Let Go of Others Expectations and Take Control of Your Own Future

23:14Right now, for a few numbers, I work part-time while in college. I make$20 ,000 a year, and I'm currently going through a real estate course. So you've been told you have to be a doctor or lawyer. You don't want to be. and not only do you have to be a doctor or a lawyer, but you would be the one to pay for or be on hook for the debt for obtaining a degree that you don't want to get. And you're asking us what we think you should do. Correct. I think you should not go into debt for a degree that you cannot afford and don't even want.

23:47Dave Ramsey:Let me make sure. You don't want to be a lawyer. Is that what you're saying? If it was free, would you want to be a lawyer? if it was free i'm kind of unbiased i have no problem being a lawyer like i have no problem with the job i don't think it's bad i don't think it's great but at the end of the day my outlook on life is whatever makes the money i don't know about that outlook yeah i know it's a it's a little skewed well it's so much money it's it's so much money to go in with no passion and I don't think the prospect of I could make a lot of money one day is enough to keep you. Is anyone in your family a lawyer?

24:26No, my parents are immigrants and they work paycheck to paycheck. So they kind of just, they were.

24:33Dave Ramsey:So they wanted the good life for you. They wanted you to have the best possible life. And for them, that was doctor or lawyer. That's the way they saw it. So they have a good heart, but maybe their methodology is bad. Yeah. What's your degree in your undergrad? It's business management. Okay. And you think you want to do real estate? Yeah. So I work in the restaurant business now part-time, and a lot of my local regulars are real estate brokers, and they have expressed to me several times that if I go through the course, get the license, I can totally work for them right out of the gate. So I thought that might be promising.

25:18Dave Ramsey:okay well that that's true um what what i think i want you to do is i want you to figure out what you want to be and then let's reverse engineer how to get there rather than just going okay i can make money in real estate or i can make money as a lawyer i haven't heard anything yet about what i want to do who i want to be what sets my soul on fire what makes me really really excited and instead you're just gravitating where I can get a paycheck. Gotcha. Yeah. So I want you to, I don't mind you getting paid, you know,$800 ,000 a year. That's perfectly good with me. As a matter of fact, I think working your passion and making no money is a bunch of crap.

25:58Dave Ramsey:Okay. Because if you work your passion, you ought to actually get good at it and make money. So I just don't buy that stuff. But on the other hand, working is something that you, to Jade's point earlier, that you don't have a lot of passion for. Certainly don't want to go into debt for that. So you're living your parents dream and you're having to finance it to the tune of 150 on the lawyer thing. So I'm with you on that one, Joseph. I think we're going to tell mom and dad, Hey, I'm going to go live the American dream. I just found out it's different than you thought it was. It's not a lawyer.

26:30Dave Ramsey:Yeah. And they might push back on you. They likely will, but you're going to have to, that's something that you're probably going to have to power through as an adult now. They want the good things for you. They want good things for you. They're not bad people. They just don't know how to define it. So I'll give you an example, Joseph. My grandmother, my grandpa worked for Alcoa Aluminum and Accounting. And when he retired, he was head cost accountant in Alcoa, Tennessee. Okay. And so he had one job his whole working life. I go broke in real estate, lose everything. My grandparents think I'm going to be living in a box on the side of the road, which was pretty close, but not quite.

27:07Dave Ramsey:And then I write a little book. And the day my publisher called to tell me that we had just sold the millionth copy, my grandmother was the next call. And she said, honey, I was praying this morning. I'm worried about you. When are you going to get a real job? Okay. So what that means is my grandmother loved me a lot and I loved her and she wanted what was good for me, but her definition of what was good for me was 38 years at Alcoa Aluminum. And meanwhile, I just sold the millionth copy of Financial Peace, okay? And I thought it was doing okay. I had Financial Peace, Granny. But she couldn't get her head around that, even though she wanted good things for me.

27:52Dave Ramsey:She wasn't bad, okay? But it didn't fit. And that's where you are. Your mom and dad want you to be a lawyer because for them, that's the 38 years at Alco aluminum. That's the great American dream. It's something you can count on. All lawyers make money. All doctors make money. That's what their eyes see, although that's not true. But that's what their eyes see. And so them, you know, you convincing them may take a while with your success. You may have to become successful before they become convinced that this was a good idea to not go to law school. But I think you shouldn't go to law school.

28:25Dave Ramsey:I agree with you. Gotcha. Okay. But I want to honor their hearts because they got good hearts. My granny had a good heart, okay? And we don't need to be disrespectful, but it's just because from where they came from, that's the definition of success. If you time warped them back to 1950 and you were in small town America in 1950, you need to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker. Well, God help you if you're a banker today, you know, I mean, but yeah. You know, so, but, and that was the, that was who was in the chamber of commerce in the small town and the people that went to the country club. You know, and so that was the definition then.

29:04Dave Ramsey:And that's what they've got in their heads is that 1950, 1960 persona. So anyway, now let's go on to Joseph. I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, Finding the Work You're Wired to Do. I want you to take the assessment and I want you to start thinking about what I can do that when I'm 40, the 40-year-old version of you is going to look back at the 23-year-old version of you and thank him. thank you for doing the soul searching to find out where i can make a lot of money on something that sets my soul on fire and that's where you need to be sir and so the answer is probably neither one of these but it could be real estate it's okay i don't mind real estate if you do real estate by the way it's going to be tough 22 year old selling houses have a problem you're gonna have to grow a mustache because you look like you're 12 and nobody buys houses from 12 year olds i know i got my real estate license when i turned 18 it was hard hard wearing my disco clothes and show houses right so with complete with mr t starter kit gold chains i'm just saying but you were wearing gold chains babe disco time man yeah a while back is a minute ago uh all right so hang on we'll send you all that stuff out honey and we'll help you out but your mom and dad are sweet people.

30:20Dave Ramsey:They're good people. We're not going to dishonor them. They just want the American dream for you. It's why they fought to get to come here. And that's why a lot of people want to live in America, because it's the best place on the planet to live. They fight to get to do it.

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32:51Dave Ramsey:Are you staying on track with your baby steps? You can take a quick quiz to check your progress for free and receive a personalized plan for free just for you. Simply head to the show notes, click the link titled, Are You on Track with the Baby Steps? and complete the quiz for free. Maddie is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hi, Maddie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, it's such an honor to speak with you both. You too. How can we help? Thank you. Me and my husband are currently on baby step number six. My question is, I am wondering if this is something I need to prepare for. My father, he owns about$12 million in rentals and apartments.

33:36And my siblings, there's about four of us, and they are not interested in inheriting them when that time comes. And I am wondering what I would need to do to buy them off when we get to that point. Like, do I need to start saving now? It sounds like you need$9 million. Their portion. Excuse me?

34:06Dave Ramsey:Sounds like you'd need$9 million. Yeah. How old are your parents? My dad is 66. My mom is 65. What's your household income? Me and my husband make around$230 ,000 a year. Well, I mean, mom and dad got to live a while because you're not ready, right? Exactly, yes. Yeah. But that's a lot of money. Why are you so interested in owning these particular apartments? They run very well. Me and my husband, we managed them for years while we were setting up a house. We lived in the apartments so that we could put a down payment, a good down payment on our current home. So we know how to run them. We know the numbers.

35:01We know the books. We know what it takes to run them, and we would love to become landlords.

35:09Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Is there any debt on them? No. Okay. All right. Well, they're going up in value every year, so the longer your parents live, the larger the number is, but the longer your parents live, the more time you've got to save up to get ready to do this. if you have$9 million and that's your entire net worth I would not tell you to buy them out I think it would be unwise to have your entire net worth in one apartment complex even though you like it so you're going to need$20 million for this to be wise which I'm not real hopeful of what is your net worth? during baby step 6 yeah so So, I mean, you got some equity in the house, but still got a mortgage, and you got some money in your 401K.

35:59Dave Ramsey:And so, but you're making good money. That's good news. So, the only way to buy them out is one of two things. Either have the cash or go into debt to do it. And so, I'm going to have the cash. And if I have the cash, I wouldn't personally tell you to keep an investment property that one investment property composes almost your entire net worth. I think that's really dangerous. Okay. So that was going to be my question is if we should jump into investment property sooner. And that way, when this comes, we can sell that and use that money. No, we don't get in a hurry. You still go. You still go build wealth.

