believers giving you the opportunity to create many more verses [Music] [Music] ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money on the stage the debt-free stage in the lobby of ramsey solutions is benjamin and josefa hi guys how are you thank god we're good how are you better than i deserve my friend where do you live we're from philadelphia pennsylvania oh cool welcome to nashville and all the way here to do a debt-free scream how much have you paid off 73 046 very good and how long did this take you 28 months all right and your range of income during that time uh 136 000 to 143. very good what do you do for a living i work in sales what do you sell so we help pharmaceutical companies with a quality system okay cool i'm a stay-at-home mom wonderful yeah okay very good what kind of debt was your 73 000 student loans yay you got rid of sallie mae yeah we're so happy to say goodbye to that toss her out in the street where she belongs i love it so what's how long you guys been married almost six years okay so two years ago in some change something changed what happened well um we have been on a financial journey since the beginning of our marriage and actually it's funny because um when right before i got married with tabinyamen my friend was telling me about this snowball thing i'm like oh okay guess i guess that that is bad so we were actually living in brooklyn new york and we moved to philly philadelphia with the intention of buying a home so we for we decided for one year we'll rent and then we started our home search a year later and none of the homes looked really great um and then one day benjamin comes home and i'll let him finish the story so i came home because i had a long conversation with a couple of friends of mine and realized that we're about to undertake getting a house and we still have over 70 thousand dollars worth of debt left and that doesn't really make sense if you have to replace a roof that's gonna cost you ten thousand dollars and we're never to set up a financially successful life for our families so we had a pretty difficult conversation for the next couple of days we bought the uh most of your books started religiously listening to the podcast and then decided okay we're going to do this and we set out on a trek from there to knock out the next the rest of the debt how did you run into our stuff i had a friend i have a couple of friends in philadelphia that are strong adherents and so it was a lengthy conversation you know we it was hard to get not be on the house buying train like everybody else and say you know we were in the same boat as everybody else and it kind of came to the realization that this doesn't make sense right now yeah very cool very cool well congratulations you guys i'm proud of you very well done who were your uh biggest cheerleaders cheering you on along the way our family they're definitely supportive and it was really good to have friends kind of in the same boat as us like living the dave ramsey lifestyle and having that yeah fun so you got a bunch of people doing it oh yeah very cool so i gotta i gotta ask you buy the books you start listening daily to the show and so you're really starting to soak all this in what were some of the first big steps maybe a big momentum starter for you to get started on this debt snowball and really get some traction what'd you guys do but we had to make the first difficult choice to take all the money that we had put to the house and throw it into that yeah that's hard and so that was that was hard i mean honestly a process of becoming comfortable with your lot we had to decide for the next three years or however long it's going to take we're going to live in an apartment instead of where everybody else is going to buy houses we're going to be comfortable and and and make do with what we have and be happy with it and so i mean the first biggest step was just the the mental state of being willing to to do that and kind of getting on the same page i mean once you're on the same page it's a lot easier yeah um and so that was really the first part of the process yeah i have to admit it took me a little bit to get onto that page but once i did i was definitely happy um well you were on the house train oh yeah it was really disappointing to say no to yeah but um the budget part was really important but as you can tell from when uh benjamin mentioned his range of income not much changed it was more of a mindset that had to change you know we were dealing with a similar budget we just had to differentiate between the things that we needed and the things that we wanted to have and we'd like to have and the impulse buys that we wanted to do so that was definitely a difficult mindset change yeah that's a big deal that's a big deal so how's it feel now that you're free it's it's actually i listen to the show a lot of times the typical answers are and it's true for us too it's liberating it's freeing it's like a weight off your shoulders a friend of mine made an interesting comment to me who started the ramsey journey for himself which is that i you know and we felt the same way i thought that freedom really is the ability to buy what i want but it's not really because the freedom is actually the ability to make unencumbered choices and freedom really lives kind of in that mindset where you have a structure you have you know you have the baby steps you have a plan and you find freedom within that when you don't have the plan you don't have a structure you actually end up buying a bunch of stuff you don't need you end up spending more than you actually make and so it's actually the true freedom is within that structure and once you get to the end of it then you really have the ability to make unencumbered choices okay so that's you know true freedom hey man that's good yeah i mean that's like i'm gonna take the next segment you should that's a great great visual too to that word that's a 50 cent word but the reality is it's there's no strings it's nothing holding you back yeah it's a beautiful beautiful illustration powerful now you brought friends with you who are the friends just off camera over here well we got our family oh your family three kids um and also my father and my brother and his family also oh very good quite quite a family affair then yeah brought the cheering gallery very good good well we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you and a copy of the total money makeover you can pass those along enjoy them yourself and oh here they come i love it what are the babies names and ages so this is mendel he's eight months this is endogetous she's two and a half and this is ellie as her lady's five fabulous they look fun oh they are very cool very cool i love it well congratulations you guys thank you very very well done all right benjamin and josefa 73 000 paid off in 28 months making 136 to 143 they are now unencumbered they are they are debt free count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one thank god we're debt-free i love it that's fun look at those babies they're cute very well done that's a great family and great story completely free you know there's a lot said in that interview with them this idea that i can just i it was a decision and once we made the decision all the drama goes away and it funny where all the drama and anc are comes from is not staying with the decision yes you know proverbs says a double-minded man yes is unstable in all his ways and we add drama to our lives when we don't stick with okay we're going to do this we're going to stick with it then all the other stuff's off the table and it just all of the emotion and the psychology and the drama and stuff starts to melt away doesn't it it really does in fact the rest of that scripture talks about the the analogy of driven like the waves