Wise Money Decisions Start With Clear Priorities

23:15Dave Ramsey:That's what I think is going on, Lewis. it could be that or they could be saving for something else yeah i mean three percent on thirty thousand bucks is nine hundred dollars a year that's not enough that's not enough to ask this question over okay um you would throw that you would throw that you just pick that up and throw it at the mortgage it's not it's a no-brainer but you you got a bunch of money in there you've been saving money over there and you've not you've not applied your you got all this high yield savings instead of putting on your mortgage you need to take your dadgum mortgage and get rid of it unless they are saving for something specific that they're going to use that money for again it shouldn't be two hundred thousand dollars or something no i mean it should be in the amount you should have me you're saving for christmas or saving for replacing a car or something like that a vacation okay fair okay yes shouldn't be that much money i know but when he said that i was like oh my gosh that's what you do yeah but you have a lot in high yield savings because you all are doing other things with that.

24:15Dave Ramsey:Yes. And you don't have a mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. So do I. But yeah, but in that case, you would just take that interest and do exactly what you said and add it to income. Sure. Andrew's in Little Rock. Hi, Andrew. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm a long-time listener, and we are very sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we are trying to figure out how to best go about getting out of debt. We currently have two junk cars that we are driving. Good. We both have a lot of issues, however, And we're trying to figure out if we should fix them or if we should buy another one or in what would be a fair, safe amount to put towards them.

25:12How much are the repairs costing you guys? Well, right now they are asking me about three grand to fix the suspension and AC problems we're having and batteries. What is the car worth?

25:31Dave Ramsey:It's worth$3 ,000. Oh, no, you don't spend$3 ,000 on a$3 ,000 car. That's a net zero. So you don't fix the suspension, and the suspension is the big number there. All you want to do is fix the AC, and you've got to put a battery in it, right? Yeah. Yeah, don't fix the suspension on a$3 ,000 car. It's gone. Okay. I mean, if the suspension has completely gone out to where the car is sitting on its belly on the road, which didn't happen. This is just a mechanic that looked and said, oh, your suspension's loose. Well, so what? Guess what? It's a trashy car. Of course the suspension's loose. It's worn out.

26:08Dave Ramsey:As long as the car will drive, will it drive? It does drive. Good. It's just loosey-goosey, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it runs fine for the most part. It does make a lot of squeaky sound. Yeah. Here's what. And we just come to love our safety. Yeah. I was driving a car that was probably worth$400 after I went broke. The main color of it was Bondo. Okay. And it had 418 ,000 actual miles on it. It was an absolute piece of crap. And I drove that car for what felt like 10 years, one three month period. And during that three months, all I thought about was how bad I hate this car. and I spent all my waking hours working to put money together to move up a little bit in car and pay cash and then move up a little bit of car and pay cash and that's why today when someone gripes about Dave Ramsey bought a nice car well kiss my butt I know what it feels like to have been there and I'm not going to drive that anymore I don't have to I worked my way out of that hole so what I want you to do is get really really mad about being here and don't call me back in four years and say, I listen to you all the time.

27:17Dave Ramsey:I'm driving junk cars. You need to go get out of that junk car by getting this mess cleaned up in your finances and work your butt off. Get mad about driving something that, you know, that has squeaks. And realistically, Andrew, it may only last you guys another four to five months. Yeah. But save on the side, yes. Throw it away and buy another$3 ,000 car, but don't spend$3 ,000 on a$3 ,000 car. Yeah. Yeah. Those are throwaway cars. And let me tell you guys if you're at that level okay this car that i'm talking about was loaned to me it wasn't even my car which is even worse and like the cops are following me around because they're like what are you doing driving this car in this end of town you know and it's like are you here to rob something you know and so i'm looking at what i was being profiled based on my car you don't know what bondo is i don't think so bondo is the filler you put in when you have a car wreck used to.

28:09Dave Ramsey:They don't do it anymore. Oh, or it's, oh, okay. It's showing on hardwoods. Well, yeah. It's a filler. Okay. Like if you had a dent, you would fill the dent up. I got the joke now. Yeah. Okay. So the predominant color was dent. Was bond. Was dent filler. Okay. That makes sense. I always pictured like a red door and a, oh, thank you Google image. Yeah, there we go. Well done. All right. Yeah, you sand that stuff in. Oh, I see. Yeah. You fill it in and then you paint over it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, lesson learned all right so here's the thing though guys if you are back if you are in that market for a short period of time it should be for a short period of time because you're so pissed off that you're willing to do anything to never drive like that again i'm going to drive like no one else so that i never have to drive like no one else again i'm going to pay a price to get out of this mess and part of it is i'm gonna drive a car that we have to give it a name because it's pitiful Old blue, big Bessie, whatever it is, right?

29:05Dave Ramsey:And you have to have a little yacht horn going. So go, if you want to buy one of those, here's where you get them. Garage sales. This is a$1 ,000,$2 ,000 car. Facebook Marketplace. And this Facebook Marketplace, too. This is a dog ugly car. No car dealer would even put this on their lot. It's ancient, but it has not many miles and has a lot of life left in it, but you couldn't tell it cosmetically. That's what you're looking for when you're buying a$2 ,000 or$3 ,000,$4 ,000 car. It's zero sex appeal, and you will get no dates if you're single based on your car. This is what you're looking for for a short period of time.

29:49Dave Ramsey:And you go bananas on that because a car is the thing that kills your finances. and I love cars I've got nice cars now but they kill your finances and if this is going on year after year after year after year I'm not saying drive that kind of car for three years I'm saying do it for three months five months eight months whatever and we're just going absolutely crazy be sure you take pictures of it and you can put them you know you can later on you can show them to your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren and say, back in Alt-26, we drove this car, and that's why you ain't poor no more, kid.

30:28Dave Ramsey:You can do the grandpa thing, right? We changed our family tree back in Alt-26. That's the stuff you're doing right now, Andrew. I'm proud of you. But you're going to have to suck it up and knock it in the face. You've got to get after it. You've got to get pissed off. I'm not living like this. I've never been poor. I've only been broke. Poor is a state of mind. Broke is I'm passing through.

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32:55Dave Ramsey:Justin's in Chicago. Hey, Justin, what's up in your world? Hi, Dave. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Okay, I think this is like a really good question for you and your daughter. How should you set up pay in a family business? That is my basic question.

33:15Like market value? You pay? No, like I can go into it. So I make$120 ,000 a year working for my dad, and I'm asked for a raise, and he just acts like I'm capped out, and there's like no other way to advance in a family business. And I'm wondering if you should be working towards shares or? Wait, you feel that way or that was told to you? I feel that way. Like, I haven't had a raise in 10 years and my dad says I'm capped out. Like, that's as much as we can pay you for your job. Okay.

33:47Dave Ramsey:So the answer to your question overall is what Rachel said, and that is that what you should be paid in a family business is what the job pays. And so if the job you're in is capped out, that's fine. But if you weren't there and your dad had to hire someone else to do that job, what would he have to pay in the market? Probably now about$120 ,000. And what do you make? About$120 ,000. Okay, then why would you make more than he would have to pay to replace you? Well, that's kind of my question. It's a generational family business, and that's not how my grandpa did it. He paid his kids way more so they could save and buy more locations.

34:33It's a very large business.

34:34Dave Ramsey:Yeah. So what I would do in that case is not to pay you more for your job, but I would give you some percentage of profits as a family member and treat you like an owner, okay, whether you got percentage of actual ownership or whether you got paid as an owner. So what you should do in this situation or in this thing is to say, all right, let me ask you this. If you went and got a job doing what you do somewhere else, what could you get paid? For the industry that's got a little bigger, about after a couple years, probably about where I'm at right now, about 120. But I've been working for my dad 20 years.

35:15Dave Ramsey:It doesn't matter how long you've been working there. What matters is what the job is worth. And I think we clearly have assumed, established in this conversation, this job's worth what you're being paid. You're not being underpaid. Correct. Okay. And you're not being overpaid. Now, so then we separate the being paid for the job with being an owner. So you've got employee and you've got owner. And you can wear both hats, but you just don't confuse them and convolute them. And so if your dad wanted to be like your granddad and move some dollars your way out as an ownership position, even if it wasn't an actual stock, but instead, I'm going to give you some percentage like grandpa used to.