36:37Dave Ramsey:You make good money. Get your home paid off. Let's pile up some cash. If you want to buy some other properties as your baby step seven goes, that's OK. Pay cash for them as you go. but I'm not going to panic and do something silly to try to get rich quick so that I'm ready to buy Papa's apartments. I mean, worst case scenario is when this day comes and you get your split of whatever the money was, when you sell off these apartments, you take that money and go buy your own piece of rental that you're doing. I mean, that's worst case, right? And you're still doing the you want to do yeah you're just let's pretend that um this is a few years from now let's just make up some numbers just to kind of give you an example of what jade's talking about this is where i would see it coming down if i was your dad and i'm your dad's age okay and i've got a bunch of real estate this is how i would tell my kids to look at it okay um because you got a single asset here it's not it's not diversified you have the single asset so i i would say if you You guys, if it's worth$24 million when I'm gone, you'd get$6 million each.

37:48Dave Ramsey:And by then, you've probably saved up$4 or$5 million yourself with your$200 ,000 income. It's 20 years from now, right? Okay? So you got$4 or$5 million, and then you sell off the apartment complex, which makes your heart flutter a little bit. I heard that. That's okay. I'm still doing it. And it's$24 million. And so you got$6 million to go buy your property that does for you what you thought this one was going to do for you. And you pay cash for it. Okay. And it's not 90 % of your net worth then. It's 40 % of your net worth, which is a little scary, but not nearly as scary as something single asset being all your net worth.

38:26Dave Ramsey:Okay. And the best part is all of this is kind of figured out ahead of time. It's not you after your dad goes to heaven trying to chop this up with your siblings. It's already kind of decided. You know what I mean? It's not you hounding them to buy out their portion and all this stuff. I think the real estate is going to go up so much in value that you're not going to be able to catch up with buying out the other 75%. I see. Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of. It feels out of reach. Yeah. There are different units, so different buildings. Are they parceled? There's like eight of them, eight different buildings.

39:04Dave Ramsey:I know, but are they parceled or is it on one piece of property? It's parceled. Oh. So it's not really a single complex. No. Okay. Well, you could just take your portion of it. Okay. The equivalent of that. But if they're not even interested, but we are. Well, then they're going to sell off the other ones. Mm-hmm. Because you can't afford them. Or maybe you can afford to buy some of them, but not all of them, and you take your portion plus some of them. That kind of a thing. But there's two things I don't want you to violate. I don't want you to go into debt to do this when it happens later. And I don't want you to use every dime you've got to and have a single asset be the 90 % of your net worth because that's too dangerous.

39:54Dave Ramsey:That's two things. And I'll add a third one. Don't get desperate and stupid trying to pile up a bunch of money, get rich quick in order to make this deal happen because it's not that important. You're going to mess up the whole thing trying to get in a hurry. So work your steady plan to build your wealth. Then you're going to inherit$6 million worth of real estate, give or take, depending on how long mom and dad live. And and maybe you buy out your brothers and sisters for some of it. But those are the three things. Don't get desperate and fast. Don't go into debt. And don't let when this end of this story comes, this single asset be 90 percent of your net worth.

40:33Dave Ramsey:And Jade, something just flashed through my mind, so I'm going to say it. This is one of the problems that we have when we're coaching entree leaders in small businesses. They don't have any investments except their business. So 90 % of their net worth is tied up in the value of the heating and air guy who's got 30 trucks, and he has one company, and he didn't do his own 401k, and he has no rental properties. He doesn't own anything but that company. Yeah. And then, you know. It's the equivalent of a single stock. It's exactly, exactly. You know, I put all of my retirement in one company. And that's not a good plan, y 'all.

41:10Dave Ramsey:We fuss at the small business guys all the time. Do your own 401k. Do your own side investing. And then that sets you up to do a different thing. For instance, Ramsey Solutions is a very valuable company. 100 % of it will be given to our children. Yeah. And honestly. They will not pay a dime for it. With AI the way it is too, if you think that, you don't know what the future holds. So it's really great to have those diversifications because something that is a business that's popping right now, you don't know in 10 years what it's going to look like. That's true. Very true. Yeah. Very true. And the reason we're able to give the 100 % to our children is we have other investments.

41:48Dave Ramsey:That's right. Our only investment is not this company. Okay. We do on the real estate that is sitting in, which is pretty sweet in and of itself. So there you go. Yeah, you'll be all right. It's a separate asset. We're going to be okay. And since I'm supposed to die before Sharon, Sharon's going to be okay. I'm having to sleep with one eye open these days. Not sure how she developed this estate plan. I'm a little worried about it, but there we go. This is The Ramsey Show.

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44:18Dave Ramsey:Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thanks for joining us, America. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. John is in New Jersey. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my call today. Sure. So I'm in baby step two right now. I read Total Money Makeover last year, changed my perspective on finances and things. So, you know, changing things around. And my wife is, I would say, 80 % on board with the plan.

45:10But we have two debts left. We basically paid off about$100 ,000 this past year of car notes, you know, things around the house, student loans. And our last two debts are her student loans and a 401k loan that we took out before I knew not to do that. How much are those? To put a down payment on a house. So her school loan debt is about$6 ,500, and the other one is$40 ,000. And I know that you're supposed to be the smallest debt to largest debt. But in this situation, my wife doesn't want to pay off her student loans first because we get a$50 statement from her company, which is basically, quote unquote, you know, free money.

45:58And so she keeps that going as long as. I'm sorry, what was that?

46:02Dave Ramsey:How much do you get? $50 per month. $50 to keep a student loan around? That's$600 a year. that means 10 years to pay it off. No, no, no, no. So we're paying over$300. I know. If you want to keep getting the$50 and that's your rationale, then you're going to pay it off at$600 a year,$50 a month, which is$6 ,000 for 10 years. Right. So, you know, my thing is like$50 is nothing. We should just pay it off right now. Yeah, because interest is back, you know. right and with these student loans i can't really seem to budge her on this because she's just like well it's kind of you know it's just kind of like free money what's your income that off last how about if i give her a nickel what would she do for that i know right um so uh our income is just like our base income is just shy of 300 000 300 000 wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute 300 000 and this woman is keeping a 6 500 student loan for 50 that is that's you going that's chick fil a what are you saying yeah well that's what i mean you know it oh wow yeah she doesn't want to budge on this so well no we have to stop though yeah okay we have to get past stupid this is stupid okay i don't care if she wants to budge she needs to get her head wrapped around the mathematics of how dumb our not budging is.

47:36You're paid off$100 ,000 of debt. It's ridiculous.

47:38Dave Ramsey:You're not going to keep this loan long enough to get much$50. Because even if you turn around and pay off the$40 ,000, you've already paid off$100 ,000. If you pay off the$40 ,000 in the next six months, you're going to pay off the$6 ,000 right after that. I assume you're not going to keep it forever. Or does she want to keep it like it's a pet? No, so she wants to pay off this 401k loan first. I know, so six months. What's the difference? She does want it just to ride it out, basically, which would be about two years. No, it's not two years, honey. It's 10 years. Y 'all need to work on your math skills.

48:14No, we're paying our$337 right now, and then we get$50 on top of that.

48:21Dave Ramsey:I got that. But the$50 you're riding it out for would take 10 years. to get you know you're working your butts off for 200 bucks here yeah i mean yeah i agree with you guys just asinine and i'm no we're not gonna ride this out honey this is we're not keeping this thing around like it's a pet we are getting out of debt you have to use we're there's no rationale i'm just a gas that if she was getting 500 a month i mean you know and you want to keep it for a year and let that thing pay it off. Okay, we'll talk about flipping it that way. But this is just, this is like. That's nothing. I'm so confused as to how much value she is putting on this.

49:05There's something else to it. Because not making$300 ,000 a year, this makes no sense.

49:10Dave Ramsey:She's so proud of her company for doing this. I don't know. It's hilarious, though. Yeah. Very sad. Very funny. Very sad. Kelly's in Dallas. Kelly's in Dallas. How are you, Kelly? Hi, I'm doing well. Well, thank you so much for taking my call. It's really an honor to speak with you both. Sure. I can help. So my husband and I share some of our money, but he's not really open to sharing fully our finances. And I wonder if you just have advice on how to have that conversation. I'd like us to feel more united by our savings for the future and going forward. My wife would tell me she wouldn't be open to sharing our bed.

49:46Listen, I was going to say the exact same thing. I heard somebody say this, and it's so true. If you said to your spouse, hey, I'm committed to you. I love you. I'm devoted to you. But only Monday through Saturday. Sunday is my day, right? If you said that to him, it'd be a head scratch. You'd be like, no, that's not going to be okay with me. How can you be devoted through Monday through Saturday, but on Sunday, you go off and do your thing? It doesn't exist. That's not a true commitment. And I think if you can paint it almost in as ridiculous of a picture as Dave and I just did, it will help him see how ridiculous he is by keeping some of the money for himself and some of it with you.

