You CAN Become Debt Free, It Just Takes Baby Steps!

show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice dr john deloney best-selling author and ramsey personality host of the dr john dolone podcast which is exploding across america in a good way is my co-host today so you can talk to him here on the air as a part of the show the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five we'll talk about your life your money and your life dr john is known for helping people with any kind of mental health type things relational type things and so uh answering questions about boundaries and in-laws and um you know life when it happens and it does happen to all of us so if you want to call in on his show you can always do so at 844-693-3291 or email ask john ramseysolutions.com the phone number here for today and there are a couple of lines available triple eight eight two five five two two five greg is in tulsa oklahoma hi greg welcome to the ramsay show hi how you doing good to talk to you you too sir what's up got a question i'm i'm 47 my wife is 56 and we started very late in life and trying to save we just paid off all of our debt except for our house good so my question is we combined we bring home about 130 000 a year phenomenal should i take every should i take everything and slam our mortgage or because of our age and we're starting late should i put more of that into like etfs or mutual funds well i would load up your retirement accounts 401ks roth iras and anything where there's a match or anything where you can get a roth first i've got a rough 401k at work they match three percent up to six so i've got i'm maxing that out good and then this year we just started a roth ira for me in a row for earth good yeah we're matching that as well what i want you to do is to stop that when it gets to 15 of your household income okay okay and everything above that then goes to what we call baby step five kids college if that applies if it doesn't buy them out of the house then we move right on to baby step six and dump anything above 15 going into retirement that we can scrape out of the budget on as extra payments on the house what typically happens in these situations and we you can run the math out on your situation if you want but what normally happens is the homes paid for in about seven years that's where i had figured six and a half okay and that's what putting 15 of your income into retirement yes see there we go okay and that's why because here's the thing we we want to get to retirement age with both of these things done the house paid for and a pile of money in the in the 401ks and the iras one or the other is okay neither one done becomes a retirement crisis right no money saved in big debt on the house and you hit 65 or 69 or whatever then you're screwed you're really in a mess but uh but you've got 10 years for your wife 20 years for you uh to build wealth and to clear this debt and so you should be in very very good shape when you get to retirement just by following the baby steps so dave i help me with this because this i feel burdened by a mortgage it kills me to the point that it is hard for me at my age to put money in retirement while this thing's hanging out there and that's is that a point when the the psychology needs to i need to dial that back and it becomes a math problem it just kills me man well i would just take you know a percentage of that kills me and just put it into i'm going to be very intentional with these dollars yeah every dollar that comes into the house and so everything about 15 goes on the house and the kills you keeps you from you know buying a hundred and fifty thousand dollar car or a hundred thousand you know a fifty thousand dollar car or something instead of putting it on the house i don't mean you have to drive a two thousand dollar car on the other hand but i'm saying what that does is that that that sense of weight or that sense of fear of not having enough there's a healthy result in that if you don't let it build up and it just becomes toxic in other words it's a motivator it pushes you to do the right things because the weight is real i says am i crazy no you're not crazy the weight is real i mean it's real but don't let it make you crazy i've never been able to to demonize like if i owe somebody something i've i really feel like i owe them something right and i i know credit card's different than student loans different than house but for me it's all the same yeah i mean it's all it's all a debt that's right and the borrower's still slaving to the lender and what you're experiencing is the emotional relational spiritual part of slavery right then you feel it and so um somebody else is going to participate in me deciding what i'm going to do with my life yeah yeah i don't want any bankers bellying up to my kitchen table that's it you know that's what it comes down to but i invited them too right yeah john is in indianapolis hey john how are you i'm doing fine dave how are you today better than i deserve what's up good i just had one question um in 2007 my wife and i took one of your uh your financial peace university class through our library and it served us very well down through the years and i'm about two years away from retirement and i've been investing in the 40 c 40 percent s and 20 percent i like you recommended um and it's done very well and my question is i'm about two years out in retirement at what point do i possibly slide that over into a more safe less risky friend or do i keep my foot on the gas pedal until i walk out the door how old are you i'm 58 5 8 yes okay well i'm 60 and i have not moved anything to conservative investing now what you may do when you do retire i probably would come out of the thrift savings plan and do a rollover into an ira and sit down with smartvestor pro and develop a portfolio for your retirement of mutual funds okay but i'll tell you what my portfolio looks like it's growth growth and income aggressive growth and international what we've taught for 30 years now here's the thing the the idea that as you hit 60 or hit retirement that you're supposed to move money into conservative things is called asset allocation and it is a widely believed theory of investing among the financial planning community i personally think it's wrong i think it's a theory and i think the theory breaks down here's why at 60 years old if you move stuff into bonds and money markets and you start producing about half the rate of return that you're producing now in other words you start making four or five or six instead of uh 10 or 12 on your money all in the idea that now we're coasting into the harbor of retirement and we need to be super conservative and we don't want to put anything at risk the problem with that theory is is that if you're 60 years old and you're healthy statistically you're going to live into your 90s the average death age of a male in america is 76 a female 76 a male is 74 but that includes infant mortality teenage death and so on when you hit 60 years old healthy you have a very high probability of living 30 more years so this is like talking to a 30 year old and saying you need to invest conservatively because you're going to be 60 something yeah you've got 30 years you've still got to outpace inflation and so i think this theory is asinine uh and so especially if you've got a lump of money if you're sitting there the half million a million dollars in these investments and it sounds like you probably are then uh you're not gonna be using the money anyway you're just gonna be living off the income it creates the money's gonna be invested for your kids you're just gonna live off the income you're not gonna touch the goose you're only living off the golden eggs and so that's my theory i don't think i'll ever move mine to conservative investments because i've got millions of dollars in it [Music] cliff and i joined christian healthcare ministries because we really liked the concept of christians sharing each other's burdens and we really experienced that firsthand when cliff was diagnosed with heart disease it was just such a relief to know that financial burden was going to be taken care of chm is the original and longest serving health cost sharing ministry get started today and check us out at org chministries.org budget [Music] dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five his best-selling quick read our first publishing effort of his it's called redefining anxiety 80 page quick read is now available it's all ten dollars and um and it's an amazing amazing quick read so if you have trouble with anxiety or you know anyone that does welcome to planet earth and uh dr john can walk you through some issues on that redefining anxiety be sure you pick up a copy samantha's with us in dallas texas hi samantha welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you so much for having me today sure how can we help um i was calling because um i started your program this past october and i'm on baby step two and i'm currently reading the total money makeover and my question is something that you talk about is not giving the government a interest-free loan for your taxes and um i get back a pretty hefty tax return every year and i was just wondering how i can set up my taxes so i get more now to put towards my debt without going um when i file my taxes next year okay what was your refund the last two years um 201 2200. okay has anything changed substantially in your life this year like did you buy a house have a baby get married none of this thing okay so nothing that's going to affect your taxes so you're likely going to get a 2000 to 2200 refund again right is that right i can really change in my deduction correct okay so uh i would sit down with uh just go to your payroll department at your company and say i need to fill out a form to change my deductions and i need to help you you can help me calculate it i need to change my deductions by 200 a month okay i need to bring home 200 more than i'm bringing home now that's 2 400 a year so you'll be under withholding a little bit so you'll owe a couple of hundred when you do your taxes next year if you want to do 150 then you would get a small refund that'd be 1800 but uh and and you know you get a couple hundred dollar refund that'd be okay too if you want to just be safe go ahead and just do 150. let's let's increase your take-home pay i want to claim enough deductions or fill out a form to increase my take-home pay by 150 a month that's 1800 a year and if you have a 2 000 tax bill that means you i mean if you have a 2000 refund that means you wouldn't be getting that you would have gotten it early except for uh 200 of it so you get a 200 refund instead of a 2 000 tax refund and that would be a very smart thing to do so yeah i'll just reduce your three and let me tell you the the irs tables don't work so they like well i'm a single young woman and i don't have any deduction deductible or i don't have any um dependents and so i claim zero dependence and then it creates this huge refund so that it obviously the calculations on it don't work so you can't use what your you know your real number of dependents are to set the thing up so you have to actually just do the math the other thing if you want to get more sophisticated on this folks go ahead and just do your tax return for this year in advance and then you'll know exactly what your tax bill is and have that amount taken out of your check and no more and no less because that's what you're withholding is not supposed to be over withholding and a refund comes from over withholding now you know while we're talking about these 2020 taxes there are some changes you guys need to know the deadline for federal taxes has changed from april 15th to may 17th a handful of states whose deadlines got pushed to june 15th because of natural disasters over the winter quarterly taxes and state income taxes are still due april 15th in a week from now and the unemployment tax law changed if you got unemployment benefits in 2020 you do not pay federal income taxes on the first ten thousand two hundred dollars unless your household unless your income was more than 150 000 in which case your unemployment benefits are fully taxable so these are interesting things about taxes as if there's anything interesting about taxes but uh if you're feeling like you can do your taxes on your own like her situation where she's got a very simple return there's not much to it try filing online with ramsey smart tax about 60 000 people have done it so far this year it's got all the bells and whistles you need it's very easy to use it's top quality no jacked up prices no bait and switch you can file your federal taxes with randy smartex for either 17 or 37 depending on the support you want and