35:59What is the profit of the company each year? Net profit. Net profit about eight to 10 million. Okay. Do you have other siblings in the business? I do not, but I have cousins in the business. So that's where my dad has five business partners. And are the cousins paid just for their jobs as well? They're paid just for their jobs, but they're paid just as much as me. It doesn't make any sense how they set up the pay structure. So I guess Dave's right. I can't separate the job. I know I'm not overpaid or underpaid. I know I'm getting what I get for my job, but my question more is like, my dad had told me at one point, give me$100 ,000 and I'll sell you my shares of this, and I had the money to do it.

36:40Then he reneged on that. That's a different discussion. Wait until I'm dead. I just don't know how most families do it.

36:48Dave Ramsey:Most families do it, but they don't renege. Yeah. But should a dad be willing to sell the share? Should it be something gifted, I mean, for that ownership? Either one's okay. There's not an ethical construct on that. Lots of the small business owners we work with sell their shares to the next generation. That's not unusual at all. Some of them allow them to participate in profits to buy out the percentages over time quickly. Some of them gift them and just gift them. And so it's not a thing. So, you know, but there's not a, you know, your dad's not. Now, the only thing he's done that I've heard so far in this whole conversation that's wrong is reneging.

37:32Yeah.

37:33Dave Ramsey:And so when was that? That was maybe about two years ago. And his reasoning was he wouldn't be able to be the president of the corporation because he had less shares than some of his brothers and some attorney advice. I don't know. So would you be some of his shares or all of his shares when that was the deal? No, just a small port, like$100 ,000, maybe like a 1 % stake of his shares just for me. You know, like just to give your kid to have some, like he just doesn't want to give me something, which I understand. So how many brothers are in the deal? he has three brothers and two cousins in the deal so okay people it's a lot and you've got cousins in the deal also yeah and we're all kind of trying to figure out how to get away like my grandpa uh set it up more simply because he was one person and you know put a cap on all the stores to get a rent check and then gave like a 10 profit sharing so my dad was making way more than a job entailed but and then my great grandpa actually just sold the business to his sons and allowed them to pay him with profits over the years from the business.

38:37So there's a bunch of different ways, and I don't... Well, here's what I think should happen.

38:41Dave Ramsey:For the good of the business and all the people that we're talking about, brothers and cousins and everything else, you guys do not... Your dad and his generation does not have a plan. Correct. And that is going to kill y 'all. That's the issue. It's going to run off all the family members that are talented because they're going to go do something else with their life. and it's also, you know, they're holding on so tightly, oh, God, I won't be the president, and there's no succession planning, there's no generational agreement on what we're going to do. There may not even be good partnership agreements between him and his brothers.

39:20Dave Ramsey:I don't know. Right. If they want to save this business generationally, They need to sit down starting next week and put together, A, a partnership agreement that they all agree to, and then, B, it needs to include a succession plan of what to do with you and your generation and how to make the transition in ownership and how to make the transitions in profits. So an example would be, with what you've told me about this, that would be healthy from a mental health and a relational health standpoint. I don't know if your bunch can pull it off, but a good thing would be that you guys sit down and the brothers come up with an operating agreement that says your dad is the president until such time, regardless of his ownership position.

40:11Dave Ramsey:And that allows him then to begin to transfer some of the ownership position without losing the presidency. Because eventually he won't have it. Yeah. Yeah. And because he can't if he can't do good succession planning because he has to hold on to the moment because they're at such conflict, then you guys are going to die. The business is not going to make it. You guys are going to fight with each other and the enemy is within. The enemy is in the building. It's no longer competition. It's no longer trying to serve the marketplace. You guys are all just scrambling for all the crumbs inside the building.

40:46Dave Ramsey:That is not healthy. It's going to blow up relationships, and it's going to end the business. We see it all the time. We coach family businesses that do stupid butt stuff like this all the time. And so you guys have got to, your dad has to sit down if he wants to save it. And if he wants to save the relationship with his kids and his brothers, they need to sit down and develop an operating agreement for today that includes him continuing to be president, in my opinion, based on what you told me, for X period of time and begin to transfer shares into the other generation. And that generation also has an operating agreement as to how those things run after succession.

41:23Dave Ramsey:It could be that you split the business up and each of you take your store and go on your way like your grandpa used to do. And that might be the healthiest thing of all. But you guys not having a plan and, you know, and then reneging on stuff to stay president is a good way to screw up the whole thing. And staying so consistent for 10 years of your income and not moving one inch is deflating, right? So he either was overpaid 10 years ago. Yeah. And it is what it is. But there's no movement in that. There's no, I don't know. There's not, and not that you have to move up outside of market value.

41:58I'm not saying that. But to not have a raise for 10 years.

42:02Dave Ramsey:Well, something was wrong then. Yeah. They either started too high or something's weird about this position or something. Yeah. Yep. But again, that can be solved. For sure. By just saying, we're going to leave that income there because it's market value, but we're going to add some percentages of ownership over here and let you share in the profits. And all of a sudden he gets a raise. Yep.

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43:56Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. We're going to take an hour and do something that we haven't done in a long time. And we're going to do a theme hour. And we're going to talk about real estate. And to do that, I brought in one of my good friends for many, many years, one of the top real estate minds and real estate coaches in America, Brian Buffini, flew in from his home in California to hang out with us. We've been hanging out for a couple of days, having all kinds of discussions. We get to do all kinds of fun stuff together.

44:28Dave Ramsey:But we thought, hey, we better get him here on the air while he's here. And we better mine this mind. And he knows more about this real estate stuff than anybody moving around out there. And have a really good discussion. Welcome, my friend. It is always a pleasure. And we've had a great week. And I'm looking forward to today. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you've heard Brian on here a couple of different times. We're promoting his book, The Immigrant Advantage, which is a bestseller years ago when that came out. Three years ago? Maybe five. Maybe five. Time gets away fast. And it's not going to be Southern accents this hour either.

45:00No, no. I love listening to you. Southern Ireland.

45:04Dave Ramsey:That's it. Just like the Irish accent. You know, we are big into real estate in Ireland. You know what I mean? The potato famine and all that good stuff. All right. Let's get to this. The real estate market is a problem. We've talked about it a lot here on the air that the shortage of inventory and the weird blip on the radar called COVID drove prices up unbelievably. and they've slowed down considerably. But still, we've seen a phenomenon that we've never seen before in that we're currently at the oldest median age for a first-time homebuyer, right? Yep, yep. Forty years of age. So median half above and half below.

45:48Dave Ramsey:How old were you when you bought your first house? 22. Yeah. We drove by one of your original houses last night. That was a flipper I was doing. Last night we're going to dinner, we drove by one of those rehabs. That's good. I was 23. Yeah. So, Brian, this is the pain point. I feel like we hear so much. I mean, housing and buying a home is a financial goal for a majority of people, as it should be. But it's just they're feeling this tension at this point, and it starts to feel hopeless, right? And we were talking about social media. It feels out of reach. Yeah. We were talking about social media earlier.

46:20But I get in that algorithm, and you just see people. And it's some complaining, which I'm like, listen, I get it. It is hard. But then also it starts to feel as people start throwing facts and figures, which is why I love that you're on, because you can maybe combat some of that or affirm some of it. But it just feels like today more than ever, than any time in the home buying process, it's harder with just the price of homes, income, and all of that. What would you say to someone that just—

46:44Dave Ramsey:Well, yes, the answer is correct. But if you talk to people from the 60s and they bought a house for$8 ,000, they thought their arms and legs were going to fall off and they ate spaghetti for three years. Everybody feels that way. Yeah. Everybody also does, oh, you see that property over there? I could have bought that in 1979 for$8 and a packet of peanuts. And now it's worth 20 million, but I didn't buy it. So that's never going to change in real estate. What we have is what I call an anaconda's meal. You know the anaconda? Yeah. It eats like a sheep. Only from the Jennifer Lopez movie. And it takes eight months to digest it.

47:20Dave Ramsey:And that's kind of where we are with real estate right now. I say that COVID, free money, 2 % loans, everything jumped up. COVID, people were living in small houses. Remember there was the tiny house movement? Remember that, Dave? Well, when we were all living together for 10 months locked up, nobody wanted a tiny house. It's like, I don't want to see you. I want an office. I want a school. I want a gym. So now people got bigger houses, lower interest rates. And you had this massive jump in the market. When the Fed adjusted the rates, because they overcooked it, It was the fastest rise in rates in 120 years since the Federal Reserve existed.

47:57Dave Ramsey:They intentionally stalled the market like stalled an airplane. So they intentionally put the brakes on. And the brakes have kind of been on ever since. Yeah. So to backtrack a little bit, 10 years ago, the median age of a first-time home buyer was what? 30 years old. And so in 10 years, it went from 30 to 40. Yeah. And this is the highest median age since we've kept records. Since we kept records, go back to 1908, the most in a decade was two years it changed. That was the Great Depression. And then the next great change was during the war. And then we had the baby boomers and, you know, America exploded in the housing after that.