50:27Dave Ramsey:Okay. And let's quit just beating the guy up for a second because I'm tempted to, but I'll quit for a minute. But we get this question a lot. So here's what I would share with him, okay? And I'll send you a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. It has in the back the white paper on the research we did where we did the largest study of millionaires ever done, 10 ,167 of them, okay? When we did that, we found that 83 % of millionaires, them and their spouse, work as a team with combined finances. High communication, high cooperation, high alignment on goals. And they attribute that in the surveys we did with them as being one of the reasons they were able to build wealth.

51:17Dave Ramsey:The contrary piece of that is when we interview the general public, only 40 % align on goals and share finances. So the bottom line is that not sharing finances keeps you from aligning on your goals, your future goals, exactly and in detail. And not sharing finances lowers the quality of the communication and the relationship down. and not sharing finances, not being one, unified, fully unified. And the preacher said, and now you are one. He didn't say, and now you are a joint venture. And here's the terms of the joint venture. It wasn't what they said. It's a full-on thing. The benefits are the marriage has a higher probability of lasting, a higher probability of happiness.

52:06Dave Ramsey:This is data from research, okay? And there's a higher probability of building wealth because we are aligned on our goals. It would be just like if he was at work running a team at work, and three of the people on the team didn't want to do what the other nine were doing. It'd be hard to get that team to be productive. You've got to be aligned. Let's say you snapped in the huddle on the NFL and you went to the line, and three people did whatever they wanted to do, and the other three ran the play, or the other nine, eight, ran the play. It wouldn't work. And that's the same thing.

53:05Dave Ramsey:I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance. And I'm like, I can't even imagine. Or even if it was opposite, right if a mom passed away there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am i going to afford child care how do i how do i outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing like and it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level like when you have to think through how am i going to pay my bills how am i going to eat next week yeah in the middle of all that grief like it's just it is it's terrible so life insurance is the one thing especially as a mom with three little kids that i'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive.

54:05Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there. Like there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens.

54:17Dave Ramsey:And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. It really is. So that is one thing to do to say I love you to your family. So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance. To get a free quote, go to 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to Xander.com.

55:11Dave Ramsey:Thanks for hanging out with us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Eric is in Canada. Hi, Eric. What's up? How's it going, guys? Thanks for having me. Sure. So my wife and I are in Baby Step 2. trying to uh just snowball it um we take home roughly 8 800 bucks a month um leaves us a margin after all our bills and debts and minimum payments about 1500 bucks um but i'm trying to get a new job which would be a pretty significant raise for me but I would have to buy my own vehicle. My wife currently drives our truck and I would need my own reliable vehicle. Okay. What do you make now? Right now, my salary before bonuses, anything like that is$72 ,000.

56:20Dave Ramsey:Well, with bonuses, what do you make? Around$80 ,000. Okay. Okay, and what's the new job going to pay? The salary would be around$85 ,000, and then with bonuses and commissions, probably closer to$110 ,000 to$120 ,000. Okay, so a$30 ,000 or a$40 ,000 swing. Yeah. All right. And you have no money? We've got our$1 ,000 emergency fund. and, I mean, just some retirement accounts, but nothing liquid other than the$1 ,000 emergency fund. The reliable car gets you to work? Is that the reliable car you need? Yeah. I would prefer that my wife keeps the truck because it's newer and— I mean, you're going to use your car that you need that you don't have to drive to work.

57:22Dave Ramsey:That's it? Yes. Okay. I'm just making sure how you're using the car. Okay. Now, the place that's hiring you, what are you going to be doing? What are you going to be doing at the place that's hiring you? Sales. Okay. All right. What are you selling? Oil and lubricants and things like that. You're not out of the office doing that? I would be in an office. I'm saying you're not out of the office and running a territory doing that? Sorry. Are you driving a territory to do that? Yes. So you're not just driving to the office? It'd be both. The travel schedule would be unpredictable. The point is you've got to consider the amount of miles that you're going to be putting on this car.

58:13Right. So you said you've got$1 ,500 in margin every single month. Is there any other savings you have laying around?

58:21Dave Ramsey:$1 ,000. Okay. So, yeah, what I'm looking at is how can I quickly cash flow something that will get the job done, knowing that over time you might have to put a little with it to upgrade it? You know what? I would ask the people hiring you, say, I've got a company car I'm going to lose, and so I need to get a signing bonus that can be paid back out of my first commissions to buy a car. Okay. Okay. So I need a$5 ,000 advance on commissions to go buy a car. Okay. And if they don't believe in you that much, I don't know if they believe in you. Well, they do believe in you. They're talking about paying you$80 ,000 base.

59:08Dave Ramsey:But I got a feeling in this current job market they might do that. And then just go get you a$5 ,000 car. And then let's get you out of debt, and then you can move up in car later. You're probably going to need a decent truck to do driving around doing what you're doing, I suspect. But for right now, we can start the gig. Let's start the gig with$5 ,000. Okay. So between now and the start date, if I can put away$5 ,000, just kind of pause on. No one wants to say that. I said they need to give you a signing bonus of$5 ,000. in. But if they don't, you would still take the job. Yeah, I would just stop doing everything and save up quickly to get a car.

59:47Dave Ramsey:Okay. Because it's worth it to get a 40 grand bump. Yeah. And I think I hear in your voice, you want to do it anyway. Yeah. You like the job. Yeah. And my wife works with this company already and it's better pay, better vacation, better everything uh how big a company is this pretty pretty large one of the largest uh oil companies in canada okay all right all right so working with your spouse is not a problem then okay um we wouldn't be in the same division i there there's no conflict there okay i mean i really think that if they didn't give you the bonus with your margin you could quickly get yourself in a three or four thousand dollar car and then because of this pay bump if you needed to upgrade it sooner than later you could yeah okay i mean there's a lot of stuff you can do here but um yeah just just start it don't be afraid to start low and work your way up in car though yeah no i've been looking trying to find like on the high end it was like a ten thousand dollar you don't have ten thousand dollars that's too far away does your way does your wife have to drive around for her job or does she just go straight into the office in case you drive the truck and let her drive the beater just for a minute same office uh not the same office but really close we could share for a month yeah love it yeah for a month do the hard stuff for a month and then that gets you five grand out of your pocket and that's if they won't give you an advance i'm asking for the advance i tell them the truth the truth is i'm losing my company car I don't have a car.

1:01:31Dave Ramsey:So help me out here, guys. Just give me an advance on my commissions, and I'm going to earn through them pretty quick. You know that. You wouldn't be hiring me if you didn't think that. And, you know, this is just a competitive hiring environment. So I know you guys want me, and I want to be there. So help me out here, guys. And that's the way the conversation sounds, and, you know, that's a way you can do this. Yeah. I'm not going to ask them to buy you a car, but I am going to ask them to advance your commission so you can buy a car. Let's not get back into the company car business again. All right.

1:02:00Dave Ramsey:Matthew's in Panama City, Florida. Hey, Matthew, what's up? Dave, it is great to speak to you. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Awesome. So I'm 32. My wife is 31. And about six years ago, about a year before Hurricane Michael came through Panama City Beach, we purchased a piece of property down at the beach that had an old trailer on it. Since then, I've torn down the trailer, and now it's just an empty lot. And since, Michael, the value of that has gone crazy. We're in baby steps four, five, and six. We've got two young kids, and there's nothing pressuring us. But we do have a mortgage, and we're making extra payments on it.

1:02:43We have about$170 ,000 left on the mortgage. The lot is now worth between$150 ,000 and$160 ,000. should we sell that lot to pay for our primary residence? And the lot is zoned for duplex and triplex, so we could build a duplex on it.

1:03:04Dave Ramsey:If you didn't own the lot and your home was paid for, would you borrow on your home to buy the lot? Not for what it's currently worth. That's what I mean. If your home was paid for and you did not own the lot and you could buy the lot for its market value,$170 ,000, would you go borrow$170 ,000 on your house to buy that lot? No, sir, not on my house. On a paid-for house? No, sir, not on my house. No, sir. That's the same thing, just in reverse, isn't it? Yes, sir. That tells me to sell the lot. Okay, but you wouldn't be worried about lost opportunity costs in the area? Well, I mean, you'd be worried about that if you didn't borrow on your house to buy the lot, in my scenario.

1:03:44Yes, sir.

1:03:45Dave Ramsey:That wasn't enough to get you to borrow on your house a while ago. correct that's right yeah so it's not enough to get you to keep it okay because we're gonna pay off the house i love paying off your house and i think it's so cool that you made a great real estate transaction and now that everything is paid off and you're in baby step seven you can save up and do some other real estate transactions with cash uh sounds like you might have a nose for it congratulations i'm proud of you worked out great buy an old lot with a trailer on it take the trailer down and wait on a hurricane. It's a good plan.