and the wind of the sea you know just this back and forth back and forth and committing to the decision and then managing the decision once the decision is made we manage our behavior based on the decision i'll tell you one other thing that that i heard dave that i thought was really cool for those of you that listen to the show and you're debt free and you're still part of this amazing community of people that was it was a friend who was on their own debt free journey that said whoa slow down on that house purchase slow down and a friend said hey maybe consider this and because of that friend and group of friends they discovered financial peace don't forget that as you're going through journey and you're getting freedom and hope to share that with others you may be the lifeline that they needed that'll move things along for sure very good stuff well done they're heroes they're awesome love it love it love it this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today chrissy wright our co-host in crime another ramsey personality has launched the pre-sale of her brand new book take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance for years christie was stretched way too thin she has a mom of three with a full-time career she realized something had to change and she took a long hard look at her life and she figured out why she felt overwhelmed and why she felt over committed all the time and she figured out that balance is about doing the right things at the right time the new book is take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance if you pre-order right now while it's on sale it comes out in september you get fifty dollars worth of free bonus items that includes the audiobook read by christy the e-book access to the take back your time live stream and a lot more so all you do is go to ramseysolutions.com pre-order your copy of christy's new book take back your time and get it done today ken we've got a big announcement coming up next week on your new stuff oh exciting can't tell about it but yeah i know it's like a secret big secret not really i need to stop or dave's got this little button he pushes shock me right here would be great television now they they've got a button in there they push they it's the eject button and i go out through the roof when i launch something sooner than it's supposed to launch i get launched look how much enjoyment james and kelly's faces of the idea of they're just licking their chops they're proverbial chops yes indeed ah jared is in irvine california hi jared welcome to the ramsay show hey mr randy how's it going better than i deserve sir what's up in your world hey so i was just calling with a question for you i'm looking to get some guidance as to whether or not i should sell my house and move up or if i should stay where i'm at with the smaller space i'll give you a little background real quick uh we're in a two bedroom condo right now and we have two small children so the boys are sharing a room and we're gonna be trying for a third here real soon so that's why i'm having the debate of do i sell in this awesome seller's market and try to move up and maybe stretch our budget a little thin or do i just suck it up and try to cram three kids in a two-bedroom condo yeah are you out of debt except the condo uh yes we're in baby steps four five and six good okay when you make the move up are you gonna do it on a 15-year fixed where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay uh yes that's the plan if you can do that i don't have anything my question too just trying to figure out how much exactly i can afford without you know stretching too far 25 of your take-home pay is a payment on a 15-year fixed rate and if you do that you know you're not going to be stretched too thin you're going to be okay the problem gets in is because let me tell you the mortgage company will approve you for almost twice that much almost twice that much to where as much in other words they'll move you over to a 30 from a 15 and then they'll jam that ratio all the way as high as they can jam it up in the high 30s uh up close to 40 percent of your take-home pay and uh and then you're on a 30-year mortgage and now you're owned by them which is the goal instead what we're our goal is to get you into that mortgage and get you into that house and get you back out of that mortgage and that's why we do a 15-year fix let's get it paid off in 10 then and have a game plan to get at it but it does sound like you need to move dude you got kids coming out everywhere it's just like you got you got a whole stack of them there man the two boys in the room you can manage that third one for a pair the third one changes that whole equation yeah yeah and it's it's obviously getting tight in there but um yeah you just can't use the old i'm in california excuse because you know the math still works in california um in spite of what some of the politicians say math still works in california so it's still what has to happen there hey open phones at two five 825-5225 next in austin texas hi tiffany how are you hi mr ramsey i'm a new listener and a colleague has suggested that i i call in today okay so recently i've been really focusing on paying off my debt with my husband and this morning i was um served um papers from a student loan that i thought was no longer my responsibility um it was a private student loan that i had gotten out years ago with my deceased grandfather um i have at the time we couldn't afford to pay it back when my grandfather passed away newly married and then i started disputing it on my credit report on both transunion and equifax and each time i disputed it it came back that it was not my debt and it has since come off all of my credit reporting over the last three to four years it did i did notice whenever i got served this morning i went and checked and it was on my equifax report um but i'm just not sure what to do with this thing i've never been sued or anything like that and that kind of scares you doesn't it yeah i'm a little bit emotional today so i told my husband i'm gonna call i don't want to cry my mom just passed away a few months ago so i'm like i'm gonna cry that's okay i'm sorry so how much is the debt so the random thing is there's actually two of them but they are only sending it for one it's uh twelve thousand nine hundred thirty dollars and eighty cents okay well here's the equation if you signed a contract saying that you owe the debt when you took it out with your grandfather then you are liable whether it's on your credit bureau report or not does not affect your legal liability you can have something that is never on your credit bureau report and you're legally liable because you signed a contract saying you would pay it if however your grandfather signed it and you're listed as the person who got the money for college but you did not sign the agreement then you are not liable and you will need an attorney so we don't know based on what you've told me do you have any documents from any of this yeah i'm looking at it it does have me as signature of borrower and then it has my grandfather's signature of co-signer okay so you're looking at the actual loan agreement not the lawsuit i'm looking at the lawsuit they have several exhibits okay and one of the exhibits is the original loan document correct and it has you as the borrower it is you as the borrower okay well i'm sorry you're liable you signed up tomorrow how old were you when you signed that um oh six i can't even do that math right now uh 23. okay okay you're you're over 18 so you're liable okay i'm not an attorney but that's the correct answer all right when you sign a loan document as the borrower that means you're liable to pay it does that make sense yes so here's what we're gonna do they say twelve thousand