48:33Dave Ramsey:Yes. And so this is, it's, so that's, it is a shock. It is a shock to the system. And what I do here - So people don't feel crazy. If people are feeling this, they're not crazy. No. It is, there's a reality to it. But they're losing hope and that's the dangerous thing. You can't lose hope. That's right. That's right. You've got to dig in. We're not going to get in the loss of hope business or the sanctioning of a victim, but there's also the reality of the numbers. Yeah. And so based on that reality, then you've got a solution. We have to come up with a solution. We'll work on that throughout this time we've got together.

49:04Dave Ramsey:I want to do that. And so rates are pretty much just stayed the same. Yeah. For, what, three years? Yeah. I mean, look, we were heading on a nice path, and I thought we'd be at between 5.8 to 6.2 this year. And then we got a RAN, you got oil, you got all that stuff, which is another blip in the screen. But I think what's going to happen is we might even have a slight rate hike before the end of the year. Eventually, rates are going to settle around 6. 6 % is a healthy interest rate. It's not a bad thing. I got in a business, it was higher. I was going to say, well, then that's perspective too, right?

49:41Because you have my age group that we don't remember, the Carter years, right? Or the, you know what I mean? Like when they all were selling houses.

49:49Dave Ramsey:1989, I was in a real estate office and we had a 10 % party. We were stirring the porridge. We were dancing it up. Pizza was in. The music was playing because the rates had come down to 10%. So yeah, historically, the rates were ridiculously low. I mean, 2 % and 3 % mortgages are artificially governmentally created. So for a government to loan a bank money at 0 % is not sustainable, especially when the government's paying 5 % to the people who loaned it the money. Yes. So it's artificial. And I saw this on one of these slides that you gave us, which I thought was fascinating, is that, yeah, the median age for the first-time homebuyer is 40.

50:28But 25 % of single women make up that demographic of first-time homebuyers and only 10 % of single men. So women are outpacing men.

50:38Dave Ramsey:Two and a half to one. And buying homes. All the single ladies. All the single ladies, right? Yes. So men are feeling the need to hit the home run is what I see. Okay. And so they're like, I don't feel like - So this is a 25 to 35-year-old man. Yep, 25, 30. Well, we know that exact demographic because online gambling has gone from$5 billion a year to$150 billion a year in three years. Thank you, DraftKings. Thank you, DraftKings. You want to know why men aren't buying houses? DraftKings. Yeah. And remember, you couldn't have a sports team in Vegas, and you couldn't have an advertiser, and now because they all own a piece of the action, young men are buying the Lakers and the Celtics and the Sooners because they don't think, you know, saving$300 a month is not going to do me anything.

51:26Dave Ramsey:Let me put it all on the Lakers. And so they're hoping for the big win, and with the big win they're hoping. The number one question of the online gambling bros is what would you do with the monies if you had a huge thing? They'd sell it by a house. So it's that lack of hope. And you, look, you deal with it. What happens is when you have a lack of hope, as soon as I get desperate, I get stupid. Yeah. And you're not swinging to hit singles and doubles. You're swinging for the fence. And every time you swing for the fence, you strike out. And that's what brought the crypto bros up, too. Yep. They're looking for a dadgum easy money.

51:58Well, the ladies are saving and making wise decisions. Well, the women are just going, we're just going to put some money away.

52:04Dave Ramsey:Yeah. Yeah. The house is a bigger deal. Wow. Well, I can't wait to keep talking about this because there is a plan and a great way for people to be homeowners. For sure. And so, yeah, and you're part of that. I wouldn't be here without it. It's great. Brian Buffini is with us. We're talking real estate this hour, what you guys all want to talk about, and we're going to help you with it. We're also going to talk about the realities of what you're doing out there.

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53:57Dave Ramsey:We're talking real estate with Brian Buffini, one of the leading experts in real estate, one of America's greatest real estate coaches. He coaches more real estate agents, high-performing real estate agents than anyone else in America. So he's really got his finger on the pulse of what's going on in the real estate world. He and I have been talking offline about this because we've been friends for years. And one of the conclusions I've come to, Brian, is that there's not a – that the people who are feeling hopeless and are just screaming and throwing a fit on social media and yelling at boomers, you bought your house for a basket of strawberries thing, are really too simplistic at how they're looking at this.

54:40Dave Ramsey:because instead of looking for a solution, they're just laying on the floor foaming at the mouth and having a fit. Because there's a lot of different problems. Let's go back to one thing, and then I want to take this down a couple of ways. One thing you were talking about was the number of houses sold this year. Yeah. Four million it'll be this year. It was like 4.1 last year. Right. And the last time we had— We got about a million houses on the market listed. On the market, yeah. And that's been that way for about four years. Yeah, almost four. And the last time we had that few homes sold was in 1995 when there were 80 million less people living in the country.

55:18Dave Ramsey:So you have big population increase, all economic supply and demand. So you have 80 million more people, which is why prices are continuing to go up and will continue to go up. If you are watching YouTube, if you're watching the doom scrollers, market crash, this has fallen into the thing. It is not true. It is clickbait. It's unfortunate that some people make a living. The prices are going up because there's an inventory shortage, supply and demand. Supply and demand. You've got 100 million more people chasing the same number of sales. Yep. And so we've got a supply problem. We continue to have a supply problem.

55:55Dave Ramsey:And that is due to several things. So there's a bill sitting on the president's desk for him to sign. He just pushed it aside a few minutes ago as we're recording this or broadcasting this. So I don't know when you folks are going to be listening to this, but something else may have happened by them. But for right now, he pushed it to the side, so he's not signing it until he gets some other political favors on some other stuff he's working on. But that bill is called the Road Act, and it had good intention. You and I agree it's full of a bunch of pork and crap, but Congress can screw up Christmas.

56:26Dave Ramsey:But the idea was that they're going to limit corporate hedge fund buyers and Chinese foreign nationals and so forth from buying thousands of single-family homes and starving that supply we're talking about. Yeah. Allegedly. The idea of limiting it is a good idea. It was your idea. It was. I proposed it to the Secretary of Housing. I mean, I said it on the air, and I said, President Trump, if you're listening, and apparently he was, or somebody was, because they put the bill out like 60 days later in January. They got the bill passed, but by the time they got it through Congress, they screwed it up, putting all this crap in it.

57:07Dave Ramsey:Yeah, and they – what was initially proposed was a great bill. Limited to 350 homes, single-family homes that a corporation can own because they're stealing them from first-time homebuyers. 100%. So first-time buyers – and by the way, they get tax advantages. So a giant, you know, multi-billion dollar company gets all of these tax advantages that a single family that's, you know, eating spaghetti, saving their money can't. And so that was the intent. Now it's gotten politicized and all of a sudden it's like, wow, we're concerned about access to capital and things like that. You said BlackRock.

57:40Dave Ramsey:Yes, because I also got a giant contribution to my campaign, right? From BlackRock. Right. So they gave 10 million and Mary can give 10 bucks. So look, it is the deal. It's brutal. One thing we could do is if you really did do it, and this bill really doesn't, if you really did do it, limit the number of the Chinese buying 5 ,000 houses in Memphis, Tennessee, or our BlackRock doing the same thing and taking them off the market. That's thing one. The thing, too, you've suggested, and I like this even more, is to get the market moving. Just do away with capital gains tax completely on single-family personal residences.

58:20Yeah.

58:21Dave Ramsey:Or on personal residence periods. Sure. And they can do this in a periodic way. They can do it in a structured way. Right now, it's$500 ,000. But that's a 25-year-old law, isn't it? Yeah. And it's$500 ,000. And 500 grand was different 25 years ago than it is today. It was different five years ago. So if you move that to a million, so if you went from 500 grand to a million, so that first million - You would stimulate sales like crazy. Here's what would happen. The baby boomers who are sitting on$89 trillion worth of assets, the baby boomers are willing to go, okay, you know what I might do? You'd actually have a temporary dip in prices because they go, guess what?

59:01Dave Ramsey:I'm going to make a mill on this. Maybe I'll take 50 grand off the house to sell it quick because I want to do it while the capital gains law has changed. They might take 50. They might take 70 off the price. They might take 100 off the price. You might have, oh, this guy took 50. Now they have. So prices might take a little softening for a while. And you put some supply in the market. A lot of supply in the market. Because your median seller right now is in their 60s, right? Median seller is 64 years of age. Is it capital gains or is it right to buy the next home that's stopping people? Or both?