1:04:17Dave Ramsey:I like it.

1:04:44Thank you.

1:05:04Dave Ramsey:In the email bag, Dave, my husband and I are celebrating 35 years of marriage this August. We started using your EveryDollar app 18 months ago. I cannot thank you and the team enough for this. For 35 years, our major arguments were around money. Although we've been extremely blessed and responsible financially, our money was still controlling us instead of the other way around. In the past, we had wildly disparate views. For example, rightly or wrongly, one of us would believe the sky was falling while the other spouse would believe there's sufficient money to buy a vacation home. We didn't have actual concrete facts.

1:05:38Dave Ramsey:Without that knowledge, we didn't really understand where the money was going every month and any emotional financial baggage from the past experiences ruled our discussions. Now we can act not on vague beliefs or controlled by childhood traumas, but on actual knowledge. We have the facts. We know exactly where we choose to spend, save, invest, and donate every hard-earned dime. We are no longer, we no longer have little hidden purchases from each other. Finally, after decades, we are truly in this together. It has brought increased harmony to our relationship. I only regret we weren't doing this when the children were younger so they could have seen this in action.

1:06:19Dave Ramsey:Regardless, I want to thank you for your hard work and applaud the young couples and individuals who are developing these skills early in their lives. It is a blessing. Way to go. Very cool. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, we have free every dollar trainings with the Ramsey Personalities. How to put that budget in place like that lady did. Jade's doing one this coming Monday. And we're going to be showing you how to stick to a budget, build the budget. And typically people find around$9 ,000 worth of margin as soon as they lay out their first plan. And lately it's been even more than$9 ,000, but that's at least.

1:06:52Dave Ramsey:And you can ask questions during the live Q &A. So if you want to talk to Jade or Rachel or George when they're doing this, you can. Plus, you can ask any question in the Q &A and sign up for free right now at RamseySolutions.com slash webinar. Adam is with us in Chicago. Hi, Adam. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I've been watching your YouTube videos for several years now. I love your advice. I even read your book. Thank you. But what I've been thinking about through the years is what would happen to our economy if people really started, more and more people started to follow your baby steps and not spend like Congress and get rid of debt?

1:07:37How would that affect our overall economy with people not borrowing money or using credit cards?

1:07:43Dave Ramsey:Well, we probably will never know, darn it. But it's an interesting hypothetical question to think about. The only way I know to think it through is to think through what happens to an individual when they follow our baby steps. Okay? So let's take a couple that did a debt-free scream a couple of days ago. All right? They've been working the plan for six years. They paid off their home. They're 37 years old, and they have$500 ,000 in their 401K. They're 100 % debt-free, and they're millionaires. They're 37 years old. They followed the baby steps exactly. They're what we call baby steps millionaires.

1:08:22Dave Ramsey:And it took them about eight years to work the whole thing. Okay? Now, what happens to that couple? They have zero debt. They're millionaires. I think if I remember, they made like$200 ,000 or$150 ,000 a year, something like that. They weren't making$500 ,000, but they weren't making$40 ,000, okay? So they're somewhere kind of like that early six-figure thing. So let's pretend. Let's just make them up. There's$150 ,000 a year. They have no payments in the world, and they're millionaires, and they got a half million already in their retirement accounts. What happens to their spending? Well, it doesn't stop.

1:08:58Dave Ramsey:As a matter of fact, it probably increases. It's just responsible spending because now they actually have money. Sharon and I today are an extreme example of that. I mean, we're way down that road, and we spend a lot more than we ever have in our lives. Actual dollars. But isn't there way more people in the world that are in debt that would have to stop spending, stop going to restaurants? Yeah. Stop using? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, to start with, obviously, we were talking about a hypothetical. But even if we could go with a hypothetical, there's no possible way we could get them all to do it at the same time.

1:09:35Dave Ramsey:So but if all of America stopped going to restaurants at one time, restaurants would go out of business. Your point is your point. I mean, we experienced that during COVID, right? And all the servers got laid off and the restaurants closed. America stopped going to restaurants just for a different reason. It wasn't because I dictated it. It was because somebody else did. But but that's that's the same thing. And that would that's not good for restaurants. OK, but that's not going to happen in the Ramsey world that you and I are talking about. It would happen gradually. And there'd be some couples doing it now and some of their already out of debt and they're back going to restaurants again.

1:10:11Dave Ramsey:Sharon, I go went to a restaurant last night. OK, so I mean, you don't never go to a restaurant again. It's just for a period of time while you're paying off your consumer debt in baby step two. And so if we could talk enough people into working this plan, people would become wealthy, and wealthy people spend more money than poor people. There'd be a change in the balance of power, though. That would probably be the biggest thing. I'll tell you who would be really bad for the banks. The banks. It'd be bad for colleges and cars and all that. Well, colleges could still get their money because we just pay cash.

1:10:44I buy cars and I go to college.

1:10:45Dave Ramsey:But the difference is you're going to be choosing the car differently. and the car finance companies would be screwed. That's what I'm saying. The balance of power changes because now the people have their power back because they have their own income. The only people that would be out of business would be debt people. But the rest of them would be doing great because the money would flow in the economy because what you're thinking is that all of a sudden everybody builds up all this wealth and they sit at home and watch Netflix. They don't. Sharon and I went out to dinner last night. Sharon and I just took a trip.

1:11:19Dave Ramsey:Sharon and I bought her some golf clubs this week. I mean, we spend more now because we have a lot more now than we did when we were broke people. And so when you're broke people, you don't have any money to spend. Oh, and by the way, generosity goes way up when people have. That's the part we need to camp out on. What would change there? I mean, I was telling some guys, I was on a podcast this morning. I said, if we could cut what we spend on pets in America by 10 to 20 percent and what we spend on Halloween by 10 to 20 percent and allocate all of that to hungry kids, there'd be no hungry kids.

1:11:54Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy.

1:11:56Dave Ramsey:10 to 20 percent of what you spend on Halloween. 10 to 20 percent of what you spend on your pet. Because it's billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. It's great. We do spend way more on pets than Halloween, by the way. and i love pets i have a dog that is my life so i'm just saying but um like that dog better than most of you people but um the uh but that that is still the point is it's out of control and so yeah he's he's got an interesting point but the the fact that he asked that question here's what's laying under that this banking financed to create spending that drives the economy dog chasing its tail thing has convinced people that it's the only way for the economy to prosper.

1:12:43Dave Ramsey:And it's not true. The economy could prosper without financing it. Yeah. Because I don't finance anything and I am stimulating the economy. I can promise you. And then it's not a wheel. It's just an ongoing thing. It doesn't have to do the peaks and valleys thing. And my generosity, I give more in a year than I made most years when I was broke. You know? No, that's right. And so, I mean, it's just you're in a different position. It's a different world. And that 37-year-old couple that's millionaires, they're not where Sharon and I are, but they're not as old as us. I'm old. And so they're young.

1:13:19Dave Ramsey:I mean, they got a long time to do this. But that couple can now travel. They can go out to eat. They can go down to the car dealer and write a check and buy a car. They can do anything you want to do, but they're paying cash for it, and they're all still purchases. and your purchasing actually increases because you've got some stinking money. You know? And it's to live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. But hypothetically, if we could get everyone to stop going to restaurants at one time, you'd have COVID. That's what would happen. And by the way, car dealers were not doing much better in restaurants during that time.

1:13:57Dave Ramsey:And a whole bunch of other people. The only people prospering were the plexiglass people. but um um you know and the people uh selling masks of all kinds and the people selling vaccines oh yeah they made some money oh yeah they made some money oh yes they made some money oh you need to look at that it's so much money plexiglass yeah no i'm talking about the vaccines vaccines It's unbelievable how many zeros. And we just drove off and watched it happen. It's all good. So many zeros. Can I talk about how many zeros it is? Say unbelievable again. That was good. Can I say unbelievable number of zeros?

1:14:55Thank you.

1:15:24Dave Ramsey:student loans that are in default. Well, Y-Refi can reduce your payments and help you get control of your finances. Take the first step towards getting unstuck. Visit Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Okay, today's question comes from Margaret in California. She says, my husband and I are both in our late 60s and we owe $350 ,000 on our home. He's a manager at a car dealership. We have nothing in savings for retirement. He thinks he's just going to retire on Social Security and put the monthly funds toward the house payment. I only receive minimal Social Security.