bucks you all have any money we can no how much money do you have do you have any money save right now i think our savings account maybe has 1500 in it okay what can you scrape together beyond that um my next big check will be in november and so i'll have an additional ten thousand dollars okay uh so you have a debt of twelve thousand dollars that's what they're suing you for correct okay so i'm and and this is how many years ago from 2006 2006 15 years okay so yeah i would call them and say i don't have any money i'm broke i just got served i didn't even realize i was liable until i read this exhibit uh i do have fifteen hundred dollars if you will accept that as settlement in full we can settle this today they probably won't take that but you probably can get it for about 25 cents on the dollar not 10 cents on the dollar so if you could scrape together another 1500 bucks you probably can settle this and for about 3 000 bucks if you can get them to agree to that on the phone you get that in writing you do not give them electronic access to your checking account and then you wire them the money directly or you send them a money order or a prepaid debit card or something that does not interfere with your regular monies but scrape together a couple of thousand bucks here two to three thousand dollars i think you can talk them into taking that as a settlement in full get it in writing before you send it to them and do not let them into your personal checking account as a part of the deal [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage troy and holly are with us hey guys how are you awesome welcome where do you guys live we're from goshen indiana ocean south bend area yes all right i think i see a notre dame thing on here yeah yeah i didn't know if i needed to hide that or is we allow almost anybody in here welcome so you're here to do a debt-free scream how much have you paid off we paid off 65 000 in 30 months very good and your range of income during that time actually went from fifty two thousand to forty eight thousand oh down okay yeah there's a story here huh yeah there's a little bit of story i'm a high school math teacher and i was a varsity boys basketball coach for eight years and um actually decided to step down during our debt free um journey just felt as you'll see a little bit our kids and our family was growing we have five kids and just felt like it was time to take a step back and it was cool to see god work out um the details of when we actually took less income and had some other things pop up during that time very cool good for you what kind of debt was the 65 000 it was all our house oh you paid off your house we're looking at weird people yes you are how old are you guys i'm 37 and my wife is 36. wow that's awesome paid for house man you're so weird what's this house worth uh i would say in the market we're in i say 180 to 200 somewhere in there i'll go with that very good man that's whack you're not even 40 and you have a paid for house tell us about this journey what happened two and a half years ago made you guys lean into this well it doesn't it really starts 16 years ago so 16 years ago next month will be our anniversary our 16 year anniversary and um like this is a god story we're we're on our honeymoon uh 16 years ago driving to tennessee and driving down to florida later on and back in those days we didn't use our phone to listen to podcasts and everything we were using the old seek and scan button on the radio yeah it's amazing right and we're just looking for some good music to listen to and whatever and this guy comes on the radio it's a talk show he's talking about plastectomies he's talking about baby steps uh he's talking about debt is dumb cash's king and the paid off home mortgage is taking the place of the bmw as a status symbol of choice and it caught me right away and i had never heard of you before that and um i'm like i'm i'm getting it so when we got back home offer honeymoon we did the old google search and found out that you were on in our area just never knew it and so started listening to the show and um for 16 years we've just been slowly slowly making good decisions and um it ends in this very cool very cool so you whittled away and walked all the way through the baby steps yeah essentially when we we had bought we had bought in a used car right before we got married um i put it on on the payments because we didn't know any better right and right away i hear you talking about that's not okay and so uh once i graduated college and we were able to um you know have my teacher income and so on we started attacking uh the car and then my student loans at that point we've been debt free um from that probably 12 plus years and then i knew at some point we wanted to get you know the house that was the big one and so 30 months ago is where the story comes in 30 months ago it was my birthday i would have been turning 35 and i just we had 65 000 left on the morgan i looked there and said i want this done by the time i'm 40. and we literally took out some old construction paper made a house that we colored in every month the kids got involved in that and that we put it on our bathroom door and every month i just look forward to getting that thing and that became our motivation and um i said i want to do before i'm 40 and i'm turning 38 next month so it was just amazing to see to see god work out the details on that journey did you step away from coaching yes yeah that's that's a sacrifice i know a lot of coaches a lot of coaches a lot of a lot of coaches that they couldn't they couldn't conceive of not being a coach and i can see that you you love coaching first to step aside like that to spend more time with the family and that's a big sacrifice talk about how that paid off and and where that goes from there yeah um i think what i've learned is in life um whether i love coaching you know and um when i put in god's hands and and follow even if it doesn't feel right or seem right yeah you believe in his hands things work out and um you know like this summer i was able to coach my son's little league next year i'll coach a seventh grade basketball team instead of the varsity basketball team that my son is on and being able to still do what i love in a different avenue with less pressure less time and still being around my family so follow up to that so i'm reading into what you said so you stepped back from coaching that's where the pay went down correct but then you said god brought some other pay in um that that that would just be my teaching salary that i mentioned but i i work at a golf course in the summers and pick up odds and ends and um again here's another god thing so uh the year that i i quit high school coaching um had no intent of going to the college game and labor day i quit in april and in labor day weekend i get a call from a college coach saying i need an assistant i'm desperate will you help me out and wasn't planning on that but i did do college coaching for a year and ended up financially being blessed more than what the high school yeah was so just to see that's cool a lot of people don't know that part of the story wow pretty cool well done how's it feel holly did not have a payment it feels amazing [Laughter] freeing what's the first big thing you guys are going to do now that you don't have a house payment i think we want to save up for a family cruise maybe that's a good plan yep i like that one and just just that for me like we've said no so many times you know on this just to the little things just i look forward to the yeses that i can give my kids now that's powerful yeah no no means yes later that's what it means if you live like no one else later you can live and give like no one else i love it very cool what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is