59:32I just wonder what the motivation is.

59:33Dave Ramsey:Baby boomers are sitting on the fence. Their houses are paid for. They're paid for. They got a bunch. That's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They weren't buying them. Some people say the greatest generation, they're borderline. I'm going to create some tension here for you. But they're borderline being called the greediest generation. Well, we were. We're the 80s. Yeah. Go, go, baby. Greed is good. Gordon Gekko. Gordon Gekko. Grease the hair back. Exactly. So the baby boom generation was the first historical generation to buy real estate, not just for a primary residence. Baby boomers bought rental properties.

1:00:03Dave Ramsey:Baby boomers bought vacation properties. Baby boomers bought and built eight-unit apartment buildings. So brilliant. They sacrificed. They made their money, and they've done well. They've been slow to hand it over. So the two things we could do from a macro perspective, and usually you and I don't reach for Washington to do anything because they screw it up, and they have in this case too, but would be to limit corporate buying and just do away with or raise the capital gains to a million. You know, you can sell your home, your personal residence, for up to a million dollars profit with no taxes at all.

1:00:37Dave Ramsey:If you just did away with it, you could increase your inventory substantially, which would increase the flow of houses, and we'd get back up above a$4 million transaction rate, and you'd get the inventory going. And the third thing is we've got to have some federal help probably pouncing on people like these idiots in California that have still not issued building permits two and a half years later on Palisades. My people. My people. I'm from the People's Republic of California. Look, more homes were built in Dallas-Fort Worth last year than in the state of California. The entire state. Than the entire state, which is 40 million people.

1:01:12Dave Ramsey:Because of regulations and building permit costs and all the fees, fees, fees. They got more fees than a French poodle. Fee, fee, fee, fee, fee. Very good. $167 ,000, the average fees for housing. just to break ground. So the fact of the matter is there are governmental things that can happen. There are some things they're trying to do. They're trying to, they're actually, the one thing this current legislation does, does a lot of reducing requirements and restrictions and regulations on housing. They're reducing the federal regulations on housing. So that will help some things. They're going to expand, you know, the developed property.

1:01:49Dave Ramsey:So like, you know, the delivered mobile home, right? So that's like, you can build it to suit which is a little more manufactured, and they're a little more structured than they used to be. So there are some things that they're doing that will help some things. Okay, so let's switch gears then. That's stuff that we can't control if we're 35, but we can control if we're giving all of our money to crypto or DraftKings. We can control if we go into debt to Ford Motor Company for a$90 ,000 pickup, and so we don't have any money to save for a house. We can control if we don't let Citibank, what's in your wallet, but screw me over with Samuel L.

1:02:23Dave Ramsey:Jackson telling me to do it. We can control if we get deeply in debt with student loans. These are controllables that the individual can do to put themselves in a position where they have disposable income to start moving towards buying. Dave Ramsey has a lot of answers to the real estate business. You know, if I want to, somebody said, if I really hated a real estate agent and I wanted to just really screw them up, I'd refer them a couple of kids who wanted to buy a house and tell them to buy a truck first. If I really hated that realtor, here they go. And what happens is, psychologically, their first major purchase is a car.

1:02:54Dave Ramsey:And then they got a loan, and now they feel like they can buy a house. It's insanity, and you've just added three years. You screwed up the whole thing. You screwed up the deal. Oh, and by the way, get married. Yeah, there's a good one. Cohabitating doesn't get you towards buying a house. It keeps you from buying a house. All the budgeting stuff you talk about is one-on-one. That's why I was a Dave Ramsey fan my whole real estate career, because I'd have my clients listen to your stuff, so I could help them get a down payment to buy a house. Yeah, opens up margin when you don't have debt. And then patience also to see some of these numbers.

1:03:24Dave Ramsey:I've got one more to add to this when we come back, and then we're going to take some calls. Great.

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1:05:05Dave Ramsey:Talking with Brian Buffini, we're talking about real estate. The median age of the first-time homebuyer has gone up from 30 years old to 40 years old in the last 10 years. We have a shortage of inventory. We talked about there's three things that the government can do. One is lower regulations to get home building going again. Two is do away with capital gains. And three is limit corporate buying thousands of single-family homes and starving that inventory. As an individual, what can you do? Well, quit being desperate and swinging for the fence. And so stay off of DraftKings and crypto. So quit buying crap you can't afford and letting these companies screw you like Lexus.

1:05:43Dave Ramsey:And you've got a car you can't afford for$1 ,250. And then you whine because you can't buy a house. It's your fault. You did that. Okay. So you've got to stay out of the stupid. You've got to get the stupid student loan paid off like it's some kind of pet in your house. You've got to get that credit cards cut up and get Samuel L. Jackson out of your life. What's in your wallet? All of your money, apparently. But yeah. So, you know, we've got to fix all of that. And then the one last thing I wanted to bring up, and I want your input on this because you and I are about the same age, and I've been hammered negatively on this subject because – and I was on Fox yesterday talking about it, as a matter of fact.

1:06:18Dave Ramsey:And the anchor, John, on there is about our age. And he said, what did you pay for your first house, Dave? And I went$67 ,500. What did you pay for yours? $88 ,000. What did you do that on? $18 ,000 a year. Okay. Well, wages have not kept up with house prices because house prices shot up in the last 10 years due to inventory shortage and COVID garbage. Right. And so wages have not kept up. That is real. However, the other thing we've never adjusted for in our psyche out there in the land of TikTok where you're 27 years old living in your mother's basement bitching about this is you've never adjusted your entitled viewpoint.

1:06:56Dave Ramsey:Because let me tell you what was in that$67 ,000 house. No stove. no refrigerator, had to go buy them used, no washer and dryer, no dishwasher, no microwave, no disposal, roll-out vinyl floor on the kitchen, and a Formica top, a chipped-up sink that had little chips in the ceramic. The carpet, you had to mow it because it was seven inches tall. it was remember shag in the 70s shagadelic yeah shagadelic one bathroom and it had one and a half baths and it was 1200 square feet with one car garage yeah so you can't compare that house to your little mcmansion that you're bitching about that you can't afford so you don't compare that i grew up in a 1000 square foot house with an unfinished basement we had no living room furniture until I was 13.

1:07:56Dave Ramsey:And the living room wasn't enough, wasn't as big as this desk. And so, you know, you adjust all of that before you say, well, you're a boomer. You had it be good. It was easy for you. No, we didn't. I mean, I had one and a half cars. You guys got three, you know, and so you really got to adjust for that and your expectations. And then lastly, you need to think about where you're buying. And in most markets, and you know, this is better than anybody probably the urban basic urban growth is if you go out of town a ways yep as we say in tennessee out in the country it gets cheaper the further from downtown you move yep yeah and look i mean the average home used to be 1210 square feet and now the average home is 2900 square feet and so it's much bigger and the difference in those is not necessity it's it's luxury it's it's you know that's what people were buying and the prices and the market and the way it went and all that kind of stuff here's the bottom line you know the first house i bought it looked like it had been in a drive-by shooting okay and i was a house owner son you know and i i i fixed it up and there's a thing called sweat equity and everybody watches the homes and garden show the truth of the matter is you know i was out here in tennessee the other day just looking at stuff and i was looking at the model homes and they have them all tricked out and they're lined up out the door and everybody's buying the model homes the money is not in the model home and the new construction the money's in the old beater down the street without the, you know, with the, it looks like it needs a coat of paint.

1:09:23Dave Ramsey:Cause it does. Cause it does. You know, you make money in real estate when you solve somebody's problem. That's how you buy though, people. Yeah. You, you, you stay out of the traps and you set yourself up and you adjust your expectations and act like a first time home buyer quit acting like you've been saving money for 25 or 30 years. You haven't, you're 27 years old. Look, you, how bad do you want it? Yeah. And, and, you know, I hear a lot of the younger folks, You know, the math isn't mathing, and I'm a lifestyle person. The average homeowner has 44 times the net worth of the average renter.

1:09:53Dave Ramsey:And if you want to get on the right side of the net worth equation, the number one way people make money in America and all over the world is housing. And so I've trained in 47 countries, and housing is the same all over the world. Food, shelter, clothing, the three necessities. And so you've got to fight and grind to do it. And again, I know, I think you're right, Rachel. Get your foot in the door. People are losing hope. But people are also listening to all this garbage out there. 100%. I totally agree. You can do it. You can bite, fight, scratch your clock. Look, I'm an immigrant, came to America, got run over by a car.