you're not going to get a deal like this from turbo tax so get tax help you can count on and if you have a complicated return we can put one of our trusted pros from the elp program in your corner to help you so if you want some help with all this text tax to 33 789 tax to 33 7 8 9. hey this may be an ignorant question why do people wait until again go back to what a question i asked earlier just because i get something in my head and i got to get it done why do people wait till april 15th is there a benefit to holding off paying your taxes mine are pretty uncomplicated so if you have to pay then you would wait until the last possible minute to give them your money okay if you're getting a ref a refund you would file immediately okay in january and get your refund as soon as possible because you want your money back in your hand and you want to change it but so going to april allows people to either earn that money gather that money get that money yeah that you're gonna have to pay the government yeah okay and you have to pay the taxes whether you file or not uh and so like in my case we calculate mine it's you know more sophisticated formula around here because i own the company and all this other crap and so we calculate mine to where i have to pay every year uh and we wait until the last possible moment to send them that huge check uh you know we have to pay quarterly so we have to do some other stuff there's all kinds of things so we've already sent in a bunch but that last big chunk that we are allowed to wait until the last minute without penalty we wait on and do it at the last minute and it's not because we're procrastinating it's because i just don't want to give the government the money until i have to let it work for me until it works you can say yeah at some point it's my savings account until then i want to keep earning interest on until yeah there's no reason to send it to them early okay so again if you've got a simple return let's use this ramsey smart tax online filing it's very easy like i said 50 60 000 people have already done it i did it it was awesome you used the ram sheets what i used i did at my kitchen table knocked my taxes out by myself one saturday morning called it good pretty cool it was fantastic well look at that that's good probably the last year you'll be able to do that i hope your life's getting really getting complicated brother so um if you need a pro in your corner because you've got a complicated thing either one we can help you with that with the elps or the ramsey smart tech software whichever one you want to use and they're both very straightforward and we're not going to try to sell you a mortgage loan while you're doing it or get you a credit card while you're doing it which i don't you know some of these tax filing things are merely bait and switch they're just trying to get you in their database so they can uh sell you something so anyway not us that's not what we're doing text tax to 33 789 taxed to three three seven eight nine hey oh good go ahead you're fine i was gonna tell you i had a um insurance question for you real quick i was calling to up some life insurance the other day and i called xander and they started telling me well you know dave recommends and dave says this and i asked a question should i do this or this and they said well dave i said well hold on i'll just ask him right because i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna be sitting by him on the show in a couple days and so um the difference between buying i'm upping a policy that i already have um and the difference between stopping when i'm 60 versus stopping when i'm 75 is is significant and so what do you recommend for people to when how long should you buy a policy for it how old right 15 years max 15-year policy 15 to 20. if you if you're 30 years old and you want to buy a 20 or you're 25 years old you won't buy 20 that's fine uh for two reasons one is at the end of 20 years you should be debt-free house and everything because you took out a 15-year mortgage or less you paid off all the other debt and at the end of 15 years you would have been investing and so you'd have substantial money and investments and so um i mean uh 15 years from now your kids will be out of college so the life insurance is really gap insurance until i can self-insure myself exactly exactly and if things change in your life and you need some more as long as you've not lost your health it has gotten cheaper almost every year and so like i bought a policy of 35 and i bought another one at 40 that was cheaper at 40 even though i was older the other one i just upping it was cheaper than the one because the prices are going down continually because they continue to update the statistical evidence and people are living longer and that it affects the prices so 15 to 20-year level term that's what we recommend all right this is the ramsey show [Music] [Music] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage benji and nicki are with us hey guys how are you pretty good welcome welcome where do you guys live ashland city okay just up the road not bad fun and all the way down here to do a debt-free screen yes wonderful how much have you paid off 38 452 two dollars and eleven cents how long did this take ten months good for you well done and your range of income during that time from 82 to 102. excellent what you guys do for a living i work i'm a team lead in accounting department and i work for the cheatham county highway department awesome very cool what kind of debt was your 38 thousand loans you for those of you listening the way she just turned and looked at him was so great go ahead and tell us man what'd you do [Laughter] okay loans credit card you know the usual yeah loans and credit cards car debt no student loan debt no no no no just buying stuff yes okay all right how long you all been married it'll be 20 19 years in august all right and uh 10 months ago what changed what happened we had to file bankruptcy oh oh then that changed it yeah that'll change it a little wake-up call yes and this was left over from the bankruptcy stuff it was actually due to be paid off in 2024. oh okay so this was a chapter 13 you cleared okay filed it in may of 19 and paid it off in october of 2020. okay all right and so you got you tell me the story what happened from may of 19 december 19 we just paid you know minimum payment right your normal 13 chapter 13 payments yeah january 2020 is when we that's when that i've had a moment come up okay and then we just started hammering away okay so uh how did that conversation happen tell me unpack the story for us a little bit it wasn't hard actually i was in the woods hunting and just you know a lot of time to think and i was just thinking i was like you know i'm i don't want to live like this i don't want to keep paying and you know for that many years i'll come home and just talk to her and she's like well let's do it so it was that easy okay all right and how did you connect to us we have a friend that's been you since he was 16. okay and he tried to get me on board years ago and i you know young didn't have nothing to do with it and then i was like man i should have done what he did yet so nikki you're just look like you were biting your tongue and you were gripping your knuckles what's what's your part the side of the story it's the thing the same thing yeah what happened before the bankruptcy no just kept piling up and piling up yes thought we could do it and then it was like we can't do this anymore we were living the life so we thought yeah and then it caught up with you hit you in the back of the head yeah but i believe if i know then what i know now we could avoid it bankruptcy but what do scared people do yeah you get cornered and yeah i know i know the feeling brother another feeling wow i'm proud of you guys yeah so it sounds like a lot more has happened than just cleaning up the debt we come closer we work together as a team i bet i bet we might argue a little bit over the budget sometimes but it's not easy it was not easy but it but it's at least at least it's an argument instead of a just a blind running crazy exactly yeah that's good it's good healthy now keep in mind she done most of the work she was able to work from home you know during the whole pandemic and all that so most of this was her okay so uh now that you're finally clear after 20 years of marriage and you got a whole new map on how to handle money and how to talk to each other about it you ever go back in debt no no you didn't even get to finish that sentence yeah well i mean when somebody's sick and tired of being sick and tired you can tell right you're right and that's uh that changes everything that's that's the that's the home run because you probably have been in debt your entire marriage right most people have yeah yeah and and now you're clear yes you thought those stresses were just a part of being married right yep just a part of being alive and part of being alive because my whole family's been that way you know we've struggled make ends meet how does it feel now that you're clear oh it's great really good who were your biggest cheerleaders anybody on the sidelines telling you your buddy's got to be one of them he's a he's about the only one everybody else if we were crazy or dumb and now look at me now how you like me now that's right toby keith right yeah good for you guys i'm so proud of you guys well done very well done i can just see a lightness on them they look they look like they lost it they're nodding like that guy that you you look across you know the old playground you're like you want some of this and the guy smiles and goes they know something the rest of the world don't know because they do right that's it that's the look man exactly the look so what do you tell that couple that thinks is like man you just got to be married 20 years it's going to be a grind and she's going to be annoying and he's going to be an idiot he's going to buy stupid stuff what do you tell that couple do it on a budget i mean that's the key to to getting out of debt is that budget and having a plan that you're both having a plan that you both agree on you're on a game plan and you said something i think is important i don't want to blow by it's hard and it's still worth it yeah and he or she is still worth it yes even though it's hard yes there's no magic fairy dust you sprinkle over it and suddenly making a budget it's fun and joyful and no thing you want to do on saturday mornings right it is very hard last april if you ask me i would have never imagined that i'd have went this far i mean we actually stuck with it you know started seeing light at the end of the tunnel when stuff was getting smaller and smaller that's what keeps you going yeah it is congratulations man well done you two you rock stars man i'm proud of you very very cool we've got a copy of rachel cruz's latest new york times bestseller know yourself know your money for you guys as a gift and uh we're so proud of you thank you for coming down here to do your welcome free screen all right it's benji and nicki from ashland city 38 000 paid off in 10 months making 82-102 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two [Music] this is how it's done i love it very very cool andy is in providence and rhode island hey andy welcome to the ramsey show what's up we're good to have i already talked to you i uh a little bit about me i'm late forties i'm single and staying that way no kid no hangers on i'm uh everyday millionaire as by the end of last year um congratulations how did you say you were thank you great for you late 40s okay cool um i got about 380 in cash that includes emergency fund but my situation is i've never owned a house and i've i've been working for quite a while you know more serious at times than others but i feel like it's getting farther away yeah with everything that's going on where i'm looking to move it's a real tight market and you know before colgate now it's just crazy because he spread into the outlying areas where i was looking um i'm kind of tired of sitting on this cash and not see it do anything good i can certainly get approved for you know a ridiculous amount of a house mortgage but i was really wanting to pay either cash or you know cash and maybe a hundred thousand i think i think cash is a great question what what do i do when there's just nothing in that range i don't want to wait that i well i don't know that you ha how long you have to wait uh but you can wait a little while i mean i don't want to wait six years but i might play with this for six months take your time keep poking around make this make this uh search and adventure i'm looking for the right deal for me at this time and i'll know it when i find it and until i find it just