you've been on a long journey here um i would say just persistence and it it seems like you'll never get there but you do and one day you're just like wow that just happened that little that little construction house up there on the door is done yes it is and and i want to i want to take a special shot to my wife because we haven't talked about what she does um she has the harder job she stays home right and and she does some homeschooling with our kids and we have foster care and adoption in our story as well yeah and she's the real hero um you know i'm off able to do what i want with teaching and coaching and doing those things but when she stays home and takes care of the family um and is able and and financially we have been on the same page all of our marriage i don't think we've ever had a money fight and just to have a wife that is on the same page and um the day that like the amount that we owed in the house minus our emergency fund that day that we could we had the money to do it like lump sum let's finish this baby off i get home from school i'm like babe like it's there we can take it out and the emergency fund is still there and i'm just kind of waiting for that day and seeing what she would say and like instantly she's like we'll get to the bank right now like let's go and so just to have a teammate that has been like that has just been awesome yeah she's a real hero well done you guys well done very proud of y'all who are your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you yeah i was gonna say it's mostly been ourselves but we definitely have people that are supportive and they're definitely happy when we talk about it um so we've been blessed that's good very cool we got a copy of the legacy journey for you that's what you've done you've changed this whole family tree financially well done and also a copy of the total money makeover for you to give away and start someone on their journey that i like that crazy guy on the radio all those years ago as you're driving through tennessee go figure very very cool good for you guys so you brought the kiddos with you let's put them into the shot and give me their names and ages so kylie is almost 14. drew is 12. jeremiah is 11. brayden is eight and cameron is he's almost five but he's four all right very cool so good to have you guys a good looking family well done well done well done all right it's troy and holly and the tribe from south bend indiana area 65 000 paid off in 30 months that's the house and everything making 52 down to 48 count it down let's hear a debt free scream all right you guys ready to god be all the glory honor and praise three two one [Applause] high fives all around dave that's awesome that's how i do love it that's how coach does it at his house i love it very very cool stuff absolutely amazing yeah good-looking family yeah oh it's so fun there's something uh about having the whole family celebrate yeah you can see a lot of teamwork between that husband and wife certainly with the kids getting it that's a special moment that wasn't just a performance there they're genuinely happy the way they're giving themselves away through foster care adoption and just they've set a course dave that as you know it's going to be hard to keep that family's legacy down it's only 50 000 bucks a year they don't have a house payment no sir they don't have a house payment yeah this is pretty incredible yeah i mean they really have pulled off something here that's a pretty on a teacher's salary for yeah there it is again those teachers they pop up everywhere i love it i love it very well done that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books good hour ken good hour james childs our producer kelly daniel our associate producer and phone screener i am dave ramsey your host and we'll be back [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer for the ramsay show this episode is over but if you heard about an event product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down don't worry we list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to theramsieshow.com thanks for listening [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five marie starts off this hour in washington dc hi marie how are you i'm great thank you how are you doing better than i deserve what's up um my husband and i don't know when we should buy a house we're on baby steps four and five we're renting right now but my husband's company is relocating us next june and we we don't know when to buy our three thoughts were start looking in the fall before we move maybe buy so we have plenty of time and we're not pressured and then we have a place to land once we move the second is either moving with our in-laws for a couple of months next june and then buy and then the third option is maybe move in june rent for six months and then in that six-month period um buy a house but we don't know what we should do um my husband doesn't really want to rent anymore because he just wants to start building equity um why do you have to start looking in the fall to buy a house by june that sounds fairly inefficient to me well i think he just wants to see what's available because the market's so hot and if there's something that we like we would just rather buy it and then have our in-laws who live there sort of watch it and go for if we have construction so you're going to just going to piss away six months worth of house payments you know we would pay the the i know you're just burning it you just put 100 bills in the middle of the kitchen table and set them on fire okay for what why can't you i mean let me tell you what a normal procedure would be if i'm gonna move in june i make a trip over in february and start looking okay and close something like may okay and then i move entered in june okay cause she's thinking of like going to on a house hunting trip and like seeing a few places in october i know why if you want to go over there just for the fun of it that's fine but you don't need to buy a house in october that you're not moving into until june it doesn't make any sense at all so we wouldn't necessarily buy right in october like just to look and maybe something comes up in january okay bye in may start looking and buy in may and move in in june that way you're not paying a house payment for a house that's just sitting there because you got the itch okay and you're paying rent by the way back where you are right i know i know i guess this is also what has been thinking that's what like a lot is happening all at once so if we can have a place to land then it's not okay you do whatever you want to do but that's weird all right yeah and i would just say option three is a viable option i get that your hubs doesn't wanna rent but you know there's a lot of things i don't wanna do that i still do because they're the best thing to do and if you're stressed out about it go rent and get your bearings when stacy and i moved back here seven years ago we rented for a year because we had kids we want to make sure that it was the best school situation the best neighborhood so we took our time and we had a place to land because we were renting and then we're able to take our time and walk uh really wisely through the process uh in your position i don't know why you wouldn't consider renting other than he doesn't want to yeah but either way dave's answer is just as good it's okay i mean you can rent for six months and buy during that time or you can uh just move in may yeah right that's when you're moving anyway it's me so buy a house moving me and you know and so and then dial back out of that that means i might start looking in march or april and with a you know with a possession of sometime in may upon the closing that kind of a thing that's a fairly normal process yeah there's fear