1:10:23Dave Ramsey:I have 250 grand in medical bills in 1986. I don't know what 250 grand is worth today. It'll be a fortune. And I bought my first house. And I fought like the Dickens for it. And I literally didn't eat a meal that I didn't prepare for three years. But that house I bought for 107 grand. I sold it for$164. The next one I bought was$220, and I fixed it up, and I sold it for$394. And then I bought the next one, and I bought it for$900. And then I bought the next one, and it was$18. And I bought the next one, and that$18 now turned into$4. And the next one,$4, turned into$7.5 million. And so here's a house painter's son with not a dime, goes from, in 22 years, from$0 to$7.5 million.

1:11:06Dave Ramsey:That doesn't happen by rent, and that doesn't happen with crypto, and it doesn't happen with DraftKings. Yep. Yeah, very good. Chuck is in Milwaukee. Let me get that line going. Chuck, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Great, man. Enter the conversation. How can we help? Hey, so I'm a longtime listener. I'm a baby step worker. And so my question is, so my wife and I have worked through most of the baby steps, except for the latter ones. And we are at the point now where we want, we're thinking about selling our house in order to be mortgage free. And I'm just wondering, is that possible? That makes you move down then, right?

1:11:50Dave Ramsey:What's that? You would move down in-house. We'd downsize, yep. Okay. Other than to be mortgage free, why would you do that? That's the only reason I would. What's your house worth? $447 ,000. And what do you owe on it? $192 ,000. What do you guys make a year? You're going to buy a$150 ,000 house from a$500 ,000 house? Yeah. It doesn't make sense. Are you married? Yeah. Don't do this.

1:12:28Dave Ramsey:He just saved you$250 ,000 in marriage counseling right there, buddy. Chuck, do you want to do this? What is your wife saying? I am curious.

1:12:40Our goal is to, yeah, our goal was to work that baby step and be mortgage free. But personally, no, I like where we live. I'd rather just, you know, buckle down, pay it off.

1:12:54Dave Ramsey:You know, we've got eight or nine years till we could pay it off. That's what you should do. Yeah. Yeah. How much do you guys make a year, Chuck? So I can tell you, I've been self-employed for 25 years. I'm a hardwood flooring contractor, and I work alone. And do you want, like, the business gross income? No, I'm asking what your household income that you pay taxes on is. Okay, I made$151 ,000. She made$64 ,000. Great. So two and a quarter, and you need to pay off$192 ,000, and you're going to do that in four or five years. And then if you want to save up and move up, I would. But I don't know.

1:13:30Dave Ramsey:I would not sell this and move down to be debt-free. Right. I think you're going to be debt-free soon enough. You've got a good plan. Would you, Brian? Well, I'm a house painter's son, Chuck, so here's what we would do. We'd do color Saturday money. So we'd take what was called a side job, do a little work on the side, and every dollar I made on the Saturday job, you used to pay down the debt. And so you do that. Here's what you can be. You could be debt-free in five years, not eight, and you get to live in the same house. And you know what? Your wife thinks you're even cuter than you are right now.

1:14:03But no mortgage. It's amazing how people's looks change suddenly.

1:14:07Dave Ramsey:It's a beautiful thing. My wife thinks I'm gorgeous.

1:14:12Dave Ramsey:Oh, my goodness. Brian Buffini is with us, real estate coach and expert. We're going to come back in the last segment this hour and take your calls. Yeah, and I'll throw out, too, you know, there was some hope interjected there at the beginning about, hey, get in. Like, your housing is amazing. And so if you want to check out and find a great agent, go to RamseySolutions.com slash agent. We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah, we'll hook you up with a Ramsey trusted agent that knows what they're doing and they can help you really do this. It's possible, folks. Ramseysolutions.com slash agent.

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1:16:22Dave Ramsey:our guest is real estate expert and world-renowned coach brian buffini coaches more real estate agents than anyone else in america today especially the high performing ones we're talking real estate. We're talking about it is possible. It is definitely harder. It's definitely different than it was 10 years ago. And it's definitely way different than it was 30 years ago. No question. That is not in question. But the question is, you can control only the things you can control. And that's what you should control. If you control the controllables, you can put yourself in a position to buy. Carter is with us in Columbus, Ohio.

1:17:01Dave Ramsey:Hey, Carter, your question for Brian and the panel here. Hey, guys, how's it going? Great. How can we help? I just wanted to call in and just say my wife and I are expecting with our first child, and we're currently thinking that home buying is our next thing that God wants us to do. Cool. We are both in full-time ministry, So with that, obviously it's not like an extravagant paychecks that we get, but we're not in it for the money. I'm just wanting to know how we can go from the jump. We're renting right now. How we go from the jump of we have everything budgeted with our rent to our mortgage payment, everything with bills and like that.

1:17:48Dave Ramsey:Congratulations on the baby. How old are you guys? Thank you. 22 and 23. Okay. Okay, and how old is, I mean, I'm sorry, what is your household income today? Yearly, we both combine to$60 ,000. Okay, you have a bunch of debt? Nope, my wife has no debt whatsoever. The only debt I have is student loans, but I'm working through a public student loan forgiveness because I work for a church. Ten years is not a plan to get out of debt, honey. Yeah. Okay, Brian, what do you think? Yeah. How much is on the student loan, by the way? $21 ,000. Okay. And after your bills come in and your money comes in, how much is left over?

1:18:33Dave Ramsey:Do you have anything left at the end of the month? So with all bills aside and ties, offering aside and everything, we have about$1 ,600 left to spend, not including food or anything like that. Okay. You got any money saved? uh we have 13 000 including a thousand dollars emergency fund great fantastic wow you're way ahead of what i thought yeah 22 and 23 we got a winner here's hope for america okay what's the average sales price in columbus ohio uh we're looking we got pre-approved for 228 but i was doing the math and just looking what our mortgage would be i just don't know how that would uh be possible to, we'd just kind of be making pre-approved only means that the mortgage company has brain damage.

1:19:21Dave Ramsey:Okay. Because there's no possible way you should do that. Yeah. You know that. When you looked at the payment, you about choked, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. It's about$220 ,000, $220 ,000. Okay. Alright. Just curious, what would $220 ,000 get you in Columbus, Ohio? Like bedrooms and Yeah, yeah. About three beds, two baths. Nice. Wow. Nice, I know. We're not living in San Diego, baby. So like 2 ,000 square feet, huh? Like 1 ,500, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, Carter, I would take that$13 ,000 that you have, throw it at the student loans. You guys, you may want to work a part-time job for just a season.

1:20:08Well, when's your wife due? When's the baby coming? End of September, early October. Okay, between now and then, Carter, if I were you, I would be stacking cash, and I would go work extra weekends and nights. And you guys, yeah, pile up some cash, get the student loan knocked out, save some more back to that emergency fund, and then make it a big goal. Yeah, and knowing that you're on a$60 ,000 income, okay? So it's going to take you guys a couple of years to save for that down payment, but it is totally possible.

1:20:38Dave Ramsey:So let me tell you this. I have completely affirmed God's call on your life to be in ministry, and I want you to keep doing that. And here's the reality that goes with that. You're not going to only get to do that for the first decade. Go talk to some 65-year-old pastors and ask them how many of them, when they were 22, worked a side hustle. When we work with 50 ,000 churches in America, and what we found is that 88 % of pastors are bivocational. They have a side gig. 88%. And they call that full-time ministry. My pastor that led me to the Lord and baptized me is with the Lord today. And back in the day, he delivered bread, had a bread truck, and he was a full-time pastor.

1:21:30Dave Ramsey:And he told that story from the pulpit a thousand times to where we all could visualize the bread truck. We heard it so much. But it was perfect. So, you know, you're 22 and 23. You're just beginning. You've got time. You don't need to buy a house today to be rich. You don't need to buy a house today. And money's not your motivator anyway, but you do need to buy a home. It's going to be good for your family, but it may be five years. So what? You clear the student loans. You pile up some cash. You work some side hustles, and your ministry continues to grow, and maybe you move into a senior pastor role at some point where you actually can just do that and make enough money to afford a home.

1:22:13Dave Ramsey:So if you buy a house at 27 or 28 years old, and you put down a good solid down payment, and you stay out of debt, and you're a good dad and a good pastor, I would call you a phenomenal success in America. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And by the way, being a pastor can also be your side hustle. I had a buddy of mine, and he was in the same spot. And again, sometimes you can be so heavenly-minded, you know earthly good. I'm here to be a minister, and I'm trying to help. And so his side hustle was marry, bury, and baptize. And so he said, I'll marry, bury, and baptize. And he put a little service out there, and he made enough money to go buy himself a house.