have a lot of peace and waiting don't get all caught up in the heat of the market and that gives you urgency your only urgency is you want to own a house sometime in the next three years my wife and i went nine months till we found the gym that nobody else had seen and just kept blown over and it worked out and you keep looking until the real estate agents pissed yep yep this is the ramsay show [Music] dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five angela is with us in idaho falls idaho hi angela how can we help directly into your phone it was cutting out on you i have a financial and relationship uh problem i'm hoping you guys can help me solve it we'll try okay so here's a bit of a back story um i was all married for almost 20 years uh we've been divorced about two years um i moved out about eight months ago during the time when we were divorced but living together we were trying to work things out but it didn't work out we have financial issues with infidelity that way and relationship infidelity we have decided we want to try to work it out where i'm currently seeing them my lease is up and i can't afford rents around here on my own and so my ex has offered to let me move back in for half of whether it be paying at rent anywhere else and is that okay to do while we're trying to work things out or should we stay separated while we're still trying to work things out what what are you still trying to figure out after 20 years of divorce living together after divorce and then an eight month breakup what is there left to discuss well we have trust issues in each other yeah clearly so what do you what is gonna what's gonna be what's gonna come to the surface here when you move back into his house and he uh he is able to lord over you the fact that you're paying less less rent and you can't leave how is that going to solve a trust issue well see me moving on it was kind of proven to him that you can't close that boundary there's no consequences yeah see you're so that you're playing russian roulette um yeah i know this is hard i it sounds like your relationship's over and either he likes having you around when it's convenient and you are still hanging on to this myth this fantasy that is one day gonna he's gonna bloom and blossom and grow and he's gonna be the guy you've always wanted to be and after 20 years and a divorce and eight months of giving it another go it sounds like it's over yeah well part of it for the future is how to deal with the drug we left and so i i know listen listen you're just accountable for that it's just it's gonna be one thing after another after another and it's so hard i know i don't want to minimize it it has been one thing after another after another after another and um i'm hearing somebody that doesn't understand their innate value and worth maybe i get told that by a few people you are you are worth not being lied to and cheated on again and again you're worth not moving into a house where someone's going to say hey by the way i i got you because i'm charging you a half rent you're worth more than someone else's table scraps and you've locked yourself into if i don't do this i can't live here and then i can't man there is a big wide open country lots of places you can go where people are going to treat you with the value that you're worth and i know that's so hard to hear yeah i guess it's more like maybe me just afraid of the change i guess because in this eight months where we have been apart i do come almost over almost every day um it's a bit complicated my brother lives with him yeah so i come and i see my brother and everything but so you're not really divorced no well yeah you've never really ended the relationship your relationship is continued yeah and it's strung on dot dot dot and it went from the main road to the gravel road back to the main road yeah it's just a mess yeah and if you have a scab and you keep picking it and you keep bumping it angela um how old are you 39 okay you having children um i have one adult child and how old is your adult child 22 boy or girl boy okay if he called you up and told you this story about him and his girlfriend what would you tell him i would tell him to break it off but it's easier yeah i said than done why do you value him more than yourself not your son your ex yeah um i kind of feel responsible i guess for him and his relapsing because that's so much issues we were having before i just saw that before i know i brought on issues i no i mean that's just that's just bull crap there's no possible there's no how in the crud can you come up with the idea that this guy cheating on you you're responsible for it or him drugs is your fault that's not whacked it's not if your son told you that about his girlfriend after she's cheating and sleeping all over town and he still wants to hang on and he said but it's my fault she sleeps around you would smack him wake up boy that's what you'd tell him wouldn't you yeah because he you because you know your son has value well we know you have value and this is just cray-cray girl you need to get away that's uncle dave talking i have no psychological degrees dr john's got two of them but i'm telling you this i've got a problem with your brother yeah your brother doesn't need to be buddying up with a guy who's disrespected his sisters over and over and over again for two decades the way he has if your brother had some courage he would step out and y'all could get an apartment together and figure this out while you got your feet underneath you but he's not that guy yeah and he does help me he actually my brother does give me uh your brother stands there while you walk back into this toxic relationship i'm not talking about money look you called and asked us what to do here's what we're telling you to do get out yeah get away don't have any more contact with this guy at all he's your ex treat him like it move on kiddo and am i missing something no yes the the other piece is treat yourself like somebody that treats yourself like you like you treat the people in your life that you care about treat yourself at least as good as your ex how about that at least show yourself and and do the work you've got to do when someone gets that kind of when someone's mistreating you and you continually go back to them back to them back to them back to them over and over and over again and they continue a pattern of misbehavior it is because you don't care enough you don't have enough self-respect to walk away from crap and we're trying to say you are worth it you need to walk away and you need to have zero contact with this guy if your brother wants to talk to you it's gonna have to be somewhere else where this guy's not around and not on this property you don't need to be on that property ever again and you don't need to talk to this guy ever again ever period you owe him nothing this is over this is so toxic girl go you need to get plugged into a good church you probably need to move to a different city yeah and start fresh make no mistake you've been married to somebody for two you 20 years at that point they're they're a leg and an arm it's a part of you this is gonna hurt once you finally acknowledge this thing's over and you start the grieving process two decades this is over over it will hurt and hurt and hurt and that doesn't mean it's wrong that actually means you're doing the hard work of cutting that infection out and now you're going to be on the road to healing but you're done with you've got to be done with it you got to be done like dave said don't go back it's over you're worth more than this dr john deloney just called your ex an infection yep yeah and your brother's not helping he's certainly not helping it's time to go get surgery connect yourself with somebody who will see your value and i know it's hard that mirror gets dusty and dirty sometimes it's hard to see it but man i i just hate hearing that in my heart man yeah you need to get plugged into a great church i really think uncle dave's thinking you need to move to a different city and get a start because i think you're going to have to have the physical distance to have the courage to stay away yeah and have that have the discipline to stay away because your healing's only going to begin to the extent you stay awake you're carrying in your heart his infidelity his drug use his fill in the blank his money issues man it's a mess you're worth more than that baby it's a mess it's a massive smash you don't be mean to him no you just don't have to be to him you're already divorced it's over yeah just you don't have to be it's not you're not required anymore your services are no longer needed wow that puts us hour of the ramsey show in the books [Music] hey guys this is james senior producer for the ramsay show did you know over 18 million people listen to the ramsay show every week and a lot of those people listen on one of our 600 plus radio stations across the country to find a station near you head to thermsyshow.com [Music] this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story [Music] live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i am dave ramsey dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five as we talk about your relationships your life your money anything in your life we're here to walk with you through the whole puppy the whole burrito open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five melissa is with us to kick off this hour in san francisco hi melissa how are you hi i'm doing well how are you better than i deserve what's up um so i was wondering how you recommend um budgeting for people whose salary or take-home pay is pre-dependent on bonuses okay how long you been doing that um i'm in my third year right now okay you're single yeah and uh what do you make total so my base right now is 95 000 and my bonus just really depends on performance what'd you make last year i thought that was your base yeah that's my base and then my bonus was 60 000. okay so you made 150 000 last year yeah what'd you make the year before total um 130. okay good so it's heading up then that's good yeah i mean that means you're performing well on this bonus program good for you okay well here here's what um what i i've lived on straight commission or an irregular income being self-employed my entire life so i've never been able to do a budget with a fixed salaried income i've never been i mean i teach people how to do it but i've never done one so what we have learned to do is a prioritized spending plan above what the known money is now how often do you get these bonuses they're yearly once a year yeah okay and so you're pretty much living on 90 and then this money comes in and you hit the lottery basically yeah so they just cut you a sixty thousand dollar check one week yeah yeah and that's a heck of a week it's a whoo-hoo week yeah i like it my favorite week of the year yeah okay so uh but so can and you can run your household on 90 can't you yeah i mean rent is super expensive around here but um but you're running your household on 90 aren't you am yeah but what i've noticed is a lot of my co-workers they basically go by the goal of spending all of your base salary and then with the bonus they save that yeah well i don't agree with that part but uh but so but i i think the budget is fairly easy we can lay your budget out on your salary and that's your monthly budget and basically go on every dollar or join ramsey plus for a free trial and get to get the every dollar premium and that's the world's best budgeting app it's a very very robust killer budgeting app to get help you spend every dollar of your 90 000 monthly on paper before the month begins in the app you're going to give every dollar an assignment every dollar a name now then what are we going to do with the bonus well we're not going to uh save that and blow everything else in in your budget you save and operate your household then when you get extra money in your case once a year you get this big budget big bonus before the bonus comes i want you to spend it on paper also because a month before you get it you know what it's going to be don't you so you know 30 days from now i'm going to get 60 grand right yeah okay so i want you to get you can just get a yellow pad out if you want and say i'm going to spend 60 000 here on paper now by spending it i mean we have to allocate for taxes if they're not taking taxes out we have to we're going to put some in savings we're going to be generous with some of it be giving we're going to uh spend some of it on fun we're going to pay some debt down we're going to hit some of the baby steps that we've been wanting to hit and some of these other things but every dollar always needs an assignment on any money before it gets there now if you don't know what the