all over that to where you said the same thing three different ways and there's fear that's covering that up not picking on her but it's fear and part of it's going well the the market we gotta move now i got news for you based on what i'd be better off you'll be better off to buy the market is i'm not saying it's peaking but it's not gonna keep going up up up the way it has been i think everything is calming down it really is this it was a covet blip and it's calming down it's not it's going to continue real estate goes up in value it's a good investment that's right but it's you know the idea that it's going to double between now and may is ridiculous it's not going to denver's an expensive market anyway yeah but um it's not gonna double you're gonna be okay marie buy a house when you need the house not six months before that's unwise that was a gentler way of saying it gabriel is in canada hi gabriel how are you hey guys you're awesome cool how can we help jim i have a question uh so i'm looking to get married next year um to my girlfriend but uh her dad's um very considerate with like uh making sure that i could support her good um like financially good can you i think um uh well she was in switzerland um so i kind of need to find a job there first but the plan was to save up twenty five thousand dollars and then with that money we can get married move in uh rent a place um so i was just wondering what you guys think about that plan why do you need twenty five thousand dollars to go to switzerland no like for the wedding um why it's funny yeah okay are you working you got it you can you got the money to do that uh as of now i have around 11 000 but yeah i'm working okay so you're well on your way then i think well all you're gonna need is a job that makes as much as you make now in the area of switzerland right okay and do you think twenty five thousand dollars enough for all those things for a wedding and what else wedding rent like first months rent we want two months expenses we basically want to go into a debt free yeah yeah i mean it'd be great to have your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses if you want to have those dialed in and you know where they're going to be that'd be wonderful and pay cash for the wedding um it all matters you know it's not enough if your wedding's thirty thousand but it's plenty if your wedding is ten thousand yeah that's so you know it's all about the wedding budget as to whether that 25 works or not i don't know where how much of that you're going to spend on the wet on the wedding so um i like the conversation that you're having with her dad uh that means you're a young man of honor and um her dad is um stretching you and her to do this the right way that's cool it is it's it's good to see that and you know a real quick thing here i would adjust the i would adjust the wedding budget based on if you're going to be hustling to get to 25 let's adjust that budget you know i mean you can always do uh great trips as we get together in marriage we're debt-free we stay debt-free we live like no one else uh the cost of weddings dave can get really outrageous quickly i've heard the rumor [Laughter] this is the ramsay show [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] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well if you're struggling with debt you know what it's like to be scared you know it's like to be overwhelmed where you can't even think straight i've been there too you don't have to live like that anymore when you pay off all your debt as fast as possible you will never have that kind of stress in your life again and you can do this here's where you start millions and millions of people have gone through and gotten out of debt by going through financial peace university they've learned how to pay off their debt take control of their money and you can stream all nine lessons right now and you get some extra support by going through the class with others and the only way to get financial peace university is with a ramsey plus membership you can get rid of the death that's holding you back and in the cycle of worry and stress start the free trial of ramsay plus by texting trial 233 789 text trial two three three seven eight nine our question that it comes from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings free samples free shipping and with new promos they run all the time you'll save even more use the promo code ramsay to get the best possible deal today's question comes from alex in alabama he writes that i'm single 25 years old in the military and on baby step 3b with 170 000 in investments i've always wanted to be a pilot and i'm halfway through the process of getting my commercial license if i stay in the military it will take me three more years to get the license and qualifications to be a pilot it will only take four months if i pursue it full time i'm afraid the aviation industry will recover soon and i'll miss the employment wave so i want to get the license asap to de-risk my situation burning bridges in the military and taking a step backwards career-wise is holding me back should i leave the military now to pursue flying full-time okay there's so much here dave first of all i'm afraid that the aviation industry will recover sooner and i'll miss the employment wave that's not true there's always going to be a need for pilots that's a false narrative that's creating some unnecessary pressure i also have questions about burning bridges in the military i don't know why in the world you would need to to burn bridges if you're leaving honorably and you're leaving from the military to go into the marketplace to pursue a future you don't have to burn bridges if you're a jerk and you leave the wrong way that's the only way you're burning a bridge so don't quite understand that you have two options here if you want to take your time and financially it's more viable for you to finish out the three years or your stay in the military and then get the license that's fine too but if you're 25 you've got some good investments and you've planned for this financially to go full time for four months you got to have living expenses you don't want to go backwards financially for the four months that you got to go full on to get the uh pilot's license so i don't think there's a bad decision if it's me i'm planning for this and i'm gonna go for the four-month option and i'm not gonna look back but you can't let fear of something that's not real hold you back here dave now what i can't tell from the email is if he has served his that's what i'm clear on yeah his time that he has yeah promised the military yeah and if he's you know you can't just walk out that's not and i think that's what he's alluding to that's not burning the bridge that's just not an option yeah you can't you can't just walk away you said i'm we're gonna serve four years you're gonna serve four years that's correct you know so you know or whatever it is you signed up for what was your your tour and so now when your time is up if you're referring to burning bridges because somebody's gonna get their feelings hurt that you left the military well that's on them that's not on you you just don't be a jerk and you say i've enjoyed my time here and i've enjoyed serving my country and i'm gonna move on with my career if your time is up so if you can leave without doing something illegal or breaking a contract and be done in four months that's what you should do yeah but not because the whole aviation industry is going to evaporate in the next three years if it's going to evaporate in the next three years why are you going into it in the first place that's a dumb plan you know it's like you're going to get the one job that's left and they're never you're never going to need to right another thing ever