You Can Wander Into Debt, But You Can't Wander Out

this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the 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 number one best-selling author ramsey personality christie wright is my co-host today open phones as we take your calls about your life and your money the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five a couple weeks ago we launched the pre-sale on her new book take back your time the guilt-free guide to balanced living you gotta check it out and guess what we got in the books today so we're ready to ship when september 14th occurs which is the actual street date on the book but they're in the warehouse we're actually touching and looking at real books not mock-ups not uh advanced reader copies this is the this is the real thing it's the real thing it came in today tyler surprised me with it and i walked around the corner i was like oh my gosh now it's real it's in my hands i can't wait to take one home and show my husband there you go well this is your second one so it's like you know i mean doing a book is a lot of work it takes a year in some ways it's more trouble than having a kid well and it's funny because the process is so lonely you know it's you and a computer and microsoft word documents and then the team through editing and design and layout makes it something so beautiful like this gosh it just brings it to life yeah good stuff take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance you can get it on pre-sale we launched ken coleman's book on monday on pre-sale as well uh from paycheck to purpose both of those are 20. they're both at ramseysolutions.com and they both include an extra hundred dollars worth of goodies meaning uh all kinds of extra add-ons like the e-book and the audio book and other things as well now you did a uh a live stream last week yeah on this subject how to go it was great it was awesome we talked about the source of why you feel out of balance because one of the things i found dave is that we don't know what balance is we just know we don't have it and so i wanted to peel away the layers and say okay let's talk about the four main causes of why you feel out of balance in the first place which i unpack in the book and we talked about that and talked about what to do about it so it was a great a great live session i think the replay is available by the way on youtube or facebook if anybody wants to watch that from last wednesday oh okay cool perfect good stuff all right check out this material it is life-changing and if you want to talk about life balance or life or money this is what we're here for the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two two five we answer questions about a little bit of everything around here tammy's gonna start off this hour in sarasota florida hi tammy how are you good afternoon thank you thank you for taking my call my question is regarding umbrella insurance policies are they worth it do they just entice people to sue more frequently or go after more beyond that as well no i i don't think there's any indication of that i i think that people are enticed in a lawsuit happy world to sue for anything anyway and so um i i think they're worth it i mean you can get a million dollar umbrella policy that attaches to the top of uh the liability on your car and your homeowners which is usually up to a half a million so that gives you like a million and a half total uh in most areas you can get that for 200 300 something like that from an independent insurance broker or from your insurance broker to match up with your your current uh your current coverage on your pnc and yeah it's worth it once you've got a a net worth or something that gives someone the indication that they might uh be able to get something out of you and so in a lawsuit happy world for 300 bucks i i always recommend that when you got a half million dollar net worth and above or if you're doing something uh that makes people think that you do you talk about that with um women in business or anybody in business but specifically you and i've had conversations around this around business boutique women that are in a business that either they have a lot of wealth or even the appearance of wealth that would make someone want to sue them and then it's a good idea whenever anyone thinks about that from an incorporating standpoint you know you talk about that you know for instance uh if you're doing something that you know we around here we call it spotlight work where you're in the media um or you're in a spotlight of some kind or that gives people the idea that that that you know you could be uh you'd be right for the picking if they if you happen to bump into them with your car yeah and so uh i carry a 10 million um on me uh because if i bump into somebody they're gonna go oh yeah everything's okay uh what's your name dave ramsey oh god my back you know so um you know that that's uh that that's that's kind of the way i'm looking you know i'm a little bit cynical uh and i have a good reason to be so uh yeah i think they're worth it to answer your question and we recommend them once you've gotten up now you don't need one if you've got a negative net worth or a hundred thousand dollar net worth or something uh unless you're doing something that gives the appearance uh some you know all i'm trying to do is hand off the lawsuit to an insurance company because it doesn't change anything but they're gonna they're gonna fight it or settle it or whatever they're gonna do um versus me that's all amounts to i can self-insure through a million dollars or 10 million hit uh but for the few dollars that it costs to buy it it's it's it's a really good buy in the insurance world to not have to deal with it yeah i just uh you know and they they can go over and the sad thing is is they they're they'll settle a lot quicker than i would yeah because i i can't stand the fraud so i get i get all principled about it and then i'll run this into the ground it turns into a long fight it's an expensive fight and they'll the goobs at the insurance companies will just write a check you know so ravens in atlanta georgia hi raven how are you i'm good how are you better than i deserve what's up um i just wanted to know whether or not to pay off my mortgage or i'm about to inherit some land and i wanted we want to save to go to house which one would be the better option we owe about 50k on our house now and we earn about 14k by airbnb in it okay well it's kind of the same thing because you're going to sell your house to pay off to build the house eventually and so paying off your house is like saving it because you're not going to keep it not not and go get a mortgage on your build it on your new house you build not a fight not if you do what i tell you to do anyway so no i would not i would not keep a paid for house as a rental and then go take out a mortgage to build a house no i would not do that so i'm going to tell you to sell your house at that point when you're ready to build so the money's going to come out of it and so either way the money is going to be available for the build okay that makes sense so just yes i mainly just throw it at the mortgage that way it's for sure safe yeah i mean and here's the thing if you decided to go build a home um you could take out a construction loan which is what most people do if they're going to borrow money that is to build a home on the land and uh the the bank doing that's going to require you get a pre-approval for your permanent mortgage that's called a take-out letter uh to to show that you can convert the construction loan to a permanent mortgage at the time the loan is finished and part of that will be you know we're going to sell our house like the month before the house is completed so we can we move in and we're going to free up all of that money and it'll be the down payment on the and you'll have a you know a mortgage or no mortgage or whatever you have at that point out of that construction loan so the um construction loan will be larger than the permanent because you'll sell your house and use the money out of it i guess that makes sense that makes sense that makes sense yeah okay yeah so that's what you do and um i love pay i love paying down the house versus throwing it in savings because it's harder to buy a bass boat with that money it's accounted for you can't get to it as easy life is full of firsts as the first and longest serving christian health cost sharing ministry chm has shared medical expenses for its members since 1981. we believe you should have the freedom to focus on your health while being supported by a community of believers giving you the opportunity to create many more firsts chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five her new book is on pre-sale called take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance if you've ever made a dumb decision with zeros on the end because you didn't do your research well that'd be all of us right we've all done this most people make choices sadly based on feelings or opinions and sometimes they do this on something big like a house oh when it comes to the real estate market feelings are not your friends the facts are your friends so check your facts find out what you can actually afford research what's trending in home prices talk to a reputable real estate agent in your area never buy a house without the facts go to ramseysolutions.com agent you can get one of our endorsed local providers ramsey trusted and they will take care of you they're people that we've vetted to be the top real estate agents in your area that's ramsey solutions dot com slash agent our question today comes from blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they'll remake your window blinds for free even if you screwed it up i like this guarantee uh you get free samples free shipping new promos every month always use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal today's question comes from caleb in ohio i'm a skilled trades apprentice and currently make 30 an hour i'm married to a beautiful wife and we have a 10 month old baby ever since the coveted lockdown started my wife has been left unemployed she went to college and has a degree in psychology i can work overtime at my job and could potentially bring in home an extra thousand to 1500 a month we are a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in debt including our mortgage she loves staying home with the baby but i think it would be highly beneficial for her to have a good paying job should she get a job oh like this sounds like a fight yeah yeah well first okay i want to challenge one thing at the beginning of this uh since coveted lockdown she's been left unemployed there are job opportunities people are hurting for employees everywhere all the time and she has the potential to do something on her own so it's not that there's not an opportunity out there i want to challenge that first of all that's true the issue is she hadn't been looking for an opportunity because she would stay home with the kids she's like oh there's nothing out there babe sorry i checked i checked i worked on it for like a minute and a half today there's nothing there's nothing out there shucks i'm gonna have to stay home with this adorable baby yeah try it again yeah you know what's interesting is and and this is like so many questions we get dave is it's a values question more than a money question yes there's a financial piece of it if she got a job you all would get out of debt faster that's a that's a financial mathematical equation but but then you look at the cost of child care too it would have to be something that makes more than what you're paying in child care to make sense if you are paying for child care which is a major variable in there but i think it's interesting too because the idea of women staying home is something that is extremely um what's the word emotionally triggering polarizing people have a lot of opinions on um i don't know yeah i think they have two opinions in that house he wants her to go to work she doesn't want to yeah um so that's problem number one yeah uh you guys need to get on the same page on that because i got a feeling caleb you completely stacked this this whole i mean here's an example caleb how badly you screwed up your intent here um we're 180 000 in debt including our mortgage so what 179 000 of it's the mortgage we don't know you completely stacked that we're so deeply in debt is what you're trying to say and that's a bunch of crap i'm calling you on we're sinking dave send her to work sit tell her she's she she needs to go to the salt mines now but the uh all right so here's the thing uh i think the first thing