budget is or let's say you're thinking about this in september before you know what the number is going to be in december then you would start to just make a list and say okay if i if i don't get as much as i did last year what's the most important thing i'm going to do and you prioritize the things on this yellow pad from most important to least important and you go as far down that list as the money allows you to go when you run out of money on that list it should be that you've done the most important things to you before you did the least important things to you because you had a progressively important list a list that is listed from most important to least important with a dollar amount beside it how far down that list can i go and it can be i want to take a trip to europe and i put a dollar amount beside it i want to buy a car i put a dollar amount beside i don't pay off this student loan i put a dollar amount beside it i want to finish up baby step three and have an emergency fund of three to six months six expenses and i put a dollar amount beside it wherever you are whatever your goals are now which one of those is the most important is number one and any minds left over can go to number two and any months left over can go to number three and it's a prioritized spending plan now for those of you that get have an irregular income monthly like for instance i grew up in the real estate business and you really do not necessarily know what you're going to make next month i mean you may have some closings in the hopper you may have some contracts that are coming at you but you don't know exactly what you're going to make next month so you really are going to live that list out in the coming 30 days so rent electricity food it starts if you're going from if you have zero that you can count on if you're 100 commission like that situation yeah you'd start with food and then you do utilities and then you do food shelter clothing transportation and utilities you know take care of those first and then we're going to do baby steps and then we're going to reduce debt and then we're going to do this and then we're going to do that um and you know we're not paying property taxes before we buy food you know we're going to decide if i can only buy one thing what would i buy that and if i could only buy one more thing what would i buy and you list it out like that it makes you really prioritize your life the psychology of getting a 60 000 check on a friday man you could blow that and i like the idea of being intentional before you're holding that money yeah you got to do it on paper before the money comes because it's it's gone it's just those of us that were in the real real estate business or other straight commission things you know we you know we have you know we go from uh you know buying cadillac's to having them towed i mean you know it's back and forth it's all over this volatility and uh you have this tendency in that world not her but if you're in that kind of a world a sales world in particular you have this tendency to think you can out earn your stupidity and i tried to out earn my stupidity for years and i was a lot more stupid than i was talented so uh i couldn't do it and it kept catching me and well even if you're not stupid the world is still spinning around you there's always something that wants your money somebody else might be stupid and cause yeah there's always something coming at you you can just count on it it's just part of the dad blame equation it's how it works so that's a great question great question thank you for joining us we appreciate you being a listener good for you killing it melissa that's fantastic yeah that's a wonderful income dr john deloney ramsey personality my co-host today this is the ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey folks i got a great option to help you pay for your education the army national guard the army national guard believes you are the next greatest generation because you have proven that even in adversity that you have what it takes to succeed that's why they offer benefits like tuition assistance career training and a paycheck to help you avoid debt no matter what your goals are the army national guard can help you get there visit nationalguard.com to find out more [Music] so [Music] dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five our question of the day comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they will remake your window blinds for free you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey you know sometimes i do stuff and i go you're an idiot like when i mismeasure i screw up the line the the window blinds and they remake them for free even though i'm an idiot so this is like an idiot proof guarantee that's pretty cool that's why they call it ramsey i'm just kidding you gave me that one man oh underhand piss yeah yeah all right all right so today's question comes from annalee in nevada emily writes i'm trying to get my boyfriend and i out of debt i only owe 28 000 in student loans my boyfriend has almost eight times more debt than i do but he thinks you can't make money without spending it how do i make him see that he's hurting himself run get a new point run [Laughter] you can go left to california or right to all the other states but run you you can't um so here's a rule of thumb when dating do not date people you have to fix yes or don't when you're in a relationship and your thought is i have to get us to that's the that's the problem because us has to get us to right his job is to initiate being a grown-up thus far he has not done that yeah and he's not he's i mean it's not rare that people think you gotta spend a whole bunch of money to make money and what i know that's common so i don't say he's an idiot he thinks you can't make money without spending it right you got to spend money to make money no he just says you have to spend all the money you make oh okay i always think she's in congress no because there's been more than that yeah there's been more than they might yeah apparently he does too so in what you can do in elise you can sit down and and show him math and you can tell him hey look i love you and you hurt yourself then the important part of that conversation is is one that you're gonna have to decide are you in are you out and um you can't help him you can't fix him you can't heal him he's gonna have to be a part of that journey and you're gonna have to decide do i want to walk with this guy through his journey or not um but you can't get you and your boyfriend out of debt no you can only get you out of debt and you can show him how he gets him out of debt so um from a relationship perspective not a financial perspective if you are my daughter and i have grown daughters that are married i would say you'd sit down with this guy and say number one cause of divorce in north america's money fights and money problems the fact that we're not in agreement on this subject is going to end our relationship um because i don't think i can make a life with a guy who can't be responsible with money and so i in order for us to go forward i'm gonna have to see you become responsible with money i'd be your cheerleader i can give you some input i can show you some things to do i cannot do it for you nor will i do it for you nor will we be together long term if you are not engaging in growing up and that's a conversation from emily to her boyfriend the conversation emily has to have with anna lee is i'm reading the tea leaves here but this is somebody who struggles with codependency this is someone who struggles with an identity that her value comes from fixing other people and i want emily to do her work on herself and grow her value from the inside out let that shine to the world because it because we need her voice out there and then she's going to attract people who are not projects that are not puzzles and they're not engines who are missing spark plugs it's just an amazing way people attract what they put out in the world right let me ask you something i i don't disagree with that uh you know you tend to um it's not the victim's fault that someone is a victim but there's even been studies shown that a rapist will pick a the way someone walks you just feel it yeah they're predators they're they're a predator and they sense weakness and they sense the body language in other words and so um you know and that's what you're saying her body language is she has this tendency to try to fix things and so she takes in strays kind of thing um and let's pretend for a second that it's not that okay that this is and we don't know her but but just for the sake of uh argument with our audience because we've got a lot of audience in their early 20s late teens especially on youtube and um let's pretend that this is a 19 year old young woman okay and um maybe she does feel okay about herself but she just really likes this guy and before she know it she's kind of in love with him and then he has this problem yeah and he's a great guy and except four except for and he and this is not like you know normally she would not be taken in straight normally she would not be lacking in self-esteem normally she would not be there but she just kind of you know this guy's they they've built a relationship but and then all of a sudden she realizes oh god this guy's got issues so i i was a little different than i i'm attracting oh yes yeah so because i i have a pattern of always you know bringing home losers yeah i read this quote this weekend that i was sitting on my front porch reading dave and i stopped and it said sometimes you have to have the courage to break your own heart because it's the right thing to do and sometimes you've got to do something so hard that's the parent that says you cannot bring drugs back into my home yeah that is the girlfriend that says i love you and you're gonna drown us both and i'm not going to not i'm not going to sign up for this because this is going to be a long horrible life right and so this idea the the courage and bravery it takes to say i love you and i value my ability to breathe but anali if you're that person i'm talking about not the one john was talking about a minute ago that you're generally fairly uh self-confident you need to know that your desire for love in this particular situation has flipped your language out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks your language says codependence all over it you know so let me kind of go back my boyfriend has almost 8 million times more debt than i do but he thinks you can't make money without spending it how do i make him see he's hurting himself i'm trying to get my boyfriend and i out of debt yeah you me i'm going to fix him i'm going to fix him i'm going to fix him as what i says over and over and over again and there's a guy over there with a backhoe digging holes and you've got your shovel and you're like how do i how do i fill it up and faster than he can dig it up he can dig it faster than you that's right yeah you're digging out the bottom faster than you're ever going to get there so i want you to put that shovel down and go get some give you a high probability on this annaleigh um as the old guy the that's a walking dead joke okay high probability is that if you are a one young woman of confidence and a good self-esteem uh that this young man is not going to change fast enough to keep you around you're going to move on because i don't think he's marriage material i know he's not marriage material today and it's because john opened up with run that was his opening answer was run and and i like to think of these calls as what do i do if josephine comes home from college and says that i found a guy right yeah and dave you may not have experienced this and that's me being sarcastic i'm sure you did but sheila had people sit down and and talk to her like are you sure you know what you're doing with him right um like they would take her out kept sharing away from those oh man they found sheila are you sure and she's like i'm sure um her parents had to be rolling their eyes when they when i walked in i wouldn't let my daughter date me not in a million years oh man i don't even go down that road but so there is that right but but um but sharon did not take me on as a project no and i'd take her on as a project we were both projects but we didn't take each other everybody right but yes sheila did not get her self-esteem by saying i'm gonna fix john right yeah it's just good parenting to run those guys off if you have the opportunity you know i'm just like daddy all the boys in the youth group are scared of you and i went good keeps away two things wusses and jerks don't need either one dating my daughter that keeps away more than it keeps away everything wusses and jerks