1:22:48Dave Ramsey:So your ministry could be your side hustle too. I love it. Danielle is in Des Moines. Hi, Danielle. Your question for the panel. How's it going? Good. How can we help? So my husband and I, we're in our mid-20s and thinking about starting a family soon. So we're looking at buying a house maybe in the next year or two. And we're just wondering what we should be prioritizing in our first house for our family. Like, should it be location, size, the cheapest thing possible? And we're trying to put down 20%. Wow, that's great. That's unusual for a first-time homebuyer. That's good, though, if you could do it.

1:23:26Dave Ramsey:So what do you think the leading indicator of a home? You want to get in, but you're not going to live there forever. So how many kids do you have again, Danielle? Well, we don't have any right now, but we're hoping within the next year. Well, so you plan for that. Here's the big tip I give people all the time. You'd live in the floor plan, not the square footage. People get caught up in square footage. So sometimes older houses have smaller square footage and better floor plans. you'll see this like you can see a town home or a condo has lots of square footage but it's all cut up and chased up or it's a two-story so you live in the floor plan not the square footage so start thinking about okay lord willing if we had a couple of kids what would that look like so to me you want to make sure that you got the best floor plan that's open as possible and then you know i have six kids me and my bride which seemed like a great idea at the time um and we we we prioritize having a yard over everything else you know we were going to have those chrome snatchers out there catching balls and running around.

1:24:25Dave Ramsey:And we live where it was a little bit sunny. So to me, again, it's your priorities. So floor plan is key over square footage and typically the older houses have the better floor plans. And then a little bit of yard if you're going to have kids, those would be the first two for me. Yeah, very good. Very cool. All right. Well done, sir. So Brian Buffini has been our guest this hour. Brian, if people want to learn about Buffini and Company, the leading real estate coaching company in the world, how do they do that? Well, like I said, we have buffiniandcompany.com. Just check us out if they're interested.

1:24:56Dave Ramsey:If they're in real estate, that's our specialty. We do real well. We have thousands of clients. We really teach people to take care of their customers. That's what we're all about. And so we help real estate agents do well. And a lot of our agents that we coach are in your program helping folks out. A lot of our Ramsey trusted agents are coached by Buffini and Company. So that's absolutely perfect. Well, folks, we want to give you hope. And we don't want – there's a whole industry that makes a living telling you that there's a bubble and there's a crash coming and the world is coming to an end and Chicken Little, we sell helmets.

1:25:26And you could never be a homeowner. You'll never make it.

1:25:29Dave Ramsey:America is dead. There's people make a living off of that. And that's a lie. Is it different? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Has it always been some form of hard? Yes. Yes. But can you do it? You control the controllables. You know, stay out of crypto and draft kings and get yourself out of debt and then adjust your expectations on your first home, and you can get yourself into the market. And we'll help you do it. We love you. We want you to win. That's right. Brian, thanks for being here. So true. Love you guys. Love your family. So appreciate it. Love helping people today. It was a treasure. Thank you.

1:26:04Dave Ramsey:Appreciate it. Check out our agents at RamseySolutions.com slash agent. If you want a Ramsey-trusted agent to help you do it the way we teach you.

1:26:18Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today. Mary's in Dallas. Hey, Mary, how can we help? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Well, Dave, my husband and I have been married 19 years. We're approaching retirement and we've always managed our finances separately. We're a blended family. We don't have a will and we're struggling to move from talking about major financial decisions to actually making them. We cannot get on the same page. I just don't know how to get there. What's the biggest difference, Mary, if you could explain?

1:27:01What is kind of his mindset with things? What's yours? Where does that conflict come in? so he has a lack of trust about he kind of holds most of the liquid assets i have retirement assets but he has more liquid assets um we kind of have always split bills and i tend to carry debt and then pay it off carry it i've kind of borrowed money against savings and paid him back and um So his concern is that if we combine finances, then he's not going to be able to protect our future.

1:27:41Dave Ramsey:From you? From me. From me, yes. Okay. That's valid. You keep borrowing money and paying it off with his money and then paying him back, and that scares him. Well, of course it does. It should. Well, we both work, and I have an income. I don't care. And he's observing a pattern that scares him that is a valid thing. So you have to remove that pattern in order for him to be comfortable combining finances because he's conservative. Could he, if you guys agreed on the value system of if we combine finances, debt is no longer part of our family, we are not going to use debt. Would you be okay with that?

1:28:25Absolutely. You would? Absolutely. I've suggested that we sit down and go over our debts, go over our assets, look at everything together, pay off what needs to be paid off, create a household account, and hold me accountable, hold him accountable.

1:28:47Dave Ramsey:That's healthy. I'm with you on that. But, you know, if it's so but there's if someone observes a behavior pattern and that behavior pattern breaks trust, that's valid. So we've got to solve for that emotionally. He's got to have a reason to believe that you're not going to do this again. And you're and you're saying I'm as a friend of mine said the other day, he said, I had to submit myself to the system. Yeah. I have to say the system says we don't borrow money. The system says we have a budget that we both agree on. And I had to submit myself to that. In other words, my little wants or little impulses were subject to my agreement with my spouse.

1:29:34Dave Ramsey:And if he believes that, and, okay, I will never spend another dime again that we have not both agreed on. Oh, and by the way, neither will you. If he really believes that that's going to happen, then there's no possible way you could go in debt, right? Correct. And I think that where we haven't gotten on the same page that way is that I think he's too frugal. He thinks I'm too liberal. Well, you do need each other in that regard, in general, if one of you is not over the top. But here's what I would suggest y 'all do. Let's try combining the budget, the monthly income budget, first. And work out of one.

1:30:15First.

1:30:16Dave Ramsey:and and and if we do that then that addresses now and then both of you need to hear this part okay the saver needs a spender in his life so he has a life okay because the people that are like him will live in a cave collect lint and only come out on triple coupon thursday right and that's not you know and the saver him the spender you needs a saver in his life, in your life, so you don't have to retire and eat dog food. Correct. Because you spend everything. So we've got to balance that out, and so there has to be a portion of Mary in the budget where there's some fun. In our case, that would be Rachel, and there's a portion of your husband, which is Rachel's husband, Winston, is more like your husband, is conservative and very, but, but he allows for fun and she allows for savings because we agree that both of those things are necessary to have a quality life.

1:31:24Yeah, absolutely. Mary, I want to follow back. When you mentioned the trust aspect at the beginning of the call, cause you said he has a lot of liquid assets. Does he, did you mean trust with like the market or you? Um, I think with me. Okay. So it's a relational trust. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. He has two big, things. So one thing we, we have a franchise and we invested a lot of money into that and we're not going to come out whole on the other end of that. So he feels very protective of the liquid assets and retirement that he has, which is fine. Um, and then I, at one point, because I handled separate finances, made a decision to do some cosmetic dentistry for one of our children that was substantial.

1:32:07And he felt that was a major financial decision. I didn't discuss with him, which it was, but we handled our finances separately. I have substantial retirement assets, but I really don't have very much liquid at all. So what is your retirement asset base? A little over a million.

1:32:27Dave Ramsey:Okay, and is the franchise a business one of you are running? It is a business, and, I mean, we both own it, but I'm running it, and there's two years left on the franchise. What do you make? And you're just going to close it? I believe so. Yeah. And so you've been responsible for that. Let me say this carefully. In his mind, does he feel like you're responsible for that failure? I don't think so. I don't think so. We've talked about he said we own that together. Okay. And we made the decision together, and it failed, and we did that together. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I would probably sit down, Mary, and you guys need to have a discussion for, to your point, to Dave's point earlier, that maybe some valid concerns that he may have.

1:33:15And what does he need to see within you to get any level of that trust back on your side? Because you guys as a couple are going to function better when you see yourselves as a unit. You guys have been married 19 years and you've never combined this part of your life. And so that is a desire of yours. And so that question, I would want to know from him, hey, what are the things that you need to see? And I am willing to make some changes when it comes to the way I handle money or communicate about money. But I do desire that we are seen as one in all of this, right? And what are those steps to get there?

1:33:56Because I would be curious what he'd want to see from you. And if it's ridiculous and it's crazy and it's controlling and it is super, you know, all of this, if I don't want you to ever spend money on avocados or something just crazy, then there's going to be some of his issues that are in this as well and not just you.