you two need to agree on is if we can afford it and our family is going to be okay are we on the same page that she stays home yeah and you're not there yeah and that's so cool i'm reading in between the lines oh caleb wants to go to work even if they were millionaires 100 and what's so important about that piece of it is that if you're not on the same page and you continue to function this way you're going to resent her yeah she's getting tired of being treated like she's lazy caleb you're gonna mistakenly think that she does nothing all day and let me tell you right now a baby is not a vacation and she she does work it's just at home so that's the first piece of but if she does go to work to make him happy she's going to resent that so getting on the same page to avoid the resentment building up between you guys is going to be so important so at what number at what point in your finances are you both going to be in agreement because right now there's not any number i can read it in here i don't believe there's a number and you caleb you need to determine at what point you are comfortable with her staying home and if that's never you need to look in the mirror okay so uh that's an issue because your wife has said i want to stay home with a kid and uh this is your kid your wife so that's an issue to just declare everyone who stays home with a kid lazy regardless of the numbers is pretty much asinine caleb so um you know that's not that's not an option you can't put that on the table here uh and so now if she wants to work that's a whole different story absolutely and and if she wants to work no matter what the income is um that's a different story too and so uh i mean in your case you you got three kids uh you enjoy being a ramsey personality in the work time it's a lot of hours sometimes and matt makes plenty of money yeah you would you easily could stay home yeah yeah but you do you get fulfillment here and have chosen that yeah uh and so that's a that's a completely different equation too but and rachel too yeah my daughter one of your best friends the same thing so um uh but but so anyway now at what point can she stay home if you guys can pay your bills and you can eat and you can move ahead and i'm thinking you can with what you make in ohio then if she wants to stay home mathematically i think she probably can now or you could set some interim goals that says okay once we hit this break then we're going to make that call once we finish off the non-mortgage debt yeah then we'll make that call or something like that what's interesting too that i'd be and i'm sure if they if they went to counseling about this i'm sure counselor would actually dig into it but i wonder what the hang up is for caleb it might be financial it may not there may be something where it's like there's a level of expectation that he sees in work ethic or something you need to dig into and unpack and deconstruct and get on the same page that it's not just a number because your point there may not be a number it may be something else in him that is a hang up and so y'all getting on the same page there is going to be so so important that's how it sounds in the in the email to me well and one more thing on that that's one of the things i love helping women do with business beauty because a lot of women in our business boutique audience in my coaching group that come to the event they have that desire to stay home but have a desire to do something else and they don't want to work a traditional nine to five in an office job so they start a business from home during nap hours so there's also other options between her just working 50 hours a week outside the home so just she might make more than at that than something else too yes by the way absolutely yeah a lot of the ladies in business boutique do yes yes lots of options rich is with us he's in newark new jersey hi rich how are you hello hi what's up can you hear me yes sir how are you good i i got a quick question dave i'm 76 years old i got 1.2 million dollars sitting in six different savings account my house is paid votes paid calls paid i owe no debt at all good for you should i move it huh good for you well done rich except that i don't know what to do what a great problem to have oh yeah but it is good but uh i don't know well um what do you think i personally i mean i'm not that far behind you i'm 60. i personally would have that money invested and here's why okay if you were in good growth stock mutual funds and you made 10 that'd be 120 000 a year uh right now you're making 12 000 a year you're making nothing you're making nothing yeah yeah and so if i'm if i'm half wrong if the stock market does half of what it normally does you're still going to make 5x of what you're making right now now you don't have to move it all over there and the main barrier to moving it over there is usually fear and fear is dissipated by one of two things one is you come to realize that the fear is accurate which means you would not do it or you come to understand the things the stock market better by sitting and meeting with someone to help you walk through that click smart vester ramsey solutions.com and you can sit down with somebody to help you with that and learn take your time but learn and let's start moving some of that money gradually into the market christie wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage matt and amber are with us hey guys how are you good how are you better than i deserve welcome where do you all live houston texas well welcome to nashville how much debt have you guys paid off ninety two thousand six hundred and ten dollars awesome how long did that take eight years 11 months and two weeks eight years 11 months wow and your range of income during that time uh it rains uh 60 to 150. wow okay and what do you guys do for a living i'm in cyber security and i occasionally worked at a church but mostly a stay-at-home mom good for you cool very cool just what we were just talking about yeah yeah and uh what kind of debt was this 93 000 it included our mortgage hey you paid off your household people i'm mary what's this house worth uh one about 170 now wow how old are you guys i just turned 40 and i'm 37. how you paid off your house yes that's weird y'all are weird that is i love it way to go very cool well tell us the story how did this happen i mean how did you find us what are you doing yeah well it started in 2008 when we got married and a friend gave us a copy of the total money makeover for a wedding gift so we read that and then we saw that our church offered fpu so we took the class and just after our first anniversary we finished paying off our consumer debt wow so we just kept working the baby steps we saved our emergency fund saved for a down payment for a house and then we took out a 15-year mortgage right before our first child was born and just kept plugging away until about three and a half years ago when matt was diagnosed with cancer oh wow so we kind of had to slow things down a bit and take care of that sure but um that we were thankful to be on the plan at that point to not have to worry about the financial side of things when that was going on but it also renewed in me a sense that you know i wanted to finish our goal together of paying off the house so we had been setting aside money to upgrade matt's car but when our car savings got close to the amount left on our mortgage i thought i can't spend this money on a car sorry the upgrade is a happy wife yeah yeah exactly that's so true okay so i'm curious when y'all bought this house y'all were on the plan and you bought this house were y'all intending to get intense about playing out paying off this mortgage early or was that something that kind of set in later i had always wanted to pay off the house early probably earlier than he wanted to but i was more intense um than he was it sounds like you worked the baby steps exactly as outlined yeah we did and and i mean you worked right into the 15 year after you were debt-free and had your emergency fund in place and then you said okay we're gonna take a 15 but we're going to pay it early yeah and uh then everything's cooking along and then the little hiccups so how are you doing matt you're the other side of the cancer uh i'm feeling good i finished my last treatment about three months ago so hopefully that never comes back hey man uh we're praying and hoping that's right yeah i'm feeling pretty good good to be here okay yeah i mean you're just surviving the cure is part of it in it yeah the other part was the medical bills yeah and we found out what uh what our out of max pocket would be out-of-pocket maximum would be and we saved that each year and then after that we would decide okay we're going to put more towards the mortgage or save for this save for that and it was very peaceful yeah well it's so interesting that you use the word peaceful when you're talking about going through cancer and having to deal with that because i know so many people that's the opposite they would ever think but when you have your finances in order like you guys did then it takes that piece of it off of it and where you're just focused on healing and getting the treatment you need and so well done you guys that's amazing i'm so glad you guys had that foundation before this came definitely way to go way to go how does it feel to be completely free now i mean the cancer treatments are over and the house has paid off touched it's like spring is here yeah after the winter yeah it feels great it still feels a little surreal um but yeah it feels wonderful so when's matt get his upgrade yeah that's a great question on the list for us to do it's fine no payments that's going to happen quick no payments you can you can save for those goals so much faster yeah yeah that's amazing you guys well congratulations you guys very well thank you all right so you've read the total money makeover you went through financial peace university at your church you pay off your house and everything 40 years old and younger what's the secret to getting out of debt i think the the first step was the the budget and getting on the same page we met every month and we looked at the budget and we're like okay where is this money going to go and that diligence that tenacity of we're going to meet even if we don't want to and sometimes we're late in the middle of the month or so the beginning of the month but just being on the same page that was so powerful i think and uh agreeing and and making compromises when we disagreed i think that was very important what kept you motivated for the long haul because this was a long journey for you guys from the time you paid off your last consumer debt to now the house is a big that's a big thing to pay off what kept you motivated through the journey just being able to do this together and have that weight off our shoulders especially after the diagnosis just thinking okay i don't want to have to deal with anything else i don't have to so let's just go ahead and get that done and focus on the other things and have fun and enjoy life together yeah good for you yeah way to go guys you guys are heroes you completely changed your life changed your family tree changed everything and pushed through man well done well done very well done so proud of you well we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you that is the next chapter in your story for sure to become baby steps millionaires you're right around the corner from that and uh and and then move on to change your whole family tree also an extra copy of the total money makeover to give away that's what started your journey you can help somebody start theirs with it that'll be perfect and you brought the kiddos with you what are their names and ages we have hope ryan and luke and they are nine seven and five all right and have they been practicing a debt free screening oh yes we have i know what it is right they're ready to go absolutely all geared up you guys look like you're ready to yell yeah we drove all the way from houston we're ready yeah that's great all right here we go i love it matt amber hope ryan and luke from houston texas ninety-three thousand 000 paid off that's the house and everything they're weird eight years 11 months did it making 60 to 150 count it down let's hear a debt free scream all right three two i love seeing the kids oh i love it that's amazing fabulously done very well done open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five those guys are amazing what great heroes teresa is in dayton ohio hi teresa how are you i'm well how are you dave better than we deserve what's up well i was calling i'm trying to decide so um my mom's been like very sick for the past year