pretty well you put most things in those two buckets they're the same bucket well you know there's some time at times sometimes but it's just run and lee run this is the ramsey show [Music] so [Music] [Music] dr john dolone ramsay personality is my co-host today this is the ramsay show open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five john and ashley are with us in new hampshire it says on my screen you guys are debt-free congratulations thank you thank you well done how much have you paid off 75 000. all right how long did this take 11 months good for you and your range of income during that time 105 to 120 000. cool what do you guys do for a living uh we work for your friends at the kgb actually okay cool hey that that admittedly took me a second because of anyone in my life who would actually know the real kgb it'd probably be dave so it took me a second but i got it now i got the irs yes yes the uh the phone calls that i take with individuals that owe balances are a lot different now i educate a lot now well thank you thank you that's very good so tell us your story what kind of debt was this we had and one auto loan but it was multiple upside downs wrapped into one so it was like a 650 dollar payment for one auto loan yes student loans we financed our bed we had a best buy card for the washer and dryer um and that was it the way you said we financed our bed so we just kept getting heard him make fun of people for doing that before you finessed what yeah mm-hmm yeah well yeah haven't we all and and so how long have you guys been married uh a little over three years okay so what happened 11 months ago what was the turning point uh it's uh well we were on our way to make another bad financial decision we were going to our credit union to ask about their 40-year mortgage offer and then they told us that we could sit down with a financial advisor because we were members so we got an hour and he said uh you guys have a bad debt to income ratio so maybe hold off on that oh when the bank won't take your money that's when you know you got a problem right yeah so i mean i went home after speaking with him and you know just did what most people do just checked out videos on youtube and uh the algorithm hit you know dave ramsey videos and i don't know i spent probably the next two weeks just analyzing and analyzing until i finally brought it to ashley's attention she was like why'd you wait so long let's go let's do this ah okay we bought a pu right after that and it was kind of you know hit the ground running just go game on when the when the student is ready the teacher will appear huh exactly yeah the app said it was going to take 20 months and we did it in 11. yeah well that's because you decide to do it all and do it all with a game on attitude i'm proud of you mess with irs issues they will get it done did you flashy thing me yeah oh man you guys that's impressive so well done so what do you now that you did it now that you're successful you've successfully got out of debt something congress can't do what uh what would you tell people the key to getting out of that ass budget for sure we thought we were only going to have a hundred dollars extra a month to put it the debt and when we did the budget we found two thousand dollars that we could put towards the budget without overtime wow yes and saying no we have three young kids so we learned quickly to say no okay and they didn't they didn't die they didn't they run away they didn't leave you they're not in counseling yeah right no no they're they're perfectly fine they're happy with it actually we explained to them what we were doing and they loved watching the colors of the uh car loan you know getting higher with us paying it off they would come in and check every day and they'd get mad at us if it didn't you know go down wow turned it into a game yeah yeah they were our biggest cheerleaders that's fun good for you guys well it sounds like there's a lot of transformation happened in the house during this time yes for sure so talk to me about that drive home with your head held low to that husband who's like man i gotta figure this out to how's your marriage now um well communication um is obviously the way that we both work there i mean everyone like critiques us for like or just ask you know how do you spend 24 7 with each other um you know and do all and it's because of the communication and you know we tackled it together you know for sure so um i am the numbers guy and i just i would sit there and crunch and crunch but she just would make it work she took over with the budget we'd have the meetings and you know she'd sit in there and do the transactions and so it's just the the constant communication back and forth the teamwork the precisely i love it well done you guys very well done i'm so proud of you so um this is an interesting thing i want to follow the thread through you meet with the financial advisor at the credit union he says you have too high a debt to income ratio meaning you is broke and you come home spend a couple of weeks pouring over youtube videos that leads you into financial peace university what do you feel like looking back on that journey you've been through was the core message that you got from us that caused you to be able to do this to me preparing for the future um you know kind of like dr john said you know me hanging my head down though like how do i figure this out well that was just for us to try to get out of you know my parents home with three kids we were living with my parents and you know i was like how can i you know fix this you know with what it was my student loans and you know that was one of the biggest problems um but you know it was just you know pushing through and um you know looking forward to the ability to set them up educate them so that they don't make the same mistakes that i do um so it's kind of like you're more willing to sacrifice when you have a higher calling something other than just i want to back rep mine was the give part yeah being able to get to the point where i couldn't give back yeah that was the biggest thing for me other than setting my kids up for success but yeah but change your family tree and generosity are non-selfish noble higher calling goals versus i want to buy a nice car exactly and by the way you can do both you don't have to they're not mutually exclusive but but i want to buy a nice car someday isn't enough motivation to sacrifice i want to change my kids lives you can sacrifice the six-year-old's already saving for a tesla because he's not going to borrow money from the bank he said he's going gonna pay for it now i like this guy when he's 55 he'll have earned that money to afford that car he's got like 200 already he'll have more than elon has himself so there you go i love it congratulations you guys we're so proud of you we got a copy of rachel cruz's book for you her latest new york times bestseller it's called know yourself know your money you guys are an impressive couple thank you so much for sharing your story with us john and ashley from new hampshire 75 000 paid off in 11 months making 105 to 120. count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i think i heard that family tree joining in man that's the way it's supposed to be the roots called that on that one that's the way the sound that's the way this the sound of a family tree changing right there when that you get that chipmunk voice going in there with it that's that's when you know you're on on track baby man that gives me goosebumps when i hear the kids yelling it's fun stuff uh that means they were plugged in they were dialed in they knew what was going on and that's uh sophia they got it on our screen here sophia jackson and grayson were joining in there so congratulations they got to watch mom and dad do hard things and they learned hey we can do hard things and i man there's something about growing up in a deffered house that's a legacy shift there's something about giving your kid you know a car and a house and paid for a college that's cool there's also something about letting your kids watch you struggle and learn and go heard no no and they think powerful words i can do hard stuff yeah mom and dad can do hard stuff i can do hard stuff love it this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] [Music] if you ever ask questions like how much should i be saving or how do i get out of that faster or what's the right way to invest or i don't know where to learn about money well here's the good news you don't have to figure all this out on your own ramsey plus will guide you every step of the way with a ramsey plus membership you get all the digital teaching in financial peace university and other classes you need to really understand money so you can be confident you're always doing the next right thing the budgeting app every dollar is pretty amazing the tools the guided action steps they help you make progress on your money goals really really fast and that means no more debt cash in the bank for emergencies a real plan for your future a sense of peace and power around your money ramsay plus helps you get small consistent wins every day that cause you to have the big results and the lifelong habit change you get started today with a free trial text trial at 33 789 text trial 233 789 dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today john is with us in atlanta hi john welcome to the ramsay show hi dave thanks for having me sure how can we help well dave i'm calling in because i'm 27 years old i've got a stable job with the federal government that pays pretty well and i'm just kind of looking forward at my future here and it seems like a lot of the people who stay in this position kind of end up losing passion for what they do and i'm starting to notice myself losing passion for what i do and so you know when i bring this up with my family they kind of tell me you should stick with it you've got a pension there um you know you've got ironclad job security but i feel like if i stay here i'm gonna i'm gonna go crazy all right i wanted to know i'm 27. long you been there man two years how many two years two and what is it you do exactly daily um well i work as a statistician so basically i'm you know they try to automate a lot of the things that my organization does now and so i'm involved with that what do you love doing man well um i i do love working with numbers i do love um statistics it's what i studied in school why is this driving me crazy then well it's driving me crazy because i just don't uh i don't know it just doesn't seem like the people who work here are very passionate about what they do i mean um yeah you're i don't let us don't care about them for a second what about you it's okay to be in a room where you like what you're doing even if the people around you don't um no because the problem sorry the problem is that what a lot of the times what ends up happening is that if you're passionate you know you end up getting extra work but because of the way the system works there's not really there's not really much advancement so it just becomes frustrating what what does the word passionate mean to you i've been hearing my students use that word passionate for years now what what does that mean to you well i suppose that what it means is that sometimes you know if you wake up in the morning and you don't want to do something and it's okay to feel like that sometimes but if you feel like that day after day after day um then that means that you lack passion so passion means that i guess over a long period of time you can look back at what you've done and say you know i really enjoyed doing that that really that really made me feel like i was doing something important good answer okay so what's the downside with you going to work someplace else well i would lose i would lose my job security for one thing you don't have any job security there's no such thing you work for the federal government brother yeah they lay people off today they lay people off too they're probably not gonna go broke i don't think but um but they lay people off too and your job you're only as secure as your ability to do things that people want to pay you for and if you're a statistician who likes statistics you're going to be employable for a long time in a data-driven world yeah this whole world's driven off of data right now and you're a data analyst if there ever was one right right yeah i mean i suppose that you probably can make twice as much money yeah if not three times yeah i'm sure yeah i'm sure it's just a you know security security is an illusion dude it's a drug brother yeah you need to get out of there um because i mean you're 27 years old project this out you're going to be 57 30 years of doing this you already sound old