1:16:05I've tried to get him to consider what he's going to actually live on, but he refuses to think about retirement. I'm trying to get him to maybe move to a cheaper state, but he won't discuss the idea. How can I convince him that we're not going to be okay. You know what? I think he knows you're not going to be okay. And I think that his response has been burying his head in the sand. If I had to take a guess, because I don't think he's an idiot. You know what I mean? He probably can understand the math and he can probably see the writing on the wall. And I think there's two types of people. There's the people who see something impending and they kind of just seize up and it's like, oh, and then, yeah, they do the ostrich, bury their head in the sand.

1:16:48And then I think there's folks like you who look and try to find solutions. I can get ahead of it. Maybe there's something I can do. And so I think, you know, your personalities are doing this right now. You're right. You are the correct one, Margaret. There are some things that you need to look at doing. Yeah.

1:17:04Dave Ramsey:You know, it might be that you just tell him, hey, I know you think that we're going to be okay. I don't see the math. Can you show me the math? Because I'm terrified. Mm-hmm. Help me with this. I mean, you manage a car dealership. Surely you can do the math for a house. Mm-hmm. That's why I said I think he knows. Help me understand why you're okay, because I'm looking at it, and I'm just terrified. Please, don't let me be terrified. I'm your wife. Mm-hmm. And help me. And help me understand why you think we're okay, because I don't know. Maybe you know something I don't know. Maybe you understand something I don't understand.

1:17:47Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Because, but, but if you're right, if you have a payment on a$350 ,000 mortgage and two social security checks are all you're going to get, you're going to be selling the house or losing the house, one of the two. Yeah. I mean, I think. So you are moving to a cheaper state either before or after the foreclosure. Yeah. The average, I mean, the average payout on social security is between 1800 and 2000 a month right now. Yeah. Like that, that is what it is. The two of you receiving social security won't pay the house payment. No. Oh, and then there's food and there's lights, there's water, there's insurance, there's taxes.

1:18:19So maybe you then, Margaret, you can go the route that Dave said. And maybe in conjunction to that, maybe you've already gone on every dollar. And you said, just, you know, I've been trying to get my head around this. I plugged in what my social security will be. I plugged in what yours will be. I plugged in all of our expenses. And here's what I'm seeing in the red. And help me understand what I don't see. Yeah. And that way. I'm terrified. Mm-hmm. That way you're telling him the facts, but you're also asking for his point of view. And like I said before, like you said, if he's a car dealership manager, he understands the math.

1:18:52I think it's just getting him to pull his head out of the sand.

1:18:55Dave Ramsey:Shelby's in Atlanta. Hi, Shelby. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Thanks so much for taking the call. I have a question. So my husband makes$125 ,000 a year, and I made$40 ,000 last year, but I'm taking this year off. We're hoping to start a family soon. Currently, our house is valued at$330 ,000, and we have our emergency fund set up, and we don't have any credit card debt, and we are working on being debt-free. We only owe$60 ,000 left. What's the$60 ,000? Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's the$60 ,000? on? The$60 ,000 is how much we owe left on our mortgage. Oh, your mortgage.

1:19:44Okay. Sorry, but we're getting close.

1:19:47Dave Ramsey:Okay. That's great. And so we don't have any other debt tied up other than the mortgage. And my question is currently we don't have any credit card debt, but we still have a credit card open because we budget what we're planning to spend every month. we spend it on the credit card and then we pay the credit card off every month. And the reason that we do is so that we can get on average from 50 to a hundred dollars a month in cash back. And we use that cash back as like our fun budget or things that maybe didn't quite fit the budget or just a little bit of flex in case there's something that we want to do that we didn't anticipate.

1:20:26You could switch from national brand to store brand at the grocery store and get 50 bucks. Yes, we do that already. So we really do live pretty frugally, but we try to give ourselves just a little bit of wiggle room. Let me tell you what I just heard, okay?

1:20:44Dave Ramsey:I heard of people that make$120 ,000 and$40 ,000. That's$160 ,000 when you were working. And you called me up and spent 10 minutes talking about how to make$600 a year. That's exhausting. $50 a month, you said. Yes. It's exhausting. My question was because it's passive and it's something that we can kind of just... It's not passive. It's exhausting. You are burning so many of your creative calories and spending so much energy to feel like you beat a multibillion-dollar company for$50.

1:21:27Dave Ramsey:You're wasting your life for$50. I mean, if you want to, you can. But you asked me if I think you should. No. Good Lord, no. Yeah, there's a lot of things you could do. You're spending a lot of brain calories for$50. And you're all proud of yourself like you did something. It's really weird. I mean, no. It's, yeah, I mean, whoopee, you know? I mean, okay, so here's the numbers. Okay, on Discover card, they give you 1 % back, right? Okay. So if you want$1 ,000 on Discover card, you have to spend$100 ,000. Yeah, that's a lot. A lot of money. So on what planet are we trading$100 ,000 for$1 ,000 and calling this smart?

1:22:17Well, there is -

1:22:18Dave Ramsey:In her case, she says it's money she's spending anyway. Yes, but you can tell there's clearly a psychological connection there because if you are the type of person who is going to chase that$50 - That hard? You're also the type of person who's going to spend more to get$60 or$70. And we do know from several pieces of research that when you get in that feedback loop where you're trying to get airline miles and you're trying to get points and you're trying to get this, it's called Gamification. That's right. There's a wonderful book by Michael Easter called The Scarcity Loop. And it talks about the psychology behind the credit card miles and the feedback.

1:22:58Dave Ramsey:It's a feedback loop. It's like playing a video game. You're trying to, you know, they let you win enough times to keep you doing it. And it's hilarious that someone as smart and educated as Shelby is gets caught up and she's putting in this immense amount of effort towards getting$50. Well, you have to what people forget while she's sitting on the couch, hoping a baby comes. But people forget, Dave, there's boardrooms and marketers and all of these people working to make sure. Yes, she does this. Yes. Yeah. So anyway, MIT did the most detailed study that we've seen, and they said when you spend on credit cards, even if it's for things you usually would purchase in air quotes, because it's not what happens, you spend 12 to 18 percent more.

1:23:48And don't let it be a month where something cool is happening, like you're going to go to a concert, because in those cases, a lot of times they say that you could spend up to 100 percent more on things like concert tickets, vacation, airline tickets, because it's an experience. Because you're gamified.

1:24:03Dave Ramsey:You've been gamified. And so, Shelby, the other thing I would tell you is this. Again, we go back to the millionaire study because I want to actually study people who really have money, not people who have theories. And the millionaires, when we studied them, the number of millionaires that said, I became a millionaire because I got cash back or I got airline miles on my credit card. Out of studying 10 ,167 of them, I became a millionaire because Let me tell you how many said that. None. Zero. Nada. None. No one gets rich doing what you're doing. If you're not pregnant yet, why are you sitting at home?

1:25:02Hey, what's up? Dr. John Deloney here. The new dates have dropped for the Money and Marriage Getaway over Valentine's Day weekend in 2026. This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication, and more. This weekend is happening on February 12th through the 14th, and early bird prices start at$749 per couple, but the prices will be going up soon. Get your tickets today at RamseySolutions.com slash events.

1:25:55Dave Ramsey:Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're glad you're here. Daniel is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Hey, what's up? Yeah, I feel as a 28-year-old, you know, parties are really coming at me fast. I was never really taught any kind of financial intelligence, if you will, growing up. And I'm really just struggling to come out from this constant paycheck to paycheck, never recovering in any real manner cycle.

1:26:49Dave Ramsey:How old did you say you are? 28 uh 29 in december okay all right and um what's your household income sir uh i make 65 000 a year and i live with that house mate we split rent okay okay so your income is not not in a bad spot especially with you having a roommate are you on a budget uh i did a budget pretty recently just to kind of look at it again and realistically i should be seeing about an extra$2 ,000,$1 ,500 to$2 ,000 a month, and it just evaporates away. Well, it doesn't evaporate away. It may feel like it does, but it's going somewhere. So you did your budget. When you go back and look on what area that$1 ,500,$2 ,000 went towards, what was it?

1:27:40It always feels like it's, you know, I'm not going out and spending$500 on some big old thing, you know, or whatever. It's always just the little things here and there. I, you know, I budget$400 a month for groceries, and slowly over the course of the month, it turns into more like$500,$600. Or I plan out dates throughout the course of the month for maybe$150 for the month, but it turns into more like$200,$250. What's happening is you're just not sticking to your own plan, and that's the thing about the budget. It's a wonderful tool, but it's not a magic trick. You have to actually stick to it.

1:28:17So what I would tell you is likely the reason you may not be sticking to it is there's no clear why behind. Why is it important for me to stick to it? Maybe I can just do my own thing. So what's your goal? What are you trying to accomplish?