they're going to hire everybody and you're gonna be the last one no that's that's that's a completely false narrative yeah but uh but again it has to do i can't tell from what i can't i don't know what burn bridges means here yeah it's hard to say i'm assuming he realizes you just can't walk from the military you would think you can't just show up and ghost them you know like hey i'm out i think i'm gonna get my two week notice yeah i think that's the way that doesn't work that way i don't think that's how it works all right tyler's with us tyler is in salt lake city hi tyler what's up hey guys thanks for letting me join you today sure how can we help hey so i just kind of have a unique job situation so we're in baby step four five and six and i'm a professor at a university and so they put 15 of my income through a retirement account every paycheck they do free tuition for my kids and our plan is to get the house paid off in the next four years but i wonder what's what's the i guess what i should be doing in terms of that four five and six in addition to maybe doing some remodels to the house that my wife really wants okay well baby step four is fifteen percent of your income going into retirement right okay and that gets you the full match right well so well they'll so they do that without a match so they just they do 15 regard i don't put in any they put them through well that's just that's just a nice benefit okay that's wonderful but you need to be putting 15 of your income into retirement that's baby step four okay you knew that you knew that was might be step four right yeah i knew that was the step four i just thought well i've been listening to you for five years and a few years ago you when someone had a big retirement like that you would say well maybe you do five or seven percent and throw a little more towards the house but lately i've been hearing you say you know do the full 15 no matter what they do a big retirement you mean like the the amount they're putting in or if you've got a million dollars already in there no so i have about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars you don't have a big retirement that's a little no no no yeah yeah you're talking about the amount they're putting in i i think the only time i have said that and i i one of the few things i am is actually consistent um so uh i think the only times i have said to lower it down to that to seven percent or something is um not not based on how much they were putting in but mandatory placement like they require there are some positions where they require you to put 12 percent into a program that's like a pension plan or something and then do i need to put 15 more on top of that no we back that off or or they're going to furnish this or that so anyway you can you can do whatever you want but i would recommend you put 15 of your income in and that you take care of kids college and then you work to pay off your house and remodel your house out of the balance and that's you know that that's pretty consistently yeah what we teach so hey thank you robin is with us robin is in nashville hey robin what's up hi dave thank you so much for taking my call i really appreciate it i will listen to you for years and years okay um i'm cummering because i have an interesting situation i've been married for almost 25 years um live about 10 hours away from our in-laws and the rest of my entire husband's family they own a his parents being they own a lake house and they came to us recently asked if we'd like to buy in um they own it outright but they told us in the next couple of years they would like us to make a monthly payment to keep it running and then they would then turn it over to us in about the year 2023. my husband and i kind of sat down and and did the math um and decided to not do that good his other two siblings opted in we opted out good um but there's two there's two problems there number one um we're the only weirdos that that left the family and left the state and we're also weird because we follow your plan to a tea and are debt-free except for our house and you're 10 hours away from the lake house so there's no reason to buy into it right yeah but they see us having a lot of money and so why wouldn't we because it's such a small because we don't want to and it's our money correct yes exactly and now they are going around the family telling everyone that we have opted out of our inheritance well and i'm struggling how to explain to them that's not inheritance i just wouldn't just let them do whatever they're going to do i mean they're just being butts you can't make somebody not be a butt so hurt your feelings though but you didn't opt out of anything you opted out of a dumb plan good for you and if they're not going to leave you something because of that oh well that's okay move on with your life i mean it sort of sad people trying to control people [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage adam and aaron are with us hey guys how are you good great welcome so good to have you where do you guys live mount vernon iowa all right welcome to nashville so good to have you and here to do a debt-free scream that's right how much have you paid off we paid off 266 thousand dollars how long did this take took about 13 years okay and your range of income during that time we started out about uh 85 000 and went up to about 195. wow nice what do y'all do for a living i'm a manager release engineering team uh at a software company and my wife i teach second grade good very cool 266 000 13 years that must mean you paid off your house we did pay off looking at weird people i love it how am i how old are you two i'm 46 i'm 45. and you did it before 50 years old that is so weird i love it what's this house worth i think right now it's probably worth at least 350 but it's hard to say very nice good for you how's it feel to not have a payment in the world so happy yeah that's amazing well done 266 000 paid off 13 years so you just been working the way you're supposed to work it just having living life living on a plan and knocking it out so what what's the story of behind this what got you started 13 years ago so 13 years ago i was on a business trip in about 2008 and coming back and i wasn't in control the radio um and your show came on um and i had never heard you before at all but a lot of it was kind of speaking to me and listened to that for probably a solid hour on the way back and uh got home and did uh did the searches on the internet and found uh found what your baby steps were and i kind of followed that for a little bit but we probably didn't kick it in for another two or three years but certainly uh we were headed that direction anyway both of our parents are very conservative i think the only thing that would have been acceptable was a car and a house payment but we wanted to get out of all that um we have four kids uh they're age 22 down to uh 13 now and so it's just kind of slow and steady and and it was it was hard for us particularly because i think you know you get into that that medium income and we didn't have a lot to cut out that um a lot of other families might write we didn't have a lot of traditional consumer debt to take out the equation but um so yeah it was a lot slow and steady we i uh did fpu i facilitated that for you guys a number of times over the years and we did it ourselves that gives you a boost yeah it helped yeah it's harder it's harder it's hard to not do the things we teach when you are the freaking teacher yeah yeah you have to do it it's like it's like hypocritical weird yeah if you don't i'm i don't really do all right no that wouldn't work yeah yep that very good i got to ask you about your the promotion over that 13-year period you go from 85 to 165. 