1:34:14Dave Ramsey:But if you have a reasonable acceptance of his need to save, he has a reasonable acceptance of yours to enjoy money. Yes. That's a good, healthy balance inside your budget. And that should be there. That's accurate. Rebuilding trust. Henry Cloud's book, Trust, it gives you a great way to do that. And I think a good entry point here is just first start budgeting together. If you budget together for 90 days, the amount of discussions you're going to have to get on the same page is going to be amazing.

1:35:07Dave Ramsey:You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options, so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand. Head to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor to get connected. Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non-client promoter of participating pros.

1:35:43Learn more at RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor.

1:35:56Dave Ramsey:alex alexis i'm sorry is in fort wayne indiana hi alexis how are you doing great how are you better than i deserve how can we help all right um so me and my husband we just we've owned our home for a little over a year now and we renovated our entire home and now we have we suspect like $70 ,000 or more in equity. And then we're expecting our first baby here in July. So we've been working really, really hard to make smart financial decisions. Our question for you is, would it be wise to refinance our home and use the equity to put it towards an investment property? Most likely it would be farmland that we could later build on.

1:36:35Or should we wait at least one more year and then sell the house after we don't have to pay capital gains?

1:36:42Dave Ramsey:You should wait and You can sell the house and not buy something unless you're going to move into it. Okay. Because you can't afford investment property. You don't have any money. Okay. If you go into debt to buy a piece of land that's just sitting there and you're paying payments on it, that destabilizes your home where your new baby is. No, we don't do that. Okay. Yeah, I think the goal would be to continue to farm that land. Yeah. Well, so what? Make some money off of that. You're not farming it now. What do you guys do for a living, Alexis? My husband is, he works at a steel mill, and then I am a stay-at-home mom.

1:37:24Okay. How much do you guys make a year? We make anywhere from$5 ,500 to$7 ,000 a month.

1:37:30Dave Ramsey:So the land is how much land? It would be eight acres. Eight acres. What would you farm on it? Corn, beans. slightly. You can't make the payments on that amount of money with farm and beans on eight acres. Okay. The numbers don't work. And so it's like he's got a dream of owning some dirt. I was going to ask, is that like a passion kind of thing for you guys or what causes you to do that? Yeah, I think the goal would be right now we have a small house that we own. And so the goal would be to eventually build on that property. There we go. I'd like to own some property. There we go. Okay, so now here's what I would do.

1:38:16Dave Ramsey:That makes more sense than I'm going to farm this and call it an investment on eight acres. Okay, that just doesn't, that's not enough to spit on. So, no. What I would do is have your baby, you guys live your life, stack some cash, and say, all right, the goal, to use your phrase, the dream, is to buy a piece of property and build a home on it and sell ours and move into the new home on the piece of property. And that piece of property and home after construction are still a reasonable part of our budget. No more than 25 % of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed. And then if he wants to have a gentleman farm on it and have a little bit of a side hustle, that doesn't kill me.

1:39:03Dave Ramsey:Okay. And that's kind of fun for him, apparently, and so on. Right. But that's truly gentleman farming. Yeah. And your life is about to be so different now being parents. And so I think you did say you're a stay-at-home mom. So maybe you guys have other kids. But I would take this slow. I would not be in a rush to make these big decisions. I mean, honestly, I think a few years of saving is going to be just fine. And then you guys may sell that house, go rent somewhere to be able to put down a good down payment, construction loan, all of that. You know, there may be a process. The reason you are framing this poorly as an investment idea is because you're in a hurry.

1:39:46And you have to borrow on your primary residence.

1:39:48Dave Ramsey:Exactly. If you slow down and make this deal your primary residence later after the baby's here and you've got some money saved and you make a good solid purchase and you think about building a home on there and selling this home and putting all of the equity into the new purchase. And again, then it becomes a wise thing. But all of that slows down your excitement level that caused you to move too fast and move into a bad idea. Julian is in Baltimore. Hi, Julian. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, so I'm in baby step number two, and I'm working on paying off my student loans, and I have a little bit of credit card debt left.

1:40:32How much debt? There's$3 ,800 on it.

1:40:37Dave Ramsey:On the credit card? How much on the student loan? Oh, yeah,$70 ,000 on the student loans. And what do you make? The big one. Right now, I just graduated college in May, so I'm doing 35 hours a week at$17 an hour. So my take-home is right around$500. Why did you go to college? What do you make? I mean, what do you do? That's awful. Yeah, well, that was just my job. I was in college. I'm currently looking for a career. Yeah, what's your degree in? I got an environmental science and policy degree. Well, he just graduated a month ago. I know. What's your degree in? Environmental science and policy.

1:41:17Dave Ramsey:Okay. So how's the big boy job hunt going? Well, I have my resume, started tailoring my resume. I have also applied to be a game warden with the Department of Natural Resources, which is my second choice. And that would be doing$80 ,000 a year for that. okay and your degree does somewhat prepare you for that okay yes that makes sense all right so yeah so all right now i'm caught up okay so but you you need to be in the big boy job quick yes okay all right the way you presented this is like 17 hours it's been three weeks i know but the 17 an hour was like success or something it's not success it's no we're not doing that okay anyway how can i help how can we help what's your question yeah so um once i get that big boy job.

1:42:10Um, and like I said, I'm on baby step two. Um, but once I get that big boy job, I want to pay off my loans, but I also want to shave up to buy a ring to propose to my girlfriend.

1:42:20Dave Ramsey:Yay. I love it. Thank you. Um, we've been dating for three years and, uh, I really want to take the next step with her. And, um, I've, I've, I've talked to her family and, um, and I just was, was curious um what how you would do that you know because i have that such a big payment um in my student loans um should i you know hold off on that for me no no i i think you i think you get rid of the credit card debt and then you save up some money for a ring and then you get back on the student loans okay so have you got a have you got a budget in mind on the ring um yeah somewhere around$2 ,000,$2 ,000 to$3 ,000.

1:43:03Dave Ramsey:That fits. Good. Good. Yeah, and you may just be working three jobs to get there faster, too, you know? Yeah. Hopefully you get the$80 ,000. If you get the$80 ,000, that's it. So a good rule of thumb for those listening, not for you because I like your$2 ,000, okay? But a good rule of thumb is a maximum of one month's pay for your ring. Jewelry store in the mall will tell you three months, but they sell rings. It's like asking a dog if it's hungry, okay? So, of course, they're going to do that. But the – so one month. And so in your situation, that$2 ,000 is very reasonable given that you're going to have to stop paying on your debt to do this.

1:43:42Dave Ramsey:And that you have debt, yes. But – and I think you're very wise. And, yes, I would do all of that as soon as you possibly can. Okay. Yeah, the credit card should be paid off by the end of July. I also – I'm a lacrosse coach. So I run multiple camps and do individual lessons. So I'm kind of already doing a side hustle on top of that. And that will stay once I get that career path. But, yeah, so I was – Yeah, you'll be able to attack the 70. And is she out of school too? Yes. And what's her career? She's a nurse. Has she passed her bars and got the job? she's finishing up uh nursing school so this this semester it will be here last semester will she have debt a little bit as well yes yeah so when you combine incomes and combine those two student loan debts and you guys have a wonderful life starting off and you attack those student loans and get rid of them and then you go be millionaires we're going to be so proud of you all right thank you go do it man go do it well done very well done it's great stuff good stuff that's cool well fresh off the grad stage dave's like what what are you doing

1:45:04Dave Ramsey:i'm working 35 hours i heard 35 hours a week at 17 dollars what do you hear i heard that too and that's the definition of sucks right there but he also was a lacrosse coach he's killing it Well, you didn't. That buried that lead.

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1:46:42Dave Ramsey:In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Austin and Mackenzie are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Doing pretty good. How are you? Welcome, welcome. Where do y 'all live? Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Ah, okay. Where's that near? Like in the middle. Okay, right in the middle. I love Michigan. People always put up the... I always put the hands up. Yes, yes. Talk to the hand. Yeah, good. Very cool. Well, welcome to Nashville, and you're here to do a debt-free scream. How much debt have you paid off? We paid off$117 ,417. Love it. And how long did that take? 19 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that two years?

1:47:20Dave Ramsey:We started at$100 ,000, and then we ended at$203 ,000. Well, that's a little jump. Nice. What do y 'all do for a living? I am a health insurance agent. I'm a broker. And I'm a stay-at-home mom. Okay. So how'd you double your income in 18 months, dude? Well, we actually, once we had our first child, I realized we weren't sure if she was going to stay home or continue to work. And when I was holding her, I realized we have to keep her home with her mom. And that just really set a fire to pick things up for me. Yeah, so he just worked really hard to up the sails. Wow. Golly. Baby will motivate you.