and there's a lot of care and stuff that i kind of manage with her and i'm i've been looking i've been on the journey since like right before covent um and and that's free other than the house and stuff that i've been looking at i mean you've really motivated me and and just trying to find a path with god and you know trying to help other people out too and i just i want to do the financial coaching but i just don't know if this is the time just because of the over willingness with my mom and stuff yeah yeah it might not be it might be that you spend your time best with mom right now it sounds to me like i'm just listening to your voice um there's no shame in that no there's not and um here's a good way to think through it you know all the details when you are um 25 years older than you are today and you look back on this season which thing are you going to be glad you did theresa i just talked about this on instagram today i just want to encourage you this is your season of taking care of your mom this is where you are this is not who you are just because you're not pursuing that right now doesn't mean you're never going to your season is where you are not who you are you do what's right right now and you'll know what to do next and when you look back you smile and go i did the right thing at the right time that's right whatever that is this is the ramsey chef chrissy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today we launched her new book and it is uh in pre-sale is selling like crazy called take back let me try it again take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance all about uh this elusive thing that everybody talks about being balanced um which really is a misnomer but christie addresses all that beautifully and uh it's kind of sets you free to where you can live your life well and uh and with a level of intentionality and you're gonna love this material it's incredible aaron is with us in orlando hi aaron how are you i'm doing great dave how are you doing today better than we deserve what's up i wanted to call dave because my wife and i would like to ask a question about upgrading our housing situation we're currently on baby step six right now and we're we've maxed out our uh 401k roth uh contributions as well as an additional six thousand per roth ira and during a time of pandemic when we've seen so many people struggling we've been so fortunate where our careers have really really blossomed and a big dream of my wife has always been to move to a certain area in orlando as well as myself and upgrade our housing and right now we have the ability to save on average about an additional fifty to seventy five thousand dollars a year that would like to put towards making this purchase we wanna be patient about this purchase because there's not a lot of houses that come up for sale in this area regularly when they do they go very very quickly and we're just not in that position quite yet so my question for you is would you take this additional 50 to 75 000 that we're making additionally on an annual basis and just pay down our current mortgage or would you take that and put that maybe in a gross mutual stock uh or mutual funds uh arena to let it grow and then use that towards um paying uh towards the down payment of the house when we find the right deal at the right time oh you're going to sell your house aren't you absolutely sure you're going to get your money out of it anyway correct we we currently owe about 230 000 on our home right now and it's worth over four hundred so we have a video let's just say that let's just say your careers continued to blossom and you paid it off yes sir and then you found the house in the dream neighborhood you just put that one on the market and sell it and use that for the down payment right correct my wife um she she's the one that's getting more analytical about it she's wondering if we're better off using it and seeing maybe that eight percent growth on it as opposed to just we're paying right now 2.625 on our mortgage rate and she thought maybe be better off you know investing it there and seeing growth there rather than paying down the mortgage itself yeah that's when you didn't do math um because here's the problem okay the way you get into that new neighborhood has got 95 percent to do with you saving 50 to 100 000 a year it has one percent to do with what the rate of return on your savings is the math that gets you into that neighborhood is not is not rate of return it's your savings rate based on your income so you know if you want to use that argument that she's using we would never pay off the mortgage correct yes my contention is i'd like to pay off the mortgage because i would like to be able to do my debt free screen no matter what well yeah and in either way either way you get to your goal uh but the the idea that that somehow making a little bit more on your money is going to get you to the goal faster no you're adding risk to the equation and i wouldn't do that i would continue to work your plan and the other thing i think i heard is that you're putting more than 15 of your income into retirement correct sir yeah because i would hold up at baby step 4 at 15 going into retirement and i would throw everything else at the mortgage that's the baby steps the the additional amount is more towards uh looking towards the kids for their education for college you know i'm said 15 towards retirement oh yeah you said you maxed out everything are your income so high that maxing out everything uh is 15 of your income um i believe the maximum a lot we're allowed to deposit right now is it 18 000 750 or something like that this year well this year's 1905 yeah yeah so we we've matched that out completely and then we started is that more than 15 of your income yes it is sir okay that's not what i don't know i'm sorry all right i'm sorry uh i'm sorry it is well it is more i'm sorry i i i yeah and so you're putting in 22 to 25 of your income instead of 15 of your income i would back that down throw everything at your house let's get your house paid for pile up cash once the house is paid for beyond that um but um yeah so so yeah you guys uh i mean that's what we teach again you can do your plan if you're under your plan but 15 is the most of your household income take your household income times 0.15 is the most i'd be putting into those 401ks and roth iras anything beyond that kids college anything beyond that we're paying down the house going to get it paid for and then you'll be ready christy to move into that other house well the other thing that uh that i love that you pointed out dave is it's not just about the money as it is we're talking about like where you put the money the risk and so aaron you want to get in this special neighborhood that's hard to get into you're going to be in a really good position if you have hardly any mortgage or a paid off house and then some saved up cash when you make an offer on a home in any kind of market versus worrying about what the mutual funds are doing or whatever you're just gonna have so much more control to make a good offer and have a good position for that house you want and that's what we're trying to help you do we're trying to help you get in a good position financially but also from a control standpoint in options yeah so you guys are um again you can work your plan your wife's plan if you want to that's allowed well you know there's nothing against the law but we are firmly convinced after 30 years of doing this that if you will follow those baby steps exactly you're going to find yourself in wealth faster than any other methodology and we've actually got millions and millions of people that have done it that are the data points that indicate that it's not it's not a you know college professor with a theory um been doing this a long time with tens of millions of people we were just we're just saying as we walked out in the break to congratulate those people debt-free on their house we're seeing a lot more people paying off their homes and it's a result of those tens you know it's the number of years yeah the 30 years of doing this you know when i hadn't been on the air eight years i couldn't have somebody come in here and go eight years ago i started listening to you and but now that i've been on the air 30 years there's a whole bunch of them that are out there that um that you know they're further along and we're also seeing the you know the other piece of it which is the financial piece of babies my parents listened to you when i was a kid oh shut up you know but um yeah just make they feel old statement but um but you don't have to make me feel old i'm well aware of my age but the uh uh but uh you know uh the thing is this stuff works it's always worked it still works you know ramsay's people are out of touch no we're not we're in touch with the truth uh we know exactly how wealth is built in today's world the fastest possible way and there's a lot of stuff we don't think about around here but that's not one of them we we're we are the expert on that in in the whole freaking nation so and it's you know it's not um my age does not disqualify that as a matter of fact it qualifies it so well you don't understand modern yes i do you goob i understand modern everything i can even work my own phone go figure you know so but this idea that that somehow that the principles of wealth building have somehow shifted dramatically in the past 10 years and ramsay's a boomer and doesn't get it it's just asinine yeah just ridiculous so the principles are all have always been the same they will always be the same and uh now the vehicles you use might shift some of those things might change but you know you don't you can't use that to be uh to make an excuse to get in to get rich quick garbage well you make you always make a good point too don't take financial advice from broke people and half the time the people that are telling you you should be doing this you have to build a credit score you have to take out debt you have to have a mortgage you should put your money in this whatever they're people that are deeply in debt there are people that are not winning financially these are not the kind of people you want to listen to if the financial blogger you're reading lives in his mother's basement there's a problem here you know i mean we need a track record we need proof there's just a there's a little bit of something going on here i got socks older than him so um but that that's the trick you just got to think this through and um you know uh there there isn't a thing called experience and proof texting in that experience chrissy wright ramsey personality my co-host today james childs is our producer kelly daniels our associate producer and phone screener i'm dave ramsey your host we'll be back with you before you know it here on the ramsay show 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 thermzyshow.com thanks for listening this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the 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 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money my co-host today christy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author launching her second best-selling book in pre-sale that's a prediction a couple of weeks ago it's called take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance so if you want to talk about life life balance money that's what we're here for it's a free call some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it the phone number is triple eight eight two five five two forest is with us in fayetteville north carolina hey forest how are you hi dave and christy it's an honor to talk to you guys youtube what's up so i'm 25 and i just started my first job after college i have no student loans no credit card debt i have three grand to the bank and three grand in single stock and i'm looking to propose to my significant other and i'm looking into moving and living with her and so my question was what would you recommend when planning to purchase an engagement ring starting to save for a wedding and that would be two years from now and what would be your recommendation for investment because i really haven't done any at the moment okay cool what do you make about 60 000 a year what's your potential fiance make she'll be a high school teacher so anywhere between 30 and 40 to start out with okay so like 100 household income when you're married right yes okay well here's a couple of rules of thumb uh engagements and weddings are really important no kidding dave so uh and they can both get emotional and people get stupid about what they spend on both things so here's a couple of guidelines for you to think about uh