1:28:35To not be paycheck to paycheck anymore, to put together money for a down payment and not having to rent. Okay, so you want to buy something.

1:28:45Dave Ramsey:So I got a savings goal. Okay, that's good. All right, so let's get you on the every dollar budget. I will give you the premium version and get you started on it. And you get 14 days free, and I'll give it to you. Okay, and that'll get you going, get the things set up. Now, here's what you're going to do. When I was a little kid, our brothers and sisters would always say, you're not the boss of me. You ever heard that? Oh, yeah, a lot growing up. Okay, all right. And that's the budget. You're the boss of the budget until you get it built. And once it's built out in every dollar and every dollar of your income before the month begins has now an assignment and a mission.

1:29:26Dave Ramsey:You're the boss of it. You tell that money where it's going to go on that budget. And then once it's built, then it becomes the boss of you. and so if you have budgeted$150 for dates and somebody wants to go out and you've spent$150 we're not going out because I have a bigger goal I'm gonna save money and I'm going to be in control of this and I hate this sense of spiraling and chaos when I don't control my life and I'm going to control my life and that is more valuable to me than going out after i've gone over the budget or it's you probably don't have enough budgeted for food by the way you need to raise your food budget but so if it's always 500 just make it 500 let's just admit reality quit being aspirational with the budget let's just say what are the facts yeah that's good you said that dave i always say and this is not just for you uh for anybody listening a really really good every dollar budget, when you do your budget and it's solid, it's three things.

1:30:34It's detailed, realistic, and flexible. It's got to be. Detailed means you're thinking about everything that you could spend money on from groceries to grandma's birthday to your cell phone bill, right? Everything. You're as detailed as possible. And then the realistic part is what Dave said, like, hey, you know, this has to be enough for me to actually eat on because if it's not, you're going to constantly go over that category. And that is in turn is going to tell you, hey, I can't stick to a budget. I can't do this. And so you're creating this negative feedback loop. You need to stop that and actually be realistic on the amount.

1:31:04And then the flexible piece of it is there are times where you say, man, you know what? Oh man, I forgot, you know, Amazon renewed and I forgot about that. Yeah. If you have to take from a less important category to make that work. But the point is you've got to be active about this every day. A lot of people set a budget and it's like, well, I set my budget and that's it. And they think that that's done.

1:31:26Dave Ramsey:It has to reset you. So the other way you can pretend, and these are mind tricks I would play on myself, is I pretended like someone hired me for$100 ,000 to stick to the budget. And if I didn't stick to the budget, I was going to get fired. I like that. I like that. And then that would cause you to check in with it every day. You'd be tracking every transaction, right? Making sure. Yeah. And it sounds like you're more of the, I just close out my budget at the end of the month and whatever you know spilled milk and then when i look back at it it didn't work but no you got to check it like all the time and go do i have the money for this and so and then that tells you the budget tells you no you stop so if you're at 500 bucks and there's four days left and you're out of money for food you go to the cabinet and you warm something up in one of those cans okay i mean you stick to you're doing it becomes a game that I've got to tell this money what to do instead of wondering where it went.

1:32:32Yeah.

1:32:33Dave Ramsey:Because it feels like it's slipping through my fingers. And the problem is that when I was listening to you earlier, the language you're using is the same language I used on myself. It's what got me riled up because I used to talk to myself that way. And I want you to talk to Daniel nicer. Okay. Daniel is not an undisciplined character. character he's not an undisciplined doofus Daniel actually just didn't have a system okay and once Daniel gets a system in place then Daniel's going to find out that he's actually a fairly disciplined fairly mature guy that can do this stuff but you're not an out of control four year old because I've been talking to you for five minutes you're you're able to string sentences together you're you're articulate you're bright there's no reason you can't do this but you just You've just kind of let it happen to you, and I want you to get on the other side of it and put your foot on the neck of this thing and stand on it.

1:33:28Dave Ramsey:Yeah. And you can do that. Thank you. You can do that, can't you? I can. Yeah, I can. Absolutely. So we're going to sign you up for EveryDollar. Jade's going to be doing a free webinar for EveryDollar on Monday, and we're going to have Kelly sign you up for that, too. We're going to put you in that, and you can join her. It's got Q &A in it, and she's going to walk you through how to build out those budgets, and the rest of you can join that too. It's a free webinar. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash webinar. Get you right on there. And we're doing one a week or two a week right now with Ramsey Personalities on how to do exactly what Daniel's trying to do.

1:34:04Dave Ramsey:And Daniel, you're just like everybody else. We all had to learn this. You're not better, you're not worse. I think you can do this.

1:34:49Dave Ramsey:We'll see you next time. trusted real estate agents. They're handpicked pros who know their stuff, listen to your needs, and have your back from the first call all the way to closing day. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, visit RamseySolutions.com slash agent. RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

1:35:29Dave Ramsey:buying or selling a home is a big deal and there's a lot of drama out there in the market about it right now no one can buy real estate it's too expensive the rates are too high and all this stuff going on is crazy y 'all listen when you're looking at stuff like that the way you cut through The drama is facts are your friends. It might be a fact that when you gather all the facts, you can't afford a house today. That might be the case. Might not be, too. The facts are interest rates are setting rock solid still, have not moved. 5.95 on a 15-year. So under 6, barely, for a 15-year fixed right now.

1:36:10Dave Ramsey:And we tell people never do more than a 15-year fixed. Okay. The median home prices have gone up slightly every month. Home prices are going up, but slightly. They're not going down. There's no indication they're going to go down. On the market today, there's 1 ,082 ,520 homes in America. That's the highest inventory since 2019, since before COVID. And guess what? The demand is higher than the supply. There's more than 1 ,082 ,000 people looking at houses. And so what that tells us is the house prices are not going down. So they're not shooting up, but they're not going down. And interest rates are sitting real steady.

1:36:58Dave Ramsey:So we're going to see how this works, but I think we're going to see this real estate market continue to run about like it's running right now, which is kind of lukewarm at best. It's definitely not white hot, and it's definitely not turned off and in some kind of a recession. Houses are selling, and people are buying houses, lots of them, at 6 % and at free because they pay cash for them, all of that. Lots of people still moving. The market is not frozen, but it is not dynamic, and it's certainly not white hot like it was right after COVID when people were getting 87 offers in a weekend. So that's your facts.

1:37:36Dave Ramsey:If you want to learn more of those, go to RamseySolutions.com slash market, and we can connect you with a Ramsey trusted real estate agent if you're ready to do your stuff, and they'll give you facts, which are handy. All right, Courtney's in South Carolina. Hi, Courtney. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking the call. So I need to get your advice on this because I'm having a really hard time making this decision. Right now, I drive a 2007 Honda Odyssey with over 200 ,000 miles on it. And my mechanic is telling me it's time to find something else. My transmission is eventually going to go.

1:38:11And so my husband and I have been looking, and I just want to know if it's smart financially for us to do this.

1:38:20Dave Ramsey:Okay. What's your net worth? Well, our home is worth a million dollars. We owe$159 on it. How much is in your nest egg? We have about, we have, I think, a little over 400 in our retirement account. Have any other data other than your home? No, that's it. Okay, how much cash do you have? I have, if I combine the checking and savings, we have 75 ,000. Okay. And what is it you're trying to purchase? So I myself would like peace of mind, and we haven't been on vacation for six years, And so I want something with a little lower miles, and it's something like a 2020 Odyssey with like 40 ,000 to 60 ,000 miles.

1:39:03And the prices for those are anywhere between 30 ,000 to 35 ,000. That's right. It's just kind of making me sick. What's your income? Think about that cash. What do you guys make every year? So it depends with his bonuses, between like 120 ,000 to 160 ,000.

1:39:19Dave Ramsey:That's not an unreasonable purchase. I get that it makes you sick, but keep in mind, you're driving a 25-year-old car. yeah almost no you are you're driving a 2000 it's 25 that's 25 years 2007 oh oh i'm sorry i thought you said a 2000 it's still old it's still old but she's right it's not 25 years old it's yeah it's uh 18 years old but yeah okay all right still it's a 20 year old car almost okay yeah so yeah it's just been a while i mean it blows my mind okay when i pull up right now i'm 64 and i get stuck in the past if i'm not careful and i pull up and i see the average new car price in america right now is 48 ,700 i can't get my head around that yeah i mean that's the average that means crappy stuff is selling for 40 grand new okay and so i can't get that blows my mind i'm with you courtney but it is the cost of doing business so if you want a 2020 odyssey i suspect 30 is there and that's a five-year-old car you're buying.

1:40:25Right.