95. oh what was it 190. oh i'm sorry it could be my own writing 195. so what what happened there what was that journey i yeah i was i stayed home with our kids when they were little um and then i did open my own preschool and i did that for a few years and i've done in-home day care along the way to always earn us some extra money but then um i did start teaching full time about nine years ago um so that was part of that so that that added a big chunk of it and just you know good yeah oh yeah no certainly i've i've moved up i've been at the same company for 24 years i worked for pearson education and um i've had a very successful career there i'm very happy for it but yeah but she's the workhorse right even when she was home with the kids she was she was kicking butt figuratively in some cases literally good very good you guys what do you tell people the key to getting out of that is um i would really like like adam said you know we always spent conservatively so we probably jumped into our home a little bit ahead of schedule financially but it was where we wanted to be and where we knew we wanted to raise our family so that kind of pushed us back a little bit but it was just a slow steady race but i am excited because we did say some no's you know when you know other people were doing vacations or you know spending a little more frivolously um so i am our youngest our oldest i'm sorry just got married a couple of weeks ago um and i'm excited for you know the next chapter of our lives and be able to say a few more yeses you know to some of the fun things yeah that's fun yeah you're in really good shape to do that yeah you don't have any payments right i love it yeah that's so funny i know you're a car guy dave i uh i've driven a prius for over 10 years now and uh i have four younger brothers that would say that was not the manliest car on the planet but uh um so we've i and i've wanted a truck forever forever and i've told her about it forever i have a young nephew that that would always ask me uncle adam when you get in the truck when you get in your truck and i for a while i told him uh aaron said i can't get it and then i had to take that back because she said because it wasn't true um but but finally uh last year with covid and with a wedding on the horizon another graduation on the horizon i did flip the script and i i wanted to wait until after the mortgage was paid off to get it and i know that's really not your principles and i've heard you speak that a number of times and we decided to get the truck last year and uh and finish off the mortgage this year that's cool good good for you that's a normal thing that's good that's the way it should go i like this you guys are heroes well done you're free you set yourself free i'm so proud of you excellent excellent job well we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you that's the next chapter in your story you're leaving a legacy to these kids these weddings are starting to happen next thing you know grand babies will be coming along life is good man and i'll go visit papa in his truck there you go i like it it's good stuff good stuff also a copy of the total money makeover for you to give away and pay it forward and get somebody started on their journey as well so really good job you guys excellent work and thanks again for being coordinators as well adam and aaron from the cedar rapids iowa area 266 thousand dollars house and everything paid off in 13 years making 85 to 195. count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one [Music] [Applause] excellent job absolutely incredible that is fabulous that's how it's done so what we're seeing ken over and over and over again are these what i'm now starting to call baby steps millionaires the people that have followed the baby steps and there they sit with a 350 000 paid for home wow uh we don't have to we didn't ask about their retirement accounts but we know that during that 13 years that they've also been investing in the 401k because they were following our steps precisely so we know there's a chunk there and so they might not be millionaires right there today we didn't quiz them on that but they're very close and they're and they're yeah and by their mid-40s they will be yeah or they're in their mind they're in their mid-40s by the time they hit actually the every the the millionaire study that we did the average millionaire that we studied out of 10 000 almost 52. wow so they're going to be right on that yeah they're going to be right on that and they're you know they're going to be get their first million dollar net worth with a paid for home and with a pile of money in your 401k following the baby steps and so we see a lot of times it's about a third like you got about a million and a half dollar net worth you got about a 500 000 paid for house and you got about a million in your 401ks and your roth iras we see that pop up all the time with these baby steps millionaires it's uh uh but i and it's really it's not billionaires no if if you want to be a billionaire you really shouldn't use the baby steps because you're not going to get there ever oh that's right because a billion is 1 000 million so if you have ten thousand dollars mathematically on a ratio basis you are closer to being a millionaire than a millionaire is to being a billionaire ah yeah but everybody thinks of millionaires as being like the same kind of rich as billionaires millionaires don't have private jets millionaires don't drive 250 000 lamborghinis millionaires don't have four extra vacation homes those are things that billionaires do now if you want to be a billionaire you need to use a different formula the baby steps won't get you there in this lifetime but if you want one to 10 million dollars and that's your target baby steps will get you there we heard over and over slow and steady 13 years they did it they stayed with the baby steps 13 years and now look at them the best is yet to be for this couple [Music] [Music] [Music] our scripture of the day second corinthians 5 17 therefore if anyone is in christ the new creation has come the old is gone the new is here my friend john maxwell says talent is a gift but character is a choice there you go i mean you guys are stressed out or hurting because you've been worried about this stock market going one direction or the other maybe uh maybe 2020 scared you to death maybe you need to get somebody in your corner like a conscientious investment pro to teach you these are called smart vester pros around our place they're people that we have vetted they have the heart of a teacher they'll walk with you as you learn to build your confidence and so you can ride the wave of something like a 2020 or the different things that happen in the market and you just think long term and think long term and think long term go to ramseysolutions.com smart vester and you can find a list of the pros in your area the smart vester pros and you can choose one and pick out who you're going to work with to put yourself on that track for baby steps millionaire all right sam's with us sam is in shreveport hi sam welcome to the ramsey show thank you for taking my call sure what's up i am kind of questionable baby steps four five and six uh and my question is about concerning the investing of 15 of my income my employer does not offer any 401k of any kind and so i was wondering what should i invest in after i max out the roth ira are you married no i'm not okay do you have any self-employment income no i do not okay all right yeah your roth is all you've got available to you then you max that out and then if you want to do something else you just buy some mutual funds get with your smart vester pro like we were just talking about and what you're looking for there is a low turnover mutual fund a low turnover ratio on the mutual fund like a four or five percent