since you're gonna be saving up for the wedding the cheaper the wedding the sooner the date that makes sense that makes sense to me because i heard you say two years because it was going to take that long to save the money when it doesn't take that long to run down to the justice of the peace by saturday this is true i wasn't gonna suggest that i'm just saying that there's a ratio here that the cheaper the wedding the faster it occurs okay that makes sense so uh if if you were my kid i would say don't wait two years so that you don't move in together before marriage don't shack up ahead of time and let's let's plan a uh an inexpensive wedding but a nice wedding and let's get married in five or six months if you were my kid that's what i would tell you okay now then on the on to the engagement ring a good rule of thumb the jewelry stores tell you three months of your income and that's because they sell jewelry so a good rule of thumb is one month of income maximum so um sweetie's getting a uh 4 000 3 000 ring max because that's your take-home pay which by the way gets you real dadgum married sharon's was 1164. and 39 years later it's still working good okay you with me i think we lost him i think you scared him are you gone did i blow did i blow you out of the saddle he's like you killed all my dreams out of here well you were okay what were you thinking of spending on the ring i was thinking somewhere between three and five oh okay we're on the same we're in the same ballpark you weren't going to go crazy because there is no correlation between the size of the diamond and the success of the marriage as a matter of fact there might be an inverse correlation at some point okay meaning that you if a large rock is required the size of a headlight this is probably not a not the girl of your dreams but um it's the girl of your nightmares but anyway the um so that if that's a requirement so i think you got you're on track there and so dude i mean listen like we're talking 10 grand here gets this whole puppy done and then you move on with other stuff but in the meantime these things are top of the line what do you think christy yeah i think the only other thing i would question is for us figure out what your um what your monthly expenses are and just make sure that you keep some savings for your emergency fund when you're making i don't want you to drain your 3 000 in a savings account for the ring and not have any savings this is on top of your savings yeah you need to cash out this stock and stuff so you got six grand to work with you need about 10 and you so you could be married by christmas with a ten thousand dollar wedding and a three thousand dollar ring if budget's what's holding if budgets what's holding up the calendar i don't know if it is but that's what i thought i heard did i hear that you said two years very definitively where'd that two years come from and don't let him put words in your route if it's not money tell us you just be honest for us what are we working with here why two years so me personally i want to be able to actually live with her a little bit before i actually marry her and spend the rest of my life with her now this is not this is a woman it's not shoes you don't have to try them on and see if they fit you do what you want to do but um you know i uh you know the actual statistical correlation between people that shack up before getting married versus those that don't the there is very detailed research on that and uh this it increases the success ratio in your marriage your marriage staying together to not do that um and so it there's data on this okay tons tons of pieces of research on this and yet there are more people live together in america today without marriage than marriage well and when you when you move in together it can often be really hard matt and i moved in together when we got married and it was hard so if you're using that as your lipness test to determine if you want to marry her i don't know that's an a that's a good idea you may change your mind and she could be the one but it was a hard first six months because why do you fold the towels that way i mean you have some interesting things wrong with you the toothpaste no you don't load the dishwasher that way that first year squeeze a roll i'm just saying it's just bad yeah but the uh i mean we've been married 39 years sharon says we had 25 good years of marriage so i'm just saying that that goes that's part of the equation you do what you want to do brother we're here to help you and love you and tell you the truth and tell you what we believe and uh these are these are this advice comes from a point of caring and it comes from uh data data and research and it comes uh so the average wedding in america days 28 000 for those of you listening the average household income is right about 60. so people are spending about 50 percent of their household income on average on their wedding that's the average now that's a lot that's a lot uh that's not to say a 28 000 wedding is evil but if you spend over half your annual income you'd be over average and that's a double lot so um we've got lots of our team members 20 somethings all through this building get married for 10 grand and had some really nice little weddings we've had some people spend a lot more than that including some ramsey girls but we had the money so there's that feels like a really big deal before it's here and then afterwards it doesn't feel like it's big of a deal when you're married you got you've got new priorities we're cleaning out the closets right now the organizer ladies there and we're finding all this stuff from 30 years ago and we're going 20 years ago 10 years ago the kids weddings our weddings wow stop paying your overpriced wireless provider and switch to puretalk they use the same network as the larger providers for much less for just 30 a month get unlimited talk text and six gigs of data with no contract the average family saves over 70 a month by switching to pure top just go to puretalk.com and enter the promo code ramsey to save 50 off your first month pure talk simply smarter wireless chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five does it feel like no matter what you do or how hard you work you can't get ahead you feel like a rat trapped in a wheel run run run run run run run run run get nowhere i remember that feeling it's exhausting stressful sometimes even terrifying but you know what you don't have to live like that if you get sick and tired of being sick and tired then you can decide you can say i've had it i'm not gonna live like this anymore then you're ready to commit to a new plan financial peace university is the step-by-step plan that's helped millions and millions and millions of people not only pay off debt not only learn to work together if they're married not only take control but also become wealthy and you combine that with a premium version of the every dollar budgeting tool the world's best budgeting app and you will make progress right away and it's only available through a membership of ramsey plus decide today to break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck this month only we're taking 30 off the price of the 12-month membership and you can start a free trial of ramsey plus today by texting trial to 33 789 this is unbelievably inexpensive now text trial two three three seven eight nine jim is in finley ohio hi jim welcome to the ramsey show hi dave hey what's up well i have a little conundrum so um back in november i was laid off from my job of many years due to covid and i was able to find another job which i started in mid-january and unfortunately was in a different state so i i had kids in high school i wasn't going to move them during the school year i moved down family you're cutting out all last thing you heard was you moved down and you're then your phone cut out try again i'm sorry about that so yeah i moved down and the rest of the family was going to join me after the school year started um soon after that my wife came down we looked for a house because we were going to be moving and uh we put a contract on the house to be built um and uh put down uh sixty thousand dollars on that and uh we're debt free except for our house so we had some money saved and everything else so everything was good um fast forward a few more months and the job did not work out uh the uh the um uh the principal there decided that we weren't working well together and so now i had no job and moved back to ohio and uh am currently stuck with a house uh that i have a contract for that i can't get out of um and we're not selling the house that we were going to be selling in order to uh to uh carry this and we're unsure what to do at this point because um standard mortgage uh providers um you know uh are expecting you to hold on to a house for over a year um you know they wanted to be a principal resident so after that all that is no longer that doesn't that that won't affect anything that's just that that means you're not going to turn into a rental is all you promise to be owned or occupied but you're just going to sell it if you have to close it is the contract not contingent upon financing well the the contract was contingent upon uh being able to show that you could get financing and i did was able to show that because we were you know we were making all that since then my mortgage provider said you know under these circumstances we're not uh interested in uh in financing you so we're gonna have we have to find a new way of financing this yeah have you talked to the builder yeah we've tried we tried to get them to take it back they're actually selling the same house for forty thousand dollars more than they paid us on a new one that they're building now um well then why wouldn't they want it to get back why wouldn't they want it back i don't i don't know i don't know i've actually had a lawyer work with them to try to get them to fudge and they're just not budging okay has your attorney analyzed your contingency that was removed due to you having financing approved that is now no longer approved it seems to me that that should be an out in the contract that might be i and he has looked at it and um you know we basically had that contingency when we signed the contract he's unsure if that can pull us out and the question is do we lose the 60 000 or part of it you know the other thing you can do is this um when i used to do flips a thousand years ago i would often uh sell a house that i had under contract before i closed on it and then have a double closing that lasted about five minutes so why don't you get a good realtor and put the house on the market now and put it and put it on the market put it on the market for what you paid for it um which is 40 000 cheaper than the builder so you'll undercut the builder who wouldn't it was too stupid to take it back if i'm the builder i want this house back i i agree i don't understand that myself the only problem with that solution is that technically they still own the mls because we're owners in contract we are not owning oh i don't care you can create a whole new mls a real estate agent can list anything and you they just list it and say hey this house is up for sale and it's under it's uh you know construction date to be completed x and uh by the way it's forty thousand dollars cheaper than the builders selling the exact same model for i think you'll get a buyer in this hot market and get somebody to buy it and close it uh one and a half seconds after you do and that funds it all right all right so i i'll i'll i'll look into an elp realtor then in in the other state yeah i think that's what you need to do and your attorney needs to get his crap together and start looking at contingency clause too because i think you're out but i could be wrong that's smart that's a good idea yeah but a flip like that crap put it on ten thousand more than you paid for it make a little money for all this trouble still thirty thousand less than the builder's selling it for yeah and um you know and and and let them pick out the final colors and stuff let them pick it out yeah and they can they can still customize it at this stage well we don't know when it's completed they didn't have completion date but uh yeah that and in this hot market you probably could do that yeah um you might actually make some money on this that would be weird but um yeah wow wow well it's um yeah that's why you have contingencies and contracts if you can um i buy a lot of stuff cash no contingencies but i want a deal when i'm doing that you didn't you weren't getting a deal on this you paid retail so uh you know you need you need more wiggle room than that in a retail deal but um yeah there