right now i can't imagine how long you'll sound then that's a great line i was trying to think what he's not depressed but you just sound old man you sound 74. yeah you know can you imagine how old you're going to be when you're 57. good god you'll be a thousand in government years you're total government employee years yeah hey listen the people around you the people who who are giving you advice um they mean well but they're just wrong they yeah they are telling you they love you in the only language they know how which is you being safe and you be insecure which we know is an illusion but they're doing the best they can with what they got and at some point you've got to get off the drug of safety get off the illusion of safety and jump so john one of my heroes was my grandpa in the great depression uh he was 27 years old oddly enough and he in the in the stock market crash he lost a business and went and went broke and alcoa aluminum had come to alcoa tennessee in the hills of east tennessee and opened a plant and he went to work for them he worked there 38 years and never left because of the fear partly because of the fear of uh having gone broke when he was young and partly because he was a good man and wanted to provide for his family and the stability of that was there in that environment my grandmother became really dependent upon that security that you're talking about and uh humorous story uh the first time i sold my millionth book i've sold about 20 million now about the time i sold my millionth book which means i had made millions and millions of dollars okay if you can imagine my grandmother called and still was worried about me running my own little business when you get a real job dave that's exactly what she said she called up and said honey i'm worried about you when are you going to get a real job and i had just sold my millionth book now she's sweet and i understood where she was coming from because i know the story and my grandpa was my hero and i understand he's just one of my favorite people that i ever knew on this planet i miss him greatly to this day but the uh and i loved her i loved her too as well she's sweet as she could be but in her that was her love language from the environment and the situation the way they had lived life was to say when are you gonna get a real job and she meant well uh john just like the people in your life mean well but i just sold a million bucks so i think we can safely say the data the statistical evidence is that she was wrong okay and here's the thing if you go out on your own and you give it three four years and it doesn't work my guess is you could probably get a job get your job right back that's right maybe not that exact one with that exec department or whatever but whoop-dee-doop-dee uh you you have a marketable skill in a data-driven world data is the businesses that don't understand grasp and harness the data the power of data in the next decade we'll be out of business correct it's not optional so you are a highly sought after individual in your world and so that that's um i'm telling you i think you're probably making about half or maybe a fourth of what you're worth and you're giving it all up in the name of security that's not really there anyway get out yeah you can just hear i can hear your soul leaking it out it's leaking out of your body out yeah get out get out get out yeah there's something there's something to be said for i want you to be safe and so i want you to drown slowly right i want you to be safe well i don't think everyone should be an entrepreneur no absolutely i don't think everyone should be on straight commission i don't mean that but you know you're only as secure as your own ability to land the next thing because you have talent yeah and people want to work with you yeah yeah marketable skills and personality and so forth that's your that's your only real security because everything else is smoke and mirrors the guy making the payroll he's he's scared too yeah and you think you're secure that's funny you know this is the ramsey show [Music] hey it's kelly associate producer for the ramsay show this episode is over but if you heard about an event product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down don't worry we list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to the ramsay show.com thanks for listening this is the ramsay show [Music] you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host dr john deloney ramsey personality best-selling author is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five jennifer starts off this hour in washington d.c hi jennifer welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up so my husband will be retiring from the coast guard next summer summer 2022 and we plan to move back home to colorado springs so we currently have 150 000 down for a home to purchase and the question that we have is because the market is just crazy right now and homes are flying you know off the market and 20 to 50 000 over asked should we start the process now knowing that we're not going to pay over asking um you know should we start looking at houses now and then buying something and just letting it set empty if we end up buying something or should we just wait until we actually get out there and we also don't have any jobs lined up yet either how long has he been serving um it'll be 22 years next summer my goodness well tell him thanks for his service we appreciate it and you too you guys have moved all over the world haven't you um yeah we have thank you yeah i'm glad you're settling in it's good it's a good it's a good time of life for you and you're gonna have a nice and i think i'm also a little bit i have i think i have house fever because we've been renting for so long yeah you've got you've got kind of a nesting instinct kicking in almost here it's like finally i get to get my place and i'm wanting to do it and all these people went crazy with their houses after coving and they're messing up my plan yes yeah i don't blame you i get i get where you are i don't disagree um so the only reason you would go ahead and do all of that now is if you believe that this white hot crazy upbid market is going to continue for 12 to 18 months i personally don't think it's going to continue at this fever pitch this fever pitch is is the is the other end of the the other side of the coin of covid freezing the entire economy shut because everybody stayed home and they were frederkovic was going to get on them and and so they stayed home the government told them to stay home they stayed home and it shut the economy down and then all this pent up demand it's like the whole economy held its breath it's like holding a hose right yeah all the whole economy held its breath and it finally sticks his head up above water and goes and that's what he's doing and so i think it's you know just like if you come out of the pool after being on the bottom of the pool yeah you can get your breath trying to get your breath you know your you're you're hyperventilating almost and then within 10 minutes what happens kind of everything levels off and quote you know calms down and and that's what i think is going to happen with housing so i don't think that that this this hose being pinched and then released or you know breath being held at the bottom of the pool and then finally released is going to be the continued version of the economy for the next five years uh i don't know net net net if the house prices are going to end up higher or not honestly colorado springs has been a very hot market for a very long time and so it's going to be a tough market in terms of buying a house but the uh you know of course you've got a huge military presence there spoken on the base there and so there's always going to be some housing turnover because of that uh but it's it's a highly desirable city to live in and quality of life and you know lifestyle and everything and so um and so there's always been a lot of activity around it as long as i can remember uh it's been a strong market uh but i i don't know so all of that to say i think the feelings you're having are natural especially given your situation uh but but i wouldn't worry about it i just wait till you get out go out there get your jobs if you rent for a year to do the right thing it's not going to kill you and by then i think this hyperventilating market is going to get back to a normal breathing pattern of some kind does that make sense yeah it definitely makes sense i think i just need an outside perspective to calm me down yeah your instincts are right on both ends right you know this is put out a good time to buy and i gotta buy something right now right yeah i think you you accurately accurately uh diagnosed yourself [Laughter] which is good news self-awareness is always a sign of mental of good mental health there's only like 18 people in the country that have that so good for you and and not many of them are in washington dc so you're a real rarity [Laughter] she won't be for long going to colorado springs yeah she's leaving yeah get out while the getting's good uh yeah thank you for your service again i appreciate you i would just be calm and uh while all about you have lost their head you keep your head and just just go this is what's right this is what's right and there's no better place to be cool off i'm going to have an end breathe and an outbreak pile of cash too a rhythm with a big 150 000 bucks in my right hand and i'm just going to sit here and breathe a little bit yeah that's a good floaty right yeah that's a good floaty on the pool pool metaphor here it's gonna beat this metaphor to death yeah yeah just wear it out all right david is with us david's in kalamazoo michigan hey david what's up hi guys thanks for taking my call um also thank you for the every dollar app that thing that we we love it well thank you so my question today is i listen to your podcast all the time i don't think i've ever heard you talk about works oh how irp because i don't because i wouldn't ever tell anybody to do one can you kind of explain i haven't got a good explanation of how it even works or what the advantage over a wasp just having a lot well basically it's a sophisticated version of cash value life insurance it's a life insurance retirement plan lirp and you're using life insurance as an investment vehicle which is the definition of sucks and um you're using life insurance as an investment vehicle to create your retirement plan it's a horrible right of return it's very inefficient and um but the insurance world it does the very best they can to sell this garbage and package it up 90 000 different ways and this is yet one more way they packaged it and they try to create some kind of narrative or language around it where people will continue to be snuffed by it but basically anytime you buy life insurance as an investment you have a bad rate of return and often most often the way that the deals are structured is when you die the money you have in the investment is built into the insurance they pay out the insurance and keep the investment and it just never works out that's the typical whole life policy that's a variable life policy that's a indexed universal policy a double backflip circus policy i mean they just make up crap you know and you know so it's it's really anytime you hear investing in life insurance there's one word you need to remember run buy life insurance for death only do your investing in real investments don't buy your mufflers at the transmission store [Music] what makes our show unique is that we genuinely care about our listeners we're intentional about choosing the best advertisers to recommend blinds.com is no exception they offer high quality window treatments at unbelievable prices and they make it simple to shop blinds shades and interior shutters with easy online ordering free shipping and a guaranteed perfect fit go to blinds.com and take advantage of this week's special savings [Music] [Music] dr john dolone ramsey personality is my co-host today this is the ramsey show if there's one thing we all need to know by now it's that you cannot invest alone you need someone in your life who knows the market better than you is in it every day and helps you make smart decisions to respond to it look i love do-it-yourselfers i'm a do-it-yourselfer but i don't pull my own teeth and i don't work on my own cars anymore i don't even know what they do when i lift the hood it doesn't even look like anything i used to turn a wrench on 25 years ago they're completely different and i would tear it up tear up a perfectly good car with uh that or i probably would mess up my dental work where to do it myself so i actually bring in professionals now do i take everything that everyone says and believe a