1:40:27Dave Ramsey:Is there a dilemma that you want to spend more or less or it just makes you sick that it's 30? Well, the other option is to go with a 2015 for about$15 ,000, but that's over 100 ,000 miles. I wouldn't do that. And I want to take my kids on vacation. I wouldn't do that. What do you take them on vacation now in? You rent a car? No, we haven't gone on vacation. Because of the car?

1:40:54Well, no, we also have dairy goats and things like that. Okay, then don't blame it on the car. That's part of it, too.

1:41:00Dave Ramsey:Blame it on Billy. Well, I do worry that we'll break down. Okay, but that isn't why you stayed home. You stayed home because of Billy. Okay, maybe. You told me, you said that. When was the last time you guys had a vacation? What's that? When was the last time you guys had a vacation? We took a vacation six years ago to go to the beach for one day to pick up a dog. That's not a vacation. Picking up a dog is not a vacation. Well, that was the closest. You are so cheap, Courtney. Courtney, yeah, I was going to say this is not really just about the car or the Odyssey. I think you just need to loosen the purse strings in life.

1:41:39Because something tells me you guys don't do anything. You don't spend money on anything. We don't.

1:41:44Dave Ramsey:How old are your children? I do not. So my oldest is 15 and a half, and my youngest is nine. We have four kids. Okay. I appreciate your story. Thank you for sharing it with us. My advice, after having done this for 34 years, is that you buy the 2020, and you book hotel rooms and get your butt to Florida. Yes. And tell somebody to come feed billy goat, for God's sakes. Well, I actually just sold them because of the time commitment. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Okay. we can use some of that money we can use the money from billy for vacation then there we go yeah billy we'll be down there lifting a little margarita saying thank you billy there we go in margarita folks gotta live a little dave gotta loosen it up billy goats it's so fun it's so fun i love you gordon you're awesome thank you for calling in that was so fun buy the car kid yes You can afford it.

1:42:42Dave Ramsey:It's not out of line. It's hard for you to spend money because you don't spend much money. But they've done so well. Million dollar house,$400 ,000. The numbers you're giving us ratio wise are very reasonable. You're paying cash. It's less than half your annual income. You do need a car. No question about it. And we can tie it back to the other things or not. Boy, oh boy. How fun. Amir's in Washington, D.C. Hey, Amir, what's up? Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. I do appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? Sure. So I'm in a bit of a pickle. I have a big choice in the coming weeks to make, and it's in terms of moving out.

1:43:25Good. So, yeah, I am a 28-year-old. I've been living at home for the past 15 months. I work through all the baby steps. I'm on baby step four.

1:43:35Dave Ramsey:Good. Of all my debts, I make roughly about$70 ,000 a year as an account manager. I have$10 ,000 saved in a high-yield savings account, gaining 4 % interest. And your question is, should you move out? Correct. Yes. There's two little kickers. There's two little kickers. What? So number one, I decided to pursue my master's in finance so I can expand my career opportunities and my earnings. I just started earlier this year. I did not want to take out any loans because I just went home to pay off those undergraduate loans. I didn't want to take any advanced degree loans. You shouldn't take out loans to get a master's.

1:44:13Correct. So I am paying out of pocket. Good. Now, I chose a very affordable university. I go to Kelly School of Business.

1:44:20Dave Ramsey:Good. I pay$900 a month for the tuition for ninth of the year. I take a term off per year to reset, save some money, and also just have a little bit more free time. Now, I looked into some companies that I would be applying to next year, and they do offer tuition reimbursement programs. I don't care. All of that doesn't change it. I'm still moving out. Now. It's overtime.

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1:46:03Dave Ramsey:Jacob is in Wisconsin. Hey, Jacob, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great. How about yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have two loans, one an auto loan and one a business loan. I'm just trying to figure out which one I should pay off or at least help to pay off. I have the money to pay off the auto loan. but I currently don't pay for it. The fiance does pay for that one and she drives it full-time, insures it and everything. And the business is able to pay for its own loan. Okay, you bought your fiance a car? Yes. The short end of, yes. And it's in your name? It is in my name and her name.

1:46:55Oh, who co-signed? She co-signed for you or you co-signed for her? I co-signed for her. Got it. Okay. When do you guys get married? We're planning on getting married this coming July. We already have a daughter together, and we're planning on having another one here very, very soon.

1:47:18Dave Ramsey:I'm just confused. A year from now? Yes, a year from now, meaning that's the date that we have set. All right. And how much is the car loan? The car loan was originally$15. She has left$14 ,700. Yeah. And the business loan is how much? Business loan is, what I have left is$98 ,699. And the business has$100 ,000 in it? No. Oh, I thought you said the business has enough payment. It's just paying the payment. It's paying the payment. Is that what you mean? What kind of business is it? Making the payment. It's a demolition business. And what kind of business loan is this? A credit card or a bank loan?

1:48:12No, it's just a credit union loan for a startup. Since I started listening to you guys, I paid off$36 ,000 in credit card debt. Good for you. Okay, the business loan is not a business loan.

1:48:27Dave Ramsey:The business is a personal loan. You signed for it personally to guarantee it. So under the law, it's a personal loan. They won't bother and sue the business if it doesn't get paid. They're going to sue you. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to treat that like it's a personal loan of$98 ,000. And it sounds like the business is doing well, though. It's not doing too shabby. I made$30 ,000 in the slow season. A month or a year? I made$30 ,000. This is only my second year in. And during the slow season, I made$30 ,000. How much are you making a year on this business? Profit, taxable income, not gross revenue.

1:49:13Dave Ramsey:I've made$74 ,000. Okay. And you said you have the$14 ,000 to pay off the auto loan. How much do you have in savings? I do. In savings alone, I have$10 ,000 in the bank, and I have$15 ,000 in cash. Good. Okay. All right. And you're what, 26? 26. Yeah, I guess. Good. Okay. Like I've done this before. All right.

1:49:48Dave Ramsey:You called for our help, and we want to help you because we care about you, and we want you to win, and you're doing really good with the business stuff. You're doing really lousy at home. Listen, you have a car and a kid and another kid in the oven. Quit waiting to get married. You need to go get married tomorrow. You all run around acting, doing everything like you're married except being married. And you don't need to save up to get married. You've already got babies and cars and crap. So just go get married if you want to have a party later have a party later. I don't care But right now you need to get on the same page and this and what tells me that this is weird and it should tell you that it's weird is You're acting like we're having babies together.

1:50:34Dave Ramsey:We live together. We share the mustard in the refrigerator But she has a car payment that I co-signed for That tells me y 'all are kind of one foot in the boat one on the dock So this this lady needs more from you than you're giving her You need to go get married tomorrow. And then we have a car payment that we need to pay off that my wife drives. And I would write a check right after the wedding and pay off that car. And I mean it. Like one week, I'm going to go get married now. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. Because all the research tells us that married people have an advantage in their wealth building and in their careers, in their business, and in their parenting over people that are shacking up.

1:51:21Dave Ramsey:Tons of research on that. I didn't just make this up, okay? It's not just an old guy with an opinion, although I am that too. But, yeah, so that's what I would do if I were in your shoes, and I'd pay off that car, and then I'd start attacking that$98 ,000 like my hair was on fire and get it paid off as fast as you can. Well, does she have debt? No, she doesn't have debt. She's currently going to school, but she's doing that with grants. Grants. Good. Good. Okay. I don't know. Does that sound weird to you or pushy? No, it doesn't at all. Good. There is other bits and pieces of information. Well, I'm going to let you deal with those.

1:52:01Dave Ramsey:I don't have to know all your – I don't want to go through your whole underwear drawer. But I'm telling you, this is how I would see it because you guys have been trying – you're like, got stuff everything's out of order you know and so let's get stuff back in the right order here and let's start acting like grown-ups instead of a couple of kids having sex and let's just start having you know let's have a plan here let's implement this and uh you can do that because you've got a good business head you got that moving you know let's let's just push forward and do all that and and let's start building a real life a holistic life husband wife kids small business debt free making money growing things this is a this is a whole so this thing solid that i'm describing for you here instead of this fragmented stitched together half butt stuff and it's killing you man and it's because it's it's affecting the way you're thinking about the stuff and it's keeping you from making clear decisions so that's how i would that's how i see it and i think you i think you'll have a huge advantage i think you'll look back a year later and go, that old guy was right.

1:53:07Dave Ramsey:I'm glad he got on me. So there we go. And the only reason I would ever get on you is because I like you and I want you to win. Okay, that's the only reason. If I don't like you, I'm not going to bother with you. So that's it. Just keep that in mind. Open phones at 888-825-5225. So, Jade, there's a – Dr. John Deloney and I talked about this when we were on tour. There's a whole – it goes to Jacob and some of you listening. For some reason, it's something I've gotten on lately. I didn't even mean to, but I just did. There's a whole body of research that Deloney brought up from the psychological world.