you go it's interesting very interesting situation jonathan's in new york city hi jonathan what's up in your world hey dave and chrissy thank you for taking my call sure sir um so i recently accepted a new job um just to give a little background i'm an accountant and the offer letter stated that i can't perform any business activities outside of my employment however in the capitalist spirit i kind of want to have a side hustle or be able to earn some income outside of my w-2 and i was wondering what my options are what's the why behind that what's the why behind the them i'm not sure here's another part of another caveat i think um personally i think it would kind of be a bad book to ask about this especially because i'm just starting new employment i think from their perspective what they're thinking is that they want me to give my full energy and attention to the job they don't want any jobs that are going to compete with their time as well as compete for my energy if i'm spending my weekends working and it's affecting my work performance so i think that's probably why they put that clause in the offer letter when do you start um i start next monday you should have thought all this for you accepted this offer son i think you've done a deal and you go over and you go to work and you don't work side jobs because that's what that's what you gave them was your word on that i agree with you it's pretty constrictive but that's what you signed up for so you either don't take the job or you take the job with the terms that you took it on and then you could ask maybe in six months if you want to once you've built a reputation there if you want to ask about it christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today jonathan and jamie are on the line in idaho falls and it says on my screen you guys are debt free congratulations thank you thank you love it love it how much have you paid off 120 000 in five years excellent and your range of income during that time uh started out around 60 and then we're up to around 100. excellent awesome what do you all do for a living i'm a licensed architect and i teach for a university online okay so what kind of what kind of debt was this 120 000 it's our house another paid for house i love it this is so cool you guys how old are you guys uh 37 i'm 35. a couple of weirdos couple of weirdos what's this house it's the only place you can call somebody call you weird and you're glad you're like thank you for that compliment thank you so uh uh what's the house worth it's last time we checked around 300 now yeah yeah i love it i love it pretty lucky what in the world happened to you guys it caused you to do all this well i would say um we've always been for like raised up pretty budget conscious and things but really it was just uh just someone sharing us your plan and and we're just like hey i think in order for us to meet our goals and kind of the vision we wanted for our lives we had to had to get this out of the way yeah we we both went to undergrad and grad school mostly debt-free before we kind of had to plan we we ended up taking out student loans for one semester which which we were pretty proud of and we ended up kind of doing the snowball effect without really knowing we were doing the snowball effect because it was such a tiny a tiny chunk and we ended up buying our first house and we had some amazing friends emma and michelle who start they were talking to jonathan about his commute they had a similar community she's like oh you need to tune in to the show and he kind of loved it and and ran with it and kind of got me convinced too so and so before we know it we're coloring squares on a house on the refrigerator yeah well having kids who love like coloring on anything this is a big they love coloring in the squares like almost more than we did that is cool so is that we're seeing the picture of the house with the colors on youtube is that uh is that 120 squares it's actually we started it we started that one at 100 because we ended up selling our first house and we we kind of buckled down that was right about our five-year mark where we're like okay we're around a hundred let's just buckle in and so yeah 105 years boom just like that yeah knock it out yeah quite a good we ended up doing the last we've been about the last sixty thousand in the last year because we were yeah um we were looking at a there was a triplex that came up and we're like wow that looks like a really cool investment opportunity my husband's an architect so he's all like we dislike property and we kept looking at it but then we just there's this well dare i say it you know your voice in the back of our head that's like hmm should you go into debt for this cool investment property or should we just knock the mortgage out so we can actually have freedom and pay cash for an investment property later yeah exactly yeah good yeah so guys this is so cool what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt as heroes so i i would say like dream big together and then set the goals um and then just buckle down and grind it out that that's the key from my perspective because we really we had to be working working together and in order to to last on the grind of it the daily grind um you need to have that vision that goal out there of something you're going towards and working working together is key well you make a good point because a lot of times people call and they ask you know some way to fast track it it can feel like a grind especially when you're doing the house what kept you guys motivated for five years of this of sticking with it yeah i think listening to other people's stories was huge like knowing that it was a possibility absolutely because i i mean the you know the weird thing comes back like everyone you're just gonna be in debt for you know the 30-year mortgage and just like seeing hearing other people's stories and really going okay we could actually get out there and you know and also be examples to other people who don't think it's possible yeah that motivation for us just just keeping that just staying tapped into to listening and um and just working the plan because that kept us going our rice and beans dinners with the family and just listening to the debt-free screams and and working towards it that just kept us going kept us going that's cool and now you're 37 years old you don't have a payment in the stinking world you own your house 100 you rock thank you how does this feel oh man it's just it's surreal it's just it feels so good and it still hasn't entirely sunk in but it's just yeah it feels really awesome it's lighter just a lot lighter yep yeah that's true because death's heavy yeah so heavy and when you set it down it feels lighter that's exactly that's so true and even just the idea of like the word free debt free but like there's a freedom even in your spirit there's a freedom and a lightness to your life when you don't have that over your head well done you guys that's amazing thank you and it's it's crazy like just keeping going i know there's probably some pictures that pulled up our in the last month our two-year-old broke her leg our truck got smacked in front of our house and totaled and since we were able to kind of just keep going with what we knew we needed to do we were still able to to deal with the crazy and meet our goals yeah yeah we see the uh barefoot over the uh over the grass with one one in a cast that's perfect yeah yeah yeah walk through your backyard with no shoes on it feels different when you own it yeah so you guys did that well done well done well done we got a copy of the legacy journey for you that's the next chapter in your story for sure you are going to uh and have changed your family tree changed your legacy way to go you guys and a copy of the total money makeover to give away some of these people that are watching over your shoulder watching what you're doing or intrigued maybe you can uh prompt one of them into the game and change their life so awesome well done you guys we're very very proud of you here at ramsey jonathan and jamie what are the three kids names and ages olive is eight dash is six and velda is two all right and a cast i like it very good all right jonathan jamie olive dash and velda 120 000 paid off in five years they're debt free at 37 house and everything these are weird people in idaho falls making 60 to 100 count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one this is how it is done this is fun never gets old now here's what people don't understand because they haven't had the pleasure of sitting in the seat for 30 years they're 37 in the next 20 years by the time they're 57 not only do they have the ability mathematically to now invest the equivalent of a house payment which is tens of millions of dollars over 20 to 30 years but here's what happens his career path will be different because now he can make choices right and has margin and he can work where he wants to work when he wants to work and he will make more money because of that because he's not forced to stay in a place because friday's coming and i got bills yeah when you're trapped you don't become as prosperous yeah as you do when you're free yeah and see that's what you leave out some of you when you're looking at this equation and you're saying oh i can invest in money mutual funds and i won't pay off my mortgage and paying off your mortgage is really stupid now you're really stupid when you say that because you don't understand what freedom does to every aspect of your life your marriage your health your relationships medical bills will be lower when you don't have this in your life they just set down a weight when you don't have to carry that weight it changes chrissy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today working on her second number one bestseller it's on pre-sale right now called take back your time the guilt-free guide to balanced living it is how to properly address this whole subject of balance uh use on sale now ramsey solutions at twenty dollars and it includes a hundred hundred and fifty dollars worth of other items as well so be sure and check all of that out you don't wanna miss it out take back your time and uh here's the thing uh we're also going to be doing a live event are we going are we pushing no no no no wait a minute well we are we are actually we have a quiz we do have a quiz uh and this quiz is going to help you uncover the root of why you feel out of balance in the first place it's called why am i so busy why do i feel so busy you can text busy b-u-s-y to 3-3-7-8-9 free free and find out what's the root cause of why you feel out of balance and that's gonna help you know what to do about it but dave we are actually doing an event um on september 16th and you get a ticket to that event when you buy your copy of the book and pre-sale so if you wait till it launches then you don't get that that good stuff over the bonus item yeah e-book audio book all that but september 16th two days after book launch are you gonna take it to that event if you buy it in pre-sale so go ahead and get your copy because we do have that event coming up now i remember because i'm on that event because you sure are just hope you'll be there just reminding me what's on my calendar my september is something almost every day it's all it's going to be a wild wild month and uh that's just uh one of the wild elements of that month so yeah september 16th and if you want to take the free quiz text busy to 33 789 uh alana is with us in helena montana hi alana how are you hi hi what's up oh okay um uh my husband um his employer um the company went public and so we've been trying to figure out uh what to do with the um rsu is the stock he's been paid over the last five and a half years and also um he has the opportunity to purchase stock options so we're just thinking a lot about like how how does what's the best way to do that obviously um having a bunch of single stock is not something we're comfortable with but um also we have different uh no trading periods as well but um what kind of advice i guess do you have for us on um how long to hold it and what what we should maybe do with that well so you've got uh restricted stock units uh and what are the restrictions on it um sorry um i wasn't expecting that question um so we can't trade right now the period will be open here in two weeks or so and then each quarter it seems like there'll be a period of time um after numbers or uh for the company or known or whatever okay so it's not like a one year waiting period or if it was you've already passed that yeah we well the the period that the initial public period um we will be passed here in about a week and a half okay and then