hundred percent of it no i expect them to teach me if the mechanic comes out and says you need to spend a thousand dollars i want to know why i want to know what's broken and how it works and what are we going to do to fix it i don't want just oh yeah they just tell you what to do i don't when a doctor says you know you have this and i'm like well what's that mean you're gonna have to teach me you know the tax guy says you need to do this i'm like i don't do it blindly i want to know why i want to know why i'm that little boy eight-year-old boy why why why why why which is how you properly invest by the way you don't just throw your money at some dude in a suit or some lady in a dress and go take care of my money and then walk out the door and hope it works out it won't this is how people lose their money so you get someone in your corner and you ask why and how and they have the heart of a teacher and they will walk you through the right kind of a process this is how you become wealthy oh and by the way when you're scared or you're worried about the economy or the news comes on and says the stock market dropped today and that you're like oh no i've just lost all my retirement no you didn't call and talk to your advisor and they'll talk to you about the history of market fluctuations and how life really works and they'll talk you off the ledge and let your little emotions calm down and then you can continue to invest because the only one that gets hurt on a roller coaster are those that jump off in the middle of the freaking ride so you need someone like a smart vester pro with that heart of a teacher and that experience and that know-how to show you what you understand so you can invest and stay invested text the word invest to 33 789 that's texting invest to 33789 and we'll create a rock solid investing plan with one of our smart vester pros today they don't work for us but these are men and women across the nation in your neighborhood that i proudly endorse they are trusted by ramsey alicia is with us in orlando hi alicia welcome to the dave ram after the ramsey show with dr john dolone how are you hi good afternoon sirs thank you so much for um giving me some hopefully a great financial advice we'll try um i've had a hit very bad financial history and it's taken me over 12 years to get out from where i was and i am fearful of repeating history so after all my expenses are taken care of each month i have an additional 4 000 that i don't know what to do with wow look at you yeah it's it's been long to get out of it so wait let's talk about it a minute what was what's your income but um i earn 150 every year what do you do oh i work in insurance you're amazing well done very well done so uh you said it's been a long shlog out of the mess how long did it take you to get out of the mess uh just over about 10 years was it an income mess you didn't have a good income or was it uh you did stupid mistakes very stupid mistakes i was um one of millions of people that were caught up in the 2008 housing market and i bought a house i couldn't afford and it's just it was ever since then i could not get out of it and i'm finally at a place when did you get out of there i had a short sale and after filing bankruptcy 2012 was when i finally got out from under that so from 2012 to today uh nine years you've been progressively doing smarter and smarter things and have not added any dumb things to the list no sir that's pretty good you got a decade of clean it's been hard i learned my lesson and i do not want to go there i've had my car repossessed i've had not not in nine years you haven't no no that was all part of yeah i know downfall of the 2008. let me tell you what i'm hearing john and i talk about this a lot let me tell you what i heard the language you're using you're still living back there in the pain and the shame no shame i'm proud you haven't you haven't ought to be very proud you've got a whole decade of being awesome oh thank you i'm but i'm scared well i mean that's okay my wife's scared not we went broke 30 years ago she still looks at me like i'm crazy occasionally and listen all that means is your brain's working just fine yeah it's seen how bad things can get and it never wants to let you do that again and it's willing here's the thing it's like you get near the edge of that cliff you're like no you can fall you know your brain we will smoke a cigarette to calm down today and it will kill us tomorrow all our brain wants to do is take care of us right this second so as soon as you start seeing this money and you start thinking about it it conjures up all the old to keep you in the straight and narrow but that can rob you of joy and fun and all of the rewards of this stuff you've worked so hard for what i want you to hear is is i'm talking to a lady that makes 150 000 a year and has made good financial decisions for a decade you know what that makes you a freaking unicorn you're unusually awesome you're incredible um it's just learning from where i don't want to be again that was my only driving force yeah listen the next phase is to not run from things but to run tucson yeah and listen when your brain tries to protect you it means everything's working great and all you have to say is thanks for checking in i'm doing great i make 150 grand brain and i don't make stupid decisions anymore brain and then you feel free to share your life with other people and man you are off to the races alicia okay so what we need to do is we need to assign a task that is future oriented because the past has passed that's future oriented to these four thousand dollars a month that you have and so are you single yes do you own a home yes okay how much do you owe on it uh well i think it's roughly around 4 20 now okay and what do you do you have any other debt no sir and you have how much saved um so i have no retirement savings i have my six month emergency fund of 30 000. good and you've heard us talk about the baby steps where you put at this stage you are at baby step four and you put my first time across you guys i'm so sorry it's all right you have your emergency fund and you're debt-free but the house that brings you to what we call baby step four which is 15 of your income going into retirement five is kids college i don't think that applies in your situation and baby step six is pay off your house early so we're gonna put 15 percent of your income into retirement that's gonna be twenty two thousand five hundred dollars in your life per year about two thousand dollars a month going into retirement and then everything above that that you have free you're either going to spend it and or throw it as extra payments on the house to pay off the house early and my estimation is is that as your income continues to grow you're going to pay off this house in under 10 years from where you are and you're going to be in a very amazing place with your retirement 10 years from today because you start saving 22 000 a year 2 000 a month 24 000 a year somewhere in there you're going to be rocking it kiddo and so your future is bright because of what you learned in the past and i don't want any listener to blow by dave's wisdom here when the gazelle takes off he's running or she is running from a lion and when that when that threat is over then that that gazelle has to go towards friends it's got to go towards the new watering source towards new green grass it's got to go to stuff not always just keep sprinting and spreading sprinting yeah you can only run away from things so long you start out you need to run two things this is the ramsey show [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage kwashira is with us hey kashira how are you hi dave hi john welcome where do you live i live in charlotte north carolina welcome to nashville and all the way over here to do a debt-free scream yes sir how much you pay off 82 thousand dollars and how long did this take 26 months wow and your range of income during that time i started at 56 000 and last year i grossed 122. whoa yes you doubled your income i did in two years yes well first i have to hear how you did that i took a leap of faith and i took another career path and now i'm a mortgage loan officer so pretty much where were you before a premier banker so doing credit cards yes so you took you took the private banking knowledge the premier banking knowledge and you how to serve clients particularly high-end clients roll into the mortgage business and go touchdown absolutely perfect timing what a time to get into the mortgage business yeah and what a time to take that skill set and use it well done well done i love it what kind of debt was the 82 000 well i financed a iphone security system i had to pay taxes i took out a 401k loan to put money down on a house i bought i had two car notes i had to buy my mom a car she just had to have a car right in my opinion um so small credit card debt and the largest one was 52 000 student loans god you just did everything yes i mean you're like normal pretty normal plus a little a little extra normal on there correct hey and here's what makes all of this ironic you worked for a bank yes i do work for a bank you knew better yeah well yeah no she was telling people do the same stuff all day exactly there you go yeah so uh what what happened it changed all this yeah it's a few things i was talking to one of my supervisors and just a little jim he asked me how much did i have in my savings and i told him about three or four thousand at the time he said how much debt do you have and i was just counting the student loans i said fifty three thousand dollars he was like well you don't have a savings so i was like okay that makes sense i feel like that sparked it and then somehow i really don't remember how but i came across your book i read it and then i i went down a loophole of watching debt free screams and there was this one particular story where this lady she was single like myself she made the same amount of money she paid off the same amount of debt i'm like if she could do it i surely can do it yeah i took off from there and now somebody's watching you yes yeah and they're gonna do it because you did that i hope so thank you thank you you're very inspiring very very fun 82 026 months yes so you read the book and then you went down the rabbit hole of youtube and watched um because there's thousands of debt free screams on youtube i mean we've got we've got them all on our youtube channel about a billion downloads on on the podcast now and literally and so people are doing this all the time yes uh and what a good i mean you just like that just fills up your spirit yes other people winning yelling yeah that's cool that's going to be me yeah yeah what was the first thing you actually did then with this new motivation yeah i am i'm a very goal oriented person i like to see things on paper so i wrote down all of my debt and my goal was just to be debt free by 30. i started this when i was 26 so four years was plenty enough time but of course you know our lord and savior sped that up it just kept things just kept lining up where income increasing checks were coming you know i took on extra jobs etc so just got accurate yeah i've watched this for years and i've um the anal or the metaphor that i've used is that it's like god is sitting up there going oh look there's one that's now smart i can trust this one because when you're faithful with the little things you're given more to manage that's scriptural and it's almost as if you're walking along and you step up on one of those moving sidewalks at the airport and now you're still walking but you're moving even faster yes and like god just takes you faster than your little legs to take you by yourself absolutely he let me finish this a month after well actually the same month i turned 29 so again he fast tracked my plan yeah his plans was always better than ours so you're faster hey man you're faster than you thought you were going to correct yeah way to go thank you who is your biggest cheerleader um you know my family is always going to support me but outside of that i feel like just watching listening to your show daily i mean i would take roaches i would listen to on the plane um i did uber and lift for his time i would play it in the car so just keeping you on and again just watching youtube videos kept me motivated with the listeners looking to do what i'm doing when did you make the jump to mortgages july of 2019 and i finished july 2020. okay so one year of the two years was at a potentially higher income correct or a higher income certainly you've been i'm sure the mortgage business has gotten better every month after they're doing this yeah and um and you did all this through covid correct which was great for me a lot of folks are taking advantage of