1:53:42Dave Ramsey:And I've seen it in the financial world in a different way. And we've kind of put those two things together and started looking at it. It's called the marriage advantage research material. And so, like, for instance, in his world, he figured out that married men live seven to nine years longer than single men, including single guys shacked up. Okay. That's interesting. And so you have a lifespan advantage. Married ladies only live three to four years longer, but they do live longer. I don't know why guys get super advantage there. Deloney says it's because wives keep... We're stressed out. Yeah, that's it.

1:54:21Dave Ramsey:But Deloney says it's because wives keep guys from doing stupid stuff that kills them. Oh, man. That's funny. But anyway, aside from that. So the average net worth of someone in their mid-30s that is married is hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than a single or a single shacked up. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Okay. That's crazy. The average earning of a male that is married throughout his lifetime is 25 % higher. Wow. Than a single male. These all have something in common. I mean, it's the marriage advantage. It's the only thing we can correlate it to. We can't find any other variable to adjust for in the research.

1:55:05Well, because now there's a purpose in what they're doing. I guess. This is a definitive thing. Well, I mean, I'm married.

1:55:10Dave Ramsey:I got kids to feed. I got to go to work, I guess. I don't know. And you go to work and act like you got to work instead of thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. When's the next happy hour? I don't know. I don't know what it is, but there's something like that that's driving this. And this actual data defeats this whole movement of shacking up because today in America, more people live together that are not married than people who are married. That's interesting. First time in history in the country.

1:55:47Thank you.

1:56:17Dave Ramsey:of it according to your means. Kyle Chandler said opportunity does not knock. It presents itself when you beat down the door. I know that's right. Jen is in New Hampshire. Hey Jen what's up? Hi Dave how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So my question is would it be responsible for our growing family to upgrade our starter home to a bigger house on the lake? And if so, would we absolutely have to sell our current house? Depends on the money. Tell us more. Have you got the money to pay cash forward and keep the current house? No. Then you would sell the current house. Okay, we have to sell the current house.

1:57:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah, you wouldn't buy a rental house with debt, and so I'm not keeping a house that causes debt. So the current home will sell for how much? The current home would sell for how much? It would sell for$500 ,000. And what do you owe on it? We owe$160 ,000. Okay, cool. And so you've got$340 ,000 equity. And the lake house is how much? $800 ,000. Okay, and do you have any other money to put down on the lake house other than your equity? Not at the moment. We just cash flowed a car. But our plan would be to save up$150 ,000, 20%, and then jump into the new house. Yes. Okay. And so you'd have$500 ,000 to put down, which would make your mortgage now$300 ,000 rather than it is currently$160 ,000.

1:57:57Right.

1:57:58Dave Ramsey:So$340 ,000 equity plus$150 ,000 cash saved is$500 ,000. You following me? Yep, I'm following. Okay. And$800 ,000 minus$500 ,000 is$300 ,000. So you end up with a$300 ,000 mortgage instead of a$160 ,000 mortgage. Doesn't sound too bad. What's your household income? Household income is$190 plus bonus. Yeah, you can do this. You can do this. But it's a 15-year fixed rate payment when you do it, and you sell the other house, and you save the$150. It makes sense. Yeah. How long is it going to take you to save the$150?

1:58:36I would say two and a half, three years.

1:58:39Dave Ramsey:Yeah, what's going to happen to the$800 ,000 during that time? Yeah, that's, yeah. But your house price will go up too. Right, it will, yeah. Yeah, so that'll help, but yeah. So the numbers aren't going to end up being exactly the same. The good news about the lake house is if there's an economic downturn, lake houses go down. Resort property is the worst real estate and the best real estate. So beach houses, mountain houses, and lake houses go through the roof when times are good, and they go through the floor when times are bad. Interesting. Okay. So we just kind of, you know, wait for our time.

1:59:19Yeah, you've got to have your timing right.

1:59:21Dave Ramsey:Yeah, because, I mean, I've got a lake house, and I am ghastly aware of what it is worth, crazy numbers when things are hot when the economy is hot not summer but i mean and uh and and when things get really slow i mean it's like you can't give them away wow because they're extra houses for a lot of people it's not their main and so you know it's a vacation house and so it it's the first thing to go uh when times are bad and the first thing that everybody wants 26 people line up when times are good and so uh it kind of follows the private jet market too which is a different market but i mean same thing it makes sense private jets are you know they're all over they're volatile but i mean crazy depending on what's going on so that kind of stuff so anyway good stuff good question maggie's in san diego hey maggie how are you hi how are you guys great how can we help oh my god i'm such a big fan oh my god i'm so excited to be talking to you guys Well, we're in Baby Step 3B, and I just wanted to know your guys' thoughts about these down payment assistance programs and that they cover closing costs and help put a down payment for you.

2:00:39So it's saying that you're not paying the down payment. It's paying the down payment for you, which means...

2:00:44Dave Ramsey:What are the obligations in return? so from what i got the one that we're eligible for for it seems like it's like a silent loan and you know eventually you pay it once you either sold sell the home or you refinance and stuff like that or there's another one that i believe um it just depends on the qualifications that is forgiven after like a few certain amount of years i'm gonna say no right now and here's why you don't know what it is and you can't commit to something if you don't know what it is you know what i'm saying you don't have enough you don't have enough information there's a couple of them i know that we might be like eligible for so we're just kind of looking into that but i just haven't heard you guys talk about these programs and what you think about them most of them have strings attached that make you wish you didn't do them okay but i don't know that about yours and neither do you okay so i want to know exactly what the terms are uh silent loan scares me that sounds like a trick but so i really want to understand that after five years do they suddenly call it due uh is there an interest rate that silently sits there and builds up over time and can I pay it off early?

2:02:06Dave Ramsey:No, you have to keep it forever like a pet. You know, I don't I don't know. They come up with bizarre things in some of these programs that make them very unappealing when you understand actually what you're signing up for. Sometimes they're too good to be true. It's not to say that something good can't exist out there, but I would just be very careful because just because something says it's going to help you and you qualify for it doesn't mean that that's true that that's exactly so you really got to do your due diligence call back when you have the information yeah learn learn all about it and make sure you learn all the trick bag where it is they're getting you uh if they're getting you so um they're gonna get their money somewhere everybody does you know what's happening you know i had a thing one time i was doing a rehab but back when we did real estate uh before i went broke and i was doing a rehab on a historic house and they gave us a$5 ,000 grant for this historic house, which was wonderful.

2:03:01Dave Ramsey:And the only thing we had to do to qualify for the grant was that we had to rebuild the house according to historical standards, which is what we did. No problem. And the front porch was two feet off the ground. Okay. And it had no railing. Okay. It's two feet. Yeah. I mean, normal human beings don't stumble off of that. That's fine. But, you know, in the world we live in with helmets for everything. Who knows? So anyway, I, you know, the coach department comes up and says you have to put a rail around it or you can't get a use and occupancy permit. The Hysteric Commission, I mean, the Historic Commission says if you put a rail around it, you have to pay the$5 ,000 back.

2:03:44You're caught in the middle of their.

2:03:46Dave Ramsey:And so I'm like, hey, you two guys that work for the government go over there and let's have y 'all have your pissing match over there and figure it out and then come back and tell me how i'm getting my five thousand dollars i don't care i can put a rail around it or not but i but i'm not gonna you know this is between this is the kind of crap you get it's the exact same thing you know it's the same thing here you're gonna get and you get caught in these things and you know you end up paying back threefold or something what it was and because you put a rail on it you know god that stuff had just dropped that stuff oh god that's why i started calling them the hysteric commission because they would come in and hysteria and look at this renovation we were doing and it's like how you people are more trouble than you're worth this is like more theory than it is actual fact so what we need for you to do is not come on our property anymore and we'll just rebuild the house screw it five thousand dollars ain't worth it you know and that's kind of what you end up with with a down payment program sometimes yeah yeah you're better off just save the down payment buy the house get a mortgage and you don't have all this trick bag hanging around waiting for the other shoe to drop waiting for when they're gonna get you because that, you know, it's just, it's just government crap.

2:04:54Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking about, there might be something to that, you know, when you have the money to do something, if it goes on sale, it's like, oh, it's on sale. There's no desperation to do it versus if you can only do it, if it's on sale, if it's discounted, there's a little bit more desperation attached. You might not do your due diligence. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, make sure you got your down payment saved and then see if you want to do it. That's Jade's point. I like that. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

2:05:50Thank you.