the other periods will just be between quarters as we're waiting for whatever they like to do with that i guess well they don't want a bunch of employees dumping stocks on a newly public company right before they announce earnings and cause a dip in the stock uh because people get scared they all the employees are all dumping it and so they typically do restrict your your units on an initial public offering for a year that's not unusual and up until numbers are released each quarter so once the numbers are released then then you selling the stock won't affect stock price and that's why they do that so it's not an unreasonable thing so what's all of this worth that you currently own um so we currently have um about 35 000 dollars worth that has been held for over a year okay um and what is your household name for less than a year what's your household in uh between 100 and 120 000 depending on bonuses how much debt do you have not counting your house none good how much do you owe in your house nine 229 okay and you're putting fifteen percent of your income away in retirement and maybe step four or not uh yes um we were definitely on baby step four and then we did borrow into our emergency account so we do have a little bit to pay back into our emergency account but not enough that we've taken um and stopped the 15 so you had an emergency paid back soon yeah yeah okay all right good and you're getting past that good uh all right so if you're working our baby steps then you know four five and six are simultaneous four is fifteen percent of your income into retirement five is kids college six is pay off the house early and so i'm using everything i get my hands on to pay off the house early and so as those stock uh units become available i'm cashing them out and putting them on the house as fast as i possibly can as far as buying stock options in the company uh that's typically uh 15 uh off of retail right um the numbers my husband gave me were that it would cost us about 27 000 to buy the options and they would be worth 140 000 so i guess pretty close to what you're saying no that's a lot more than what i'm saying that's a lot better deal than what i'm saying fifteen percent of a reduction in price that sounds okay that sounds like this sounds like you're buying it at 10 or 15 cents on the dollar so he's got some he's got some legitimate options there as well here's the thing you can roll those options without investing any cash you can just sell them okay okay and that that sounds like that's going to make you net would you say 130 over 27 make you another hundred grand 140 over 27 yeah yeah it's gonna make you another hundred and uh thirteen thousand on top of the 35 that you got we're about to get your house paid off kiddo yeah yeah it's crazy yeah sell it all easy sell it all okay yeah um and so do we want to try to hold on to it for a year is it it'll you know sell it as soon as okay i have no idea what the price is gonna do i will trade the opportunity for this business that your husband's in i have no idea what it is to make a lot more money in order to be free you got plenty of time to play games with stuff like options and single stock ownership later after you're free completely and so make 130 000 a year but you're sitting on 130 140 000 worth of stock and so you've got the equivalent of one year's income that you're screwing around with here in single stock now you may do all of this stuff and look back and that stock double in value and you go that day ramsey lost a dead gum mine no i want your house paid off mm-hmm okay but you can do what you want all right that's how we work the baby steps right yeah and it's interesting too because i think that when you when you ask the question out loud and you start to do the math it becomes so much more clear because having that money that is sitting there you could be putting that towards the house the 35 000 and i've never heard you talk about i guess not as much about the company stocks but i think that's a good question because anybody that's in a company that has that option needs to know what to do with it and what to put it towards yeah most publicly traded company stock options are standard employee stock purchase they're very standardized just 15 percent off gotcha which is not enough to mess with it yeah um because if you look at the 52-week high or 52-week low they go up and down more than 15 percent are all company stocks single stocks yes typically okay and that's the only thing there is it's a co it's a stock in a single company yep is what it is so um and these this is a initial public offering an ipo which means uh it's got tremendous upside it could be it could be a real go-go but it's got tremendous downside too right it's the most volatile yeah of all categories brand new companies brand new publicly traded companies but we only it's like fishing stories you only hear about the ones that you got into the boat you don't hear about the days that you sat out there in the sun and got nothing but a sunburn yes and um you caught nothing you know and so the guys that do an ipo and it goes completely belly up and they make almost nothing on her they lose half of their money then you don't hear those stories uh when with your golfing buddy you don't brag about those you're fishing buddy right so but uh but all of that to say i'm not taking all the risk when you make 130 a year and you have 140 000 sitting in your plate you go pay off your house or move towards paying off your house that puts us out with the ramsey show in the books thanks to christy wright my co-host james childs our producer kelly daniels our associate producer and phone screener i'm dave ramsey we'll be back did you know you can listen to the ramsay show on your smart speaker just tell alexa google assistant or siri to play the ramsay show podcast check out all ramsay network shows on your smart speaker today this is the ramsay show you can be intentional about your character you can have money and a career you are the hero in your story live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studios it's the ramsey show where debt is dumb cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the bmw as the status symbol of choice i'm dave ramsey your host christy wright number one best-selling author ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five that's triple eight eight two five five two two five her new book is on pre-sale it will come out september the fourteenth but if you wanna get fifty 50 worth of extra goodies to go with it all for 20 bucks you can pre-order it at ramseysolutions.com it's called take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance janice is with us in oklahoma city to start this hour off hi janice how are you hi dave uh i'm doing okay i'm really pretty um very concerned about my finances i'm 70 years old i have no retirement my husband and i neither one have a retirement we are not in agreement about what we should do with the cash that we do have we have 25 000 cash no cds nothing that's it the question is we owe 27 000 on our home and the value of the home is about 250 000. uh we have 11 000 debt on a car um my husband wants to take the money that we have and pay off the car and then he says apply the 350 dollar month car payment towards paying off the house my problem is i'm so stressed i at least want to have a house to live in and the way i see things i don't think i can live anywhere cheaper than where i live right now i don't think i could even live in an apartment for what we would be paying a month on our home so i need some help here what are you living on what's your income we have two thousand dollars a month social security combined i have some income that i get above that with a job that i have but it's pretty physically challenging um i'm able to do it now but um you know i don't know how long i'll be able to do that what do you make uh i probably another two thousand a month on that okay is your husband able to work he has a part-time job it's kind of whenever the the store owner needs him and so he has occasional income but nothing that we count on is he able to work um a little so he's got physical limitations yes he does okay he's got health problems yeah okay and that's part of you know our situation we've had large medical bills and we've also made some real bad cash investments what do you do that makes you two thousand dollars i clean homes and it's physically demanding okay it's good money but it's physically demanding um hmm hey how many cars do you have we have a paid off old very dependable pickup and then we have the one card that we have the outstanding dead on we also have an old uh roadster that's probably i would say about a ten thousand dollar value on it i'm sorry but the roadster is gone okay um you have not yeah i'm sure that's gonna break his heart but i'm sorry um it's gone and then that gives us ten thousand dollars to put towards the house um because the roadster will sell for enough to pay off your car uh we can leave fifteen thousand in your emergency fund put ten thousand towards the house and then that leaves you 17 to go and you guys get in the business of the next 17 months or so getting that house paid off okay because with no debt at all you can make it it's not going to be pretty but you can make it right right um you know i we don't spend money i mean everybody spends money it costs money to do anything but the main thing we do is we eat out and that's not yep a lot we don't go here's the thing here's the thing if you want to keep this house you're gonna start living like you're completely bankrupt because you got to clean this mess up you do not have wiggle room here that's where all this stress is coming from in your stomach and why you called me yes so you can't eat out you're broke eating out is causing you to clean toilets okay yep i agree yeah and so you know i'm sorry about in the future you may may be able to but right now you've got to get a roadster sold you got to get your car paid off and you got to get your house paid off and you got 25 000 and a roadster to pull all this off and a 2 000 income that's questionable because we don't know how much longer you can do this at 70 years old right so we have got to get you clear of this debt before your before you start losing the ability to work like he has otherwise you're going to end up selling this house and buying a condo for a hundred thousand and have a hundred thousand dollar slush fund to live on and have a life now you can go and do that now if you want okay i'm listening to you well you got a 250 000 house right yes so if you sell it today you're debt-free take a hundred thousand by a hundred thousand dollar condo two-bedroom move yourself into it and that's your retirement home and that's how you're gonna retire and that that enables you to not be stressed and not be worried and you've got a hundred thousand dollars to invest over there it'll make you a little bit of money and you know that's a much better mathematical equation but i'm guessing that that's going to cause an awful lot of emotional pain well and also you know the hoa fees would be no problem no no no you you can live in a hundred thousand dollar condo in oklahoma city it's just gonna come down to making the choice janice like you're gonna have to make a choice you're either going to get out of this debt or you're going to have to leave that hat like something has to give this is not working right now which is why you feel that tightness in your chest but you can fix it you've got several ways to fix it but you have to make a choice and commit to doing that you can't he's going to have to work all his health will allow him you're going to work all your health will allow you you're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there you're going to sell the roadster and you guys are going to get serious about paying this thing off otherwise you need to sell it and move to 100 000 condo you'll be better off or something like that this is the ramsey show 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 christie wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five she's the number one best-selling author and getting ready to be so again the new book is take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance it's on sale at ramsey solutions for 20 including an extra 50 worth of goodies which also includes a ticket to the live stream event she and i will be doing on balance and that's on september the 16th the book actually launches on september 14th which is when we will ship it to you why would you buy it now when it comes out september 14th because we're going to give you 50 worth of stuff as a bribe to get you to go ahead