not having to pay student loans and i thought it was a great opportunity to pay student loans since all my money is going towards principal versus interest so of course again guess just gazelle that as well yeah very what was it what was give us a moment you got scared things things got dicey um it's a long journey um you know i tell any anyone it's it's one of the hardest things i ever did it's simple and i need simple a simple plan to follow but was one of the hardest things i ever did so just just trying to stick with it and just remembering hey this is temporary this is going to be two years and i'm only 29 i have my entire life to live financially free so when it got scary you just backed up and had perspective correct remember remembering the goal yeah and remember where i'm gonna be what you're gonna feel like exactly yeah that's a big deal that's very strong that's very strong you're an amazing young woman i'm so proud of you thank you i'm sure your mom's proud of you she came with you who else came with yes my mom and my sister all right family is supporting yes i like it this is very very cool well congratulations thank you so much very well done so you tell people the key to getting out of debt is yeah so um stay the course again it may get wary but just stick with it you you're literally almost probably close to finishing if you thinking about quitting um lowering your expenses increasing your income is a big one i got rid of streaming services um i went from 120 cell phone bill down to 50. my folks actually laugh at me because my service isn't that great but my bill is 50 so and i don't want to talk to you anyway it's right exactly after talking on the phone with my clients um discipline and sacrifice those are those are the keys for me we're getting out of debt yeah yeah you you uh you really uh you were so game on i mean you you identified the target like you said you said i'm goal oriented but you really are you're that's not just that's the way your brain works and once you set that thing and then it's game on correct you know and there's no stopping you and and uh did you learn anything about yourself during this journey um i would say i can really do whatever i really put my mind to you kind of already knew that yeah yeah this just gave you more confidence correct yeah yeah because you weren't lacking in confidence before no you you gotta you gotta meet your mama raise your right that's awesome yeah you got a presence about you that's powerful wow thank you cool well done yeah well we got a copy of rachel cruz's latest new york times bestseller know yourself know your money for you thank you i will add that to your collection of ramsey books and you're an impressive young woman well done all right quichera from charlotte north carolina 82 000 paid off in 26 months making 56 to 122. count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one i'll die free [Applause] man oh man oh man oh man i don't know a lot but when kashira has a goal i'm not going to get between her and that goal no you wouldn't want to no and i don't i i also don't know a lot but i think you just got a parenting principle woven into that that mom taught that kid how to be that kind of woman how to have self-worth how to have goals how to i to know i can do hard things all of it you have value and that means you can go get whatever you'll get zero chance no that woman's gonna be a victim nope she's killed or to adopt a victim position of any kind ever do not get in her way that's cool i'm gonna run right through it that's incredible it's incredible because here's mom i see you and you're inspiring me because i'm raising a little girl and you're inspiring me amen yeah i'm gonna build a warrior princess baby that's how you do it wow pretty incredible this is the ramsay show [Music] [Music] so our scripture today james 1 4 let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything benjamin franklin said energy and persistence conquer all things dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today as we take your questions about life and about money the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five jessica is with us she's in wilmington north carolina hi jessica how can we help hi dave hi dr d how are y'all today great what's up great um so my husband and i are trying to figure out if we can afford for me to start my career so just some quick details we re we recently finished baby step two i'm working on baby step three which will probably take us about five more months um i'm going to be going into real estate so there are going to be some startup um costs associated with that probably around like 1200 with mls access and the exams and everything like that but we will have to figure out getting child care for our son so my husband is in the military we could utilize the base daycare for about 600 a month but we're wondering if we should essentially pause baby step 3 and save the money for my startup and a few months of child care to cover that gap in between when i start and when i get my first commission check or if we should finish up baby step three and then save up for those costs associated with me starting work eighteen hundred dollars takes you through the first month twelve hundred dollars worth of costs and six hundred dollars worth of daycare right that should be right yeah okay um how old are you uh we are both 22 22. yes okay and have you had discussions with a real estate broker that you would go to work for yes i have i have been in the office several times to speak with them and have interest with a particular brokerage and what's their training program like and what do they project before you to make your first sale um so they have told me one of the girls who i've been talking to she said that it took her about six weeks to get her first contract but there are other girls in the office who um they've gotten a contract within the first few weeks and some longer so that is what is going to be your delete what's going to be your lead source um they i'm not 100 sure still trying to figure out all of those details okay um and what does your husband make a year um he makes around 40 000 a year why real estate um it's always something that i have been interested in and you know i have a passion to help people and i figure um taking my interest and my passion mixing that together could be a good idea all right let me tell you the full picture of what i'm hearing and what what's also running through my head okay and then let's kind of put all that on the table and we'll start playing with it and trying to figure out what to do i got my real estate license when i turned 18 years old um i did sell a house three weeks later because to one of my high school buddies because i was just out of high school which means both of us were pretty stupid actually but um i mean who buys a house from an 18 year old except another 18 year old right so um but the uh uh or a 19 year old or something like that i mean this is like happy days does real estate or something but the um uh uh but by and large uh and i sold real estate actively all the way through college from 18 to 22 years old and then and i've had my licenses ever since so uh what you're saying can be done uh i will tell you from experience male or female um it is very it's an uphill battle to have credibility to get someone to make the largest purchase that they ever make in their life with a 22 year old it's uh it can be done but you're going to have people that just simply will not work with you because of your age because you just don't have credibility and uh or they're sc you know they like you you're sweet uh pat you on the head but won't do but won't actually close the deal you know what i'm saying that's a lot different than the crusty old uh you know 56 year old battle axe right um that just tells everybody what to do and they do it you know kind of thing it's you're just in a different position in your life in terms of credibility so you need to know that you're this is not a hot knife through butter it can be done right but but you got you got some uphill stuff i did it i don't i i think you can do it i think you should do it but um all of those things contribute to the idea that it's probably going to take a little while before you actually start making money right and so that tells me i want your emergency fund in place before you do this and that also tells me that the fastest way to cause that to happen and the fastest way to have then the money for the licensing and the day care months before you get money coming in probably means you look at some other form of extra income as a short-term way to to get to your goal of being in real estate faster right like i mean if you could find something and make a thousand fifteen hundred bucks two thousand bucks a month as a part-time gig doing something and it just you do the work it pays something uber eats deliver pizzas i don't care what you do or they'll hire you to do something at that real estate office for a couple grand that would even be better uh and you're just you know you just start immediately doing that and i would rather you do that than work real estate today until you and and use that money to get the emergency fund finished faster and use that money to get a little bit of a nest egg to to go six months of day care and 1200 worth of upfront expenses and you're gonna have more than that after after all it's probably gonna be more like two thousand by the time you're done um and so i i just want you to have all that and because nothing smells quite as bad as a broke desperate salesperson you're right and i i just have spoke to with so many folks who want to get into the real estate business that's why i asked you what you want to do because the mat the napkin math is so great we just have to sell five houses and i get this cut of this price and honey we're gonna be rich and it's super flexible so i don't even have to deal with the little one anymore right and everyone who i know dave and you've done it i haven't gets into real estate it is all the time 24 7. it's closing deals at 9 00 pm at 6 a.m a lot of work yeah a lot of hours a lot of work a lot of accessibility so not trying to dissuade you i'm saying you have a higher probability of being in the real estate business five years from today if you lay a really cash strong foundation with an emergency fund and your other cash up front before you go in it's going to help you with your success probability on this because you do have probably a tough fight i do think you should do it and i do think you can do it but i think it's going to be tough i yeah i just have worked with a good real estate real estate folks and not good ones man and it's such a it's such a difference it's incredible yeah it is and um and they're everywhere yeah i mean there's you know it is truly the pareto principle 80 of the businesses done by twenty percent of people in the business really yeah and you take that that eighty percent and it's another twenty eighty twenty again down to where you know one point six percent are doing you know the vast majority of transactions it's crazy i mean so you have one real estate agent is doing 400 transactions a year another one does one transaction a year is it just because it's a side gig or they just don't hustle or well no some people just reach another level in their career they're another level in the octane that they're operating off of and you know the protein just drips off their eyelids you know and it's just uh and then uh you know and everything comes together you know and they some build teams to do it with and everything else so our elps we work with all the time you know so we're looking at these high octane people and it's amazing you know uh what can be done so i don't ever want to be a dream killer no but also don't want a dream turned into a nightmare that's especially the little one yeah there you go hey jessica good luck with it darling thank you for calling in let us know how it works out i'd love to hear from you when you're big time successful real estate agent john good show thank you sir dr john deloney and that puts this hour of the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ [Music] jesus have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsay advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the day podcast it's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes check out the ramsey call of the day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts you

Channel: The Ramsey Show - Full Episodes

Views: 45,103

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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: 2bBEh07b8g4

Length: 121min 10sec (7270 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021