or less turnover ratio an easy way to find that is an s p 500 index fund most of those are low turnover what low turnover means is they don't sell the stocks mutual funds a group of stocks and they never sell or almost never sell 95 of the time the stocks in there and so as those stocks go up in value as a group you do not pay taxes on the gain until you cash it out this is a capital gain is what we're dealing with here if the mutual fund sells the stocks inside of there all of the gains are activated each year and you have to pay taxes on it so when you're buying a low turnover mutual fund it's kind of buying a rental property where if it goes from 200 000 to 300 000 in value you don't pay taxes on that hundred thousand dollar increase in value until you sell it and so that gives you the same effect of that in a low turnover mutual fund and that's the best option you've got left to you at this point and then over time you'll probably end up in a different employment situation maybe you'll add some self-employment income which you could then do a sep on this simplified employee pension plan additionally if you had some a little bit of extra income nathan's and amarillo hi nathan welcome to the ramsey show hey dave hey ken how are y'all great man what's up good hey so um i am 21 year old i've got one year left in college i'm about to be a senior and uh i've got about 12 thousand dollars sitting in my savings i'm wondering uh if i should do something else with it because i feel like it's not uh i mean it's just sitting in my savings i'm not making any money off of it what are you studying uh i'm studying energy finance and management good for you excellent thank you um well i mean nathan the you're gonna need that money to either finish school debt-free or make the transition after school because the transition being a move to maybe a different city maybe some travel to do some interviews so that money is best used to invest in nathan rather than worrying about some kind of mutual fund investment at this point you are a better investment than a mutual fund is you're going to make more return on it by using it to ensure that you graduate debt-free ensure that you're able to make your transitions without any um it just gives you a little grease in the wheel right ken yeah absolutely what do you want to do you have a good idea specifically i know the industry that you're headed to but what would be that great job right out of college so that's the thing i've been thinking a lot about that i'm not entirely sure i have a insurance sales job that's uh that has been asking me to work for them down in college but i'm thinking about learning a trade and uh hoping to become some type of owner operator of uh a certain trade fascinating well let me tell you would you not use your degree yeah that's true that's very true i'm just one no no what's the actual answer uh i don't know that's the thing is i i really don't know um what i want to do and i just know that i do want to do something with my degree to where i'm talking to other people and helping other people i don't want to sit behind a desk and not talk to anyone well but when you say energy finance i've never heard of that degree does that mean that you're specializing in financing in the energy industry sure so uh oil and gas uh you know renewable energy stuff like that are you interested are you interested in finance sure yeah absolutely um i mean i mainly picked it up because i uh had enough time to pick up another major and uh but i i think that i i like finance don't get me wrong but i would like to do something more in the management aspect yeah so play that out what trade i'm not holding you to this but what trade are you thinking about and then eventually working your way through the trade maybe owning your own business what are we talking about so honestly it could be anything uh i've had hvac stand up to me just because i've had a million problems with uh hvac and the companies that i'm using and talking to are terrible at their job and i'm sitting here thinking that i could run that uh something like an hvac business tremendously better than the people i'm talking to well it sounds like you still got a lot of searching to do but if you really love the trades yourself meaning you enjoy uh solving problems with your head and your hands and then you work your way up and eventually own your own business you know and that finance background that's not going to hurt you but either way dave's advice is absolutely right let's say you pursue the trades coming out of college you're going to need some of that money to potentially do some trade certification you need to quit picking your career based on convenience yeah and what's just in front of you you need to start thinking about what's in your heart because you you picked up this major just because it dropped in front of you and you didn't really give it a lot of thought yeah and now you're picking up hvac because you once knew had an hvac guy didn't show up on time um that's that's not the way you need to analyze this i mean if you want to find businesses that suck and get into one of those industries the entire world's open to you because there's always in any industry there's businesses that suck but let me ask you a question you are intrigued by the trades yes or no or is this a fancy no i'm sorry i mean go ahead no i'm out are you intrigued by the traits or do you really like the idea of working in the trades it's something that personal interaction with people solving a problem is that what's drawing you or is it just a fancy so ken it's not necessarily the trade itself it's uh owning my own business and doing something better than my competitors and helping people out along the way okay all right so you have an entrepreneurial drive so you better do your homework on this because here's what happens dave's exactly right you just well i've had a bad experience with some hvac companies and i'm going to start an uh an hi company you're going to wake up six months into that and you're gonna be miserable because it's not what you thought it was you better figure out what problem you're trying to solve so there's a three-part question for you for an entrepreneur to start something what problem do i want to solve all right not one and it's not one that makes money it's not an industry that needs your help yeah it's like i have a burning desire to solve this problem on behalf of people so who are the people and the problem that i'm helping i'm solving a problem i'm helping people and then what's the solution you get most excited about in solving that problem if you can figure that out now you've got something that it's not just a business that allows you to work for yourself and not work for the man and if you don't do that you're going to be a typical entrepreneur who's jumping from idea to idea every 20 seconds because you have zero juice for the actual businesses and so you you run to one thing abandon it run to another abandon it and it's just add in the marketplace thing i know because i'm an entrepreneur too and so we all haven't we all have 27 ideas in a minute it's just part of our the way we're wired so be careful with that it's very important to figure out what's burning inside of you and then go do that not go look for something of convenience bad plan good hour ken thank you sir good hour james childs and kelly daniel in the booth i am dave ramsey your host will 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 [Music] 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] you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

Views: 9,435

Rating: 4.8850574 out of 5

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

Id: 0SLVoWOEXrg

Length: 121min 25sec (7285 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021