and do it now that's that's simple it's called marketing i think believe it or not y'all it's august here at ramsey we think of august as a second new year we've noticed that once everyone is done with the distractions of summer they're ready to kick things into high gear and you have goals that you want to reach like getting ready for christmas which is here in about 30 seconds right um and uh you know you got things you need to do doyle to help you get back on track we're running a great new deal every week starting at only ten dollars this week our back to school sale get up to 71 off books kids products and curriculum and today only our team is marking down our family favorite the adventure pack only 40 5.99 that's the lowest price of the year for teaching your kids the whole adventures of junior from financial peace junior all of this at ramseysolutions.com we're also having a lot of fun celebrating the pre-order launch of ken coleman's new book from paycheck to purpose with a 500 cash giveaway every week this month and we're giving away a grand prize of three thousand dollars and i've already mentioned christie's book take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance all of this happening at ramsey solutions including the cash giveaway no purchase necessary for that check it all out daily you have chances to win text cash to 33 789 cash to 33 789 shelly is with us in spokane hi shelly how are you uh i'm gonna get you bless more than i deserve to be there you go good plan what's up how can we help okay i love two things in life planning events like weddings and saving money and i'd like to combine the two and find a little niche where i can help couples to plan that party without spending the down payment on a house over it all right i just don't know how to do it i do little things like when there is a clearance on kind of fancy wear at st michaels for tables i buy them on clearance i i buy stuff on craigslist as far as tablecloths and stuff like that i may have a venue that can be my go-to venue depending upon the wedding that i'm helping plan for my cousin's daughter and i'm trying to do it sensibly but i am not a business person and i don't know exactly how to go about it i know how to go about finding people that i need that can help me as far as certain aspects but it's all really overwhelming i don't know how to set up a website and it's just i really want to do this but um i don't want to fail hey shelly i want you to know that exactly what you said is what i've heard for 10 years and you're not alone every single person getting started feels the exact same way i hear those exact same words i'm not a business person i don't know what i'm doing i don't want to fail so i just first want to encourage you you're not alone and that's normal you're doing something new the great news is it doesn't mean you can't do this you can do this and you will do this you're going to do this like everybody else does it which is just being scrappy and taking it one step at a time so i want to give you some really tactical things you can do because when you uh you you accomplish one tactical step it's going to build your confidence it's also going to help you make progress in this direction okay if i give you a list of things to do will you do it yes ma'am okay they're they're easy i promise okay i'm not a scary teacher i mean i might seem scary i don't mean to here's what i want you to do first i want you to do a little research on the wedding planning business you can just stalk people in your area you can stalk people online i don't care how you do it i want you to get a list of what are the typical services a wedding planner covers you just need to know what those are you probably know the basics from cakes to linens to florals that type of thing but i want you to get a comprehensive list i want you to make a whole list okay and okay and then that's going to help you know what areas that you need to source that you don't already have a source for uh and that's just going to give you a good starting point okay then i want second i want you to think about your pricing there are several different ways to charge in the wedding planning business you can do it as a percentage of budget you can do it as a flat fee obviously it will include what a package people buy if they just want you to help them day of that's going to be less expensive than if someone wants you to plan their whole wedding for six months with them or a year so think about your pricing and and you've got some options here this is your business i know that sounds scary but it's it's not scary it's exciting this is your business you can price it and structure the the pricing how you want to but i want you to do a little research on on what's out there and what's normal and and think about what you want to do okay so first we're going to make a list of all the services that are typically covered so you know what you're going to cover and where you need to do a little bit more homework find some sourcing i want you to think about your pricing okay and then i want you to think about even some of the language around how you talk about your business because i love how you talked about it to me i think that could be your elevator pitch right there i love planning weddings and i love saving money and i want to help you do both that could be it it's clear and it it articulates your niche you are the wedding planner on a budget and that's beautiful that's awesome it's so clear why people should come to you because you're going to specifically help them plan a wedding on a budget i love it um so those are just some tactical practical things the other thing i want you to do is when you are planning this wedding who is it your cousin your sisters my cousin's daughter okay she was rustic without country and i've nailed a lot of it we've got the venue and we've got the catering all set up i have all the tablescapes taken care of everything that needs to be done other than a dj and a photographer and the event the people that have the events at the place have contacts with both okay okay okay here's what i want you to do i i think that's great here's what i want you to do this is a trial run for planning a wedding for you so what i want you to do is take notes what are the things you didn't expect that you encountered what are the things you learned what are the things you want to do differently next time what are the things that you loved that works well that you want to do again you take notes on this whole experience from your perspective and then certainly ask for feedback from this family member afterwards once she's home from a honeymoon and all that say hey what could i've done better or different if you do these simple tactical things that i've just given you to do you are on your way to doing it and it's gonna build your confidence but i want you to stay on the phone shelly because we are having our business boutique conference in october 14th through the 16th i'll be speaking along with dave a lineup of incredible speakers we're going to give you a ticket to that event if you can't come in person we'll give you a live stream ticket but stay on the line we'll make sure kelly gets you a ticket so you can come get all that you will need from marketing sales money all the things we're gonna teach you how to start and grow this thing so we're just you're gonna do it and you're gonna you're gonna learn what you need to be able to do it it's a three-day conference and it is packed yeah you will leave it emotionally and intellectually exhausted in the best way in the best possible way because you you you listen if you want to come down and goof off don't come because this is like we're going we're going to turn on fire that's right we have a lot of fun and we teach you a lot we got a drink we turn on a fire hose so it's uh we're you're gonna you're gonna leave knowing and you're never again gonna be able to say oh i don't know anything about business that's right every single woman that walks in that room or that tunes it online thinks exactly what shelly thought i don't know what i'm doing i'm not a business person i don't want to fail and they walk out of there ready to charge hell with a water pistol like they know how to do this they this one woman said she goes i came feeling like a mom with an idea and i left a business owner there's an identity shift that happens in those three days and you're going to be there shelly i'm excited for you that's a business boutique it is coming up in october october 14th through the 16th here in nashville or on live stream you can get your tickets and all at ramseysolutions.com for the rest of you this is the ramsey show chrissy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five in buffalo new york matthew and tara are on the line to tell us their debt free story hey guys how are you oh we're doing great excited to be here how much of you guys paid off uh well we started to 10 years ago with about 65 000 but three years ago we still had forty three thousand to go okay and what's been your range of income um ranged anywhere from thirty to thirty six thousand a year okay and what kind of debt was the sixty five thousand uh it was a mix of uh thirty eight thousand in school loans sixteen thousand family loans for our house and eleven thousand in credit card debt wow kind of normal very normal so what happened 10 years ago what happened three years ago they got you guys going so ten years ago is when we got married and we started out just making minimum payments planning to pay off the school loans and eventually build a house and three years ago looking at it we'd been at it for seven years and still had 43 000 to go i was getting pretty tiring and so we decided to get serious tara got involved much more strongly helped us to start a emergency fund and i have a small business so my my income tends to fluctuate a little bit and so she put together an emergency fund and we started doing a cash base and then a year ago we started following your plan wow how did you find us um i don't know i think probably just somewhere on youtube i saw videos about being debt free i love all the personalities um and so i i kind of just grew up on you know watching videos and making you know making life better for myself and so um i really loved all your stuff and we're believers and so to me it's just like wow this is amazing like you know and it was just kind of easy to i mean the plan makes so much sense so it's just like let's just do this okay so when you got more involved you went to matthew and said okay now we're going to do it my way we tried it your way for seven years now we're gonna do it my way yeah yeah i mean our our upbringings financially were a little different i actually grew up with handling cash a lot more so i was super comfortable going all cash like if it's not there we're not buying it because there's no money but i yeah i just i something clicked in me a couple you know a couple years ago and i was like man like we just gotta get out like this has been so long it's been such such a long haul we worked so hard it was like we just like our money should be going where we want it to um you know and two like i i want the kids to not see us ball in chain not living out our our dreams or the calling that god has for us and so um yeah so you know we we both got on board not that it really took a lot of convincing but uh the proof was kind of in the pudding once once uh some of the smaller loans started to get paid off um and the momentum was just phenomenal it was like let's do this like we kicked into such a high gear it was like so it was so awesome i love how you guys described that because i think matthew the way that you said it you said um you know we got serious and there's such a difference between plugging along making minimum payments not really going anywhere no one's excited about that no one's making any kind of progress with that but when you get serious and you get committed it does create that momentum you're talking about tara and that's what makes the difference that's what actually gets you out dave i always quote you when you say you can wander into debt you cannot wander out you're going to have to get fired up and you guys did and you see the difference in the numbers once you got fired up so well done what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is um i i say a budget you cannot do it without a budget i mean we we i meal plans like to the scent when i went to the grocery store because i was like this is what it is like you know and we can't go over that and i think budgeting it like our you know electric our utilities are pretty expected and reliable but like food it's so easy to spend so much money and so to me it was like you cannot do it without a budget and you can't do it i personally i enjoy doing it um with just using cash only personally yeah i would say before you can get out of debt you have to stop going into debt and uh for us a huge key to that was having that emergency fund buffer yeah that's why we do that that's i didn't start out with that as baby step one back and when i very first started but i learned quickly that uh you've got to have a little bit of a room a little bit of wiggle room there and baby step one to get moving so way to go you guys we're so proud of you way to go heroes you took control of your life ding ding ding i love it well we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you that is the next chapter in your story for sure uh you've changed your family tree and changed the whole direction of everything in the last three years is a whole new whole new chapter for you and we've also got a copy of the total money makeover for you so you can give that to someone and pay it forward and uh get them started maybe on this idea of uh you know complete focus completely laying your ears back and going into it i love it all right so you got the three kiddos with you to do the debt-free scream yes we do their names and ages gracie is eight uh kenny is six and vincent is two perfect sounds awesome good looking guys we see them here on the picture on youtube popping up so well done well done guys ah i love it yeah all right matthew tara gracie kenny and vincent uh are 43 65 000 paid off over 10 years but 43 in the last three years make it 30 to 36 count it down let's hear a debt free scream three two one yeah that is how it's done that's awesome i love it so beautiful so fabulous so well played yeah and and you know what's interesting is that they paid off almost all their debt in three years yeah there's another part of that story but you know it's things change when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired when you finally say i've had it that's when you open up a small business that's when you get out of debt that's when you know the kids are made to behave for the first time ever you know when you finally say that's it i've had it we're not living like this anymore yeah and you know you have to reach that point and it's it is a healthy level of frustration or anger yeah because it motivates you to do something different it's hard to do something different not just the discipline of of paying off your debt not going into debt just change is hard the habit changing is hard uh the mental energy to think about we've got to sit down every month and do a budget is hard new things are hard but if you're going to face that hard and have that discipline you've got to have that visceral anger frustration whatever to motivate you because otherwise you're not going to face the hard but you've got to face it and make those changes if you're ever going to get to to making your debt-free screaming and experiencing that life you have to actually go through that but so many people don't they get stuck at the oh that's hard i think i'm just going to keep on keeping on you know making minimum payments the sad thing is is that normal in america sucks yeah yeah and so widely accepted we're all just okay with but it's also by the way extremely comfortable oh sure yeah your your comfort zone in america is really big yeah you have a really big comfort zone yeah i mean you can wander around and do stupid and have a pretty decent life oh yeah and people will applaud you yeah and they're like oh look at you you've got to go look at your new car yeah look at your new vacation and you keep buying stuff that you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even really like and you keep on this path and you keep on this path and you just hang out in the comfort zone and then something happens finally that jolts you awake and say the pain of staying the same is now exceeding the pain of change and that's the only time you'll change that's right you finally wake up and say i am sick and tired of being sick and tired i'm sick of this dull existence of mediocrity and i'm about to bust up into something and create some excellence in my life sick of not having any money yeah sick of whatever yeah you know let's get her done name it feel it and then do something about it get it baby get it this is the ramsay show our scripture of the day first corinthians 9 24 do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize run in such a way as to get the prize florence nightingale said i attribute my success to this i never gave or took any excuse i bet she didn't can you even imagine oh my goodness i love it that's fabulous christy wright ramsey personality number one best-selling author with a new book on sale take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance is my co-host today the phone number here is triple triple eight eight two five five two two five robert's in oakland california hey robert how are you good uh hi dave and christy hi my wife my wife and i are in a good place we uh however we do live in a very high cost part of california yeah we just retired a few months ago and we want to pay off our home which is our only debt however our plan was to reach a nest egg amount to be able to pay off our home and then have our nest egg at a level where we can live comfortably the rest of our life uh we're we're short of that goal and i i think i know what you would probably say but because but because we live in such a high cost area i'm wondering what you think of my plan now that plan is okay to grow our investments another 280 000 before we pay off our home okay so what's your nest egg today it's almost 1.5 million and what's the take to pay off the house uh 280 000 and we would our goal was to have 1.5 million after we paid off our home yeah okay so here's the thing how's the money invested what's it invested in it's uh invested well it's in 403 b's and roth iras mostly and inside of that in mutual funds yeah mutual fund so are you getting a right of return uh 10 or north of that average yes absolutely wait yes yes i'm doing well all right so let's just say 10 percent because that's conservative probably um yeah every how old are you 66 okay every seven years it's going to double if you don't touch it right so 1.5 is going to be three in seven years okay or uh one point minus whatever we take out yeah or one point two or one point two will be two point eight or two point two point four i'm sorry in seven years so um i mean i said three yeah two point that's that's right i'm sorry so um i mean you gotta run your budget out can you not live on the income that a million two creates yeah we can but it we might have to cut back on our lifestyle but you don't have a house payment anymore correct and you still can't make it on the income you can't live 120 000 with no house payment oh yeah we can yeah we can absolutely we can um we're anticipating we're anticipating a withdrawal rate of around five percent not ten percent okay that we pay ourselves about five percent of our investments okay so here's uh i mean you can do whatever you want to do you call me and ask me yeah if i woke up in your shoes i'd write a check and pay off my house today and i would change i changed my withdrawal rate to seven percent until i got my nest egg where i want and then i drop it back down to five okay and you're going to come out about the same place but you will have had no house debt all through this time okay and the house is worth currently you said how much uh 600 almost 670 000. okay so your net worth two million bucks give or take good way to go man you did it congratulations how much of this did you inherit only around 40 000 for my wife and my wife and my parents so how did you become a millionaire what you do a 2 million we we live within our means all of our adult life we live debt free and we saved very well and invested very well we were in ministry so we never made a lot of money we just lived frugally and we invested well what was your average income through your life well it's probably 70 to 80 000 maybe so you never made 100 grand well we did the last few years because my wife and i were both on staff that only for a few years we made over a hundred thousand and you got two million dollars well i'm so proud of you pastor you did it man you lived out the principles of that book you've been teaching from well done yeah well done live on lesson you make stay out of debt have a plan i mean this is this is this is what you did and this is by the way what the typical millionaire does the everyday millionaire in america today they're all over the place and they're not evil they didn't steal it from anybody and no none of that money is yours it's his now he's a generous guy he'll give you some if you're hungry but i mean you did it man i'm so proud of you well done very well done yeah if i woke up in your shoes i'll be debt free let me tell you something that you don't anticipate you you you taught you taught from the pulpit for many years right yeah and uh have you had this experience before i have from the pulpit uh where i teach a biblical truth and then when i actually have the opportunity to walk in that truth i have a different feel about it a different insight a different paradigm of it do you know what i'm talking about i do yeah when you pay off this house you're going to understand proverbs 22 7 at a different level the borrower is slave to the lender there's going to be something in you that's going to flip like a switch when you pay this house off and you're not anticipating that yeah well i'm we're looking forward to that and i i agree with you i deal with that yeah by the end of the day brother by the end of the day you're gonna feel it tonight you're gonna be seeing it you're gonna be singing hymns about freedom it's happening tonight robert hope you're ready you know the the times that you have something happen like um uh those that are last will be first that you know that that i came to serve uh i came to live give life in abundance jesus said and when you hear that the first time or two as a christian or somebody that's a potential christian even you you you kind of hear it but when you walk in it and it gets all over you it's a different thing yes yeah it takes an experience it's going from your head to your heart from just the idea that you understand intellectually to feeling it in in your spirit there's a reality yeah it's it becomes reality it's no longer theory yeah and um that's true of a lot of things in in life and in scripture but um uh and especially someone who's devoted their life to serving god um when you do something that's you know he's very mathematical he's really got a plan he's a planner and when you do something that that you know it's almost stepping out on faith a little bit it's not because you've got plenty of margin but it's not like he's taking a risk here i mean because hey pastor if you hate being out of debt you can always go get you a mortgage yeah i mean so uh it's not like you're stuck or something but the uh uh but but what happens is you don't it it kind of catches you off guard because i mean i remember with that that feeling where i went wow it feels like cold mountain air just blew in the room and fresh air you know wow there was a moment you know and you just there's something that happens and i uh it is a spiritual experience because there's a spiritual principle involved here yeah and uh you know and the you know the same thing's true that in the house of the wise or stores of choice food and oil my wife feels different when we have an emergency fund i feel different yeah when we have stores of wealth and it's not because we're greedy and it's not because we're hoarding it's not because we're not generous or not being willing to help someone right but but there that that margin that money gives you is a spiritual principle the security and the the yeah absolutely it's a stewardship issue just being wise very cool stuff good show today christy this is fun christy wright new book is take back your time the guilt-free guide to life balance james charles is our producer kelly daniels our associate producer i'm dave ramsey your host we'll be back before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of ramsay advice in their life let them know about the ramsey call of the day podcast it's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes check out the ramsey call of the day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts you

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Id: PzY-LecU-NE

Length: 121min 25sec (7285 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021