1:47:59Oh, yeah. It changes a lot. Yeah, you're holding that child.

1:48:03Dave Ramsey:You're like, this just got real. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Wow, very cool. So what was the$117 ,000 in debt? What kind of debt? Credit cards, two cars, student loans, personal loan, medical, and our house. Wow, you paid off your house. We sure did. So what's the house worth? It is worth$135 ,000. Very cool. Good for you guys in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. What does that buy? How many square feet is that? How many bedrooms? It's about a little over 1 ,000 square feet, and it's a three-bed, one-bath. Wow. Very cool. And how old are you, too? 27. And you have a paid-for house in Michigan. Yeah. That's pretty amazing, y 'all.

1:48:49Dave Ramsey:It feels good. It feels great. I bet. Pretty incredible. What year did you guys buy the house? Two years ago? Yeah, two years ago. Almost two years ago? Yeah. Yep. Amazing. See, we were just talking last hour about people getting in the market and doing all of this and getting out of debt and all of it. And you guys did all of it in 18 months, two years, basically. Got in and out. Not only did they buy a home in their 20s, they paid it off in their 20s. Well done. But guess what? They bought a 1 ,000, what did you say? How many square feet? 1 ,000, about 1 ,000. About 1 ,000 square feet. Yeah.

1:49:22Dave Ramsey:Well done, you guys. That's amazing. This is not going to be on the land of the rich and famous, but it is a great starter house to start raising kids. Because you guys are going to start freaking. You're going to be millionaires. Yeah. I mean, hey, it's a roof over our head. I love it. Yeah, I love it. I'm so proud of you. Way to go. So did you sell anything, like the cars or anything? No, actually, we just kept the cars that we currently have. And during the process, I actually called into the show to ask if I should buy a 1976 Corvette. And yeah, it was interesting. You had told me, you know, not necessarily something that you would have done at that time, but to keep it based off the income and where I was at during the baby steps.

1:50:08So probably would have maybe been a little bit sooner if I hadn't done that. But you kept the car. Yeah, we kept everything. Because we told you to. We told you you could. Yes. Rachel, you gave me a little more trouble than Dave did, surprisingly. So funny. Surprisingly. We were all together. Look at that. Yes. It's funny. I probably was like, sell it. Oh, I think I do remember this. So I was like, I don't get it. Cars are such a big deal.

1:50:29Dave Ramsey:Yeah, but it wasn't, but how much money was it? It was$7 ,700. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, so great. So what happened 19 months ago that you said, okay, we're going to start this journey to pay off all, I mean, that's a long list of debt. Yeah. I mean, and then the house. Yeah. I don't think it was anything, one big thing in particular. I think it was just a bunch of little small things, but I think definitely our first daughter being born, we were like, yeah, we got to, you know, leading up to that, we were like, we got to get serious about this. What do you tell people the key to doing this is?

1:51:00I would say, at least for me and the people that I talk to, the ones that don't really make it or get anywhere are the ones that say that it's impossible to do or they just can't do it. And like for us, we asked, how can we do this? What do we need to do? Exactly. So that was my advice. If you're in that situation where it feels impossible, definitely ask yourself how and start from there. Also just like being honest with yourself and like putting the numbers in your face. Cause it took him, I won't say nagging, but persistently being like, Hey, let's add up what you spent on this month, you know, and all of this stuff.

1:51:40And it took me sitting down and looking at the number that I was spending on fast food to be like, actually, you know what? I can afford to put more money towards my debts. Like there's no reason that I should only be making minimum payments on everything. Wow. So the budget and the revealing of, hey, this is what's going on, and here's what we have to change from a lifestyle perspective even. Absolutely. Just be honest with yourself. Yes. Yeah. So good. Yeah, people live in a little bit of that denial, I think, at times, right, where you're like, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. And then, yeah, you add it up.

1:52:11You're like, oh, man.

1:52:11Dave Ramsey:It is a big deal. This could be going towards something great. Yeah, absolutely. Well done, you guys. So you guys are content today with an inexpensive home and some inexpensive cars so that you're 100 % debt free. And I've often taught, and Rachel has too, that contentment is not on the same spectrum with ambition because you're very ambitious at the same time. in that you leaned into this, you've worked your tail off, made a bunch of sales, you cleaned up the mess, you paid it all off in 18 months, house and everything. Oh, my gosh. Where does that contentment come from? I would say we just have a lot of peace knowing that, you know, if something were to happen to me tomorrow, that the girls will be okay, that they're not going to drown in debt.

1:53:04we put a lot of things in place that you guys have recommended to give us that piece. And I'll say, I know people that have much nicer cars and much nicer homes, but have a lot more stress on their shoulders. And that's just not something that I wish for myself or my family. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I'm content with food in the fridge, a roof over our head, and happy daughters, you know, and just giving it up to God. and he's provided what we need and we don't need anything else. I guess that's where the contentment comes from. Yes. We complicate our lives so much, right? And we do it to ourselves.

1:53:41Yeah, chasing after the next big thing. That's right. Absolutely. And that keeps you in a broke cycle for so many people. And they don't even realize it, right? And you guys are just a beautiful example of what that looks like. Because you're exactly right. I think trading the peace over the stress any day. Yes. And people crave it. They don't know what to do. Absolutely. Yeah. We'll be saving up. We're currently saving up for our next house so we can cash. Yeah, absolutely. So it'll take some time, but that's the next goal for us. Yeah, you guys are awesome. Yeah, you're going to be able to do it.

1:54:09Dave Ramsey:I mean, if you're making a couple of hundred, you're going to be able to do whatever you want to do in very short order. Yes. Because you got the stuff in the right order. You didn't go, you know, acting like you were richer than you are. And so that's going to set you up to build incredible wealth and generosity. In the meantime, you've got the piece of going, hey, this house, we got no payments. And I'll tell you something else. How long has the debt been paid off? How many months ago was that? February is when we paid it off. Have you noticed yet a difference in your sales? Well, I noticed there's definitely a difference in everything that I do, knowing that it's paid off.

1:54:48I mean, we've cash flowed three vacations since then as a little celebration. Yeah. Including this one. This will be our last one for a while, but there's definitely a different, there's a calm in the air that we've never felt before. Yeah.

1:55:00Dave Ramsey:I've always coached small business owners and sales teams as well that when you don't have a single debt in the world, you don't have to make a sale and people can smell it. Yeah. And you end up increasing your income. Yeah. Because they don't think you, you don't smell needy. Yeah. You know, a needy salesperson, you know, you can smell it. The commission breath is awful. Exactly. That's so good. That's exactly what it is. And how old are the kids? We have a, she just turned 19 months old and she just turned five months old. Okay. Did you bring them or are they at home? Yeah, they're here. They're here.

1:55:35Dave Ramsey:You want to put them in the debt-free screen? Yeah. Absolutely. All right, let's bring them up then. That's perfect. And what are their names? This one's Harlan. Mm-hmm. So great. Little Harlan. Oh, cute. And the little baby is Maggie. Oh, my gosh. So sweet. All right. She has her. Those kids, mom and dad changed their family tree. All right, count it down. Oh, no. 117 ,000 paid off in 19 months. Debt-free house and everything at 26. Let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. We're debt-free! You got to do the debt-free scream early. It's so good. It's awesome. So good.

1:56:27We'll see you next time.

1:56:32Dave Ramsey:You should not feel uncertain about investing, and you don't have to. That's why we created Investing Essentials, a two-night virtual event where George Camel and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401ks and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets start at$199. Get yours today at RamseySolutions.com slash events, or click the link in the show notes. Okay.

1:57:27Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, Hebrews 11, 6. It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. St. Francis of Assisi said, start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. People always want to know how I handle my investments, and a couple of years ago we decided to open Dave's investing playbook on real estate and on other things, and that includes what I don't invest in and why. and we called it Investing Essentials. And George Camel and I did a virtual event for two nights.

1:58:09Dave Ramsey:We've only done that two times. We're going to do it again, one more time. And we're going to change up a little bit of the content and get a little bit into building a lasting legacy and dealing with the issues of wealth inside your family and looking at wills and estate planning just a little bit as well. So we're going to get into all of that. It's two nights. It's a virtual event, September 1st and 2nd, me and George Camel. Tickets start at$199. You can get them at RamseySolutions.com slash events. Jasmine is with us in Baltimore. Hi, Jasmine. How are you? Hey, I'm really curious how this is going to go.

1:58:50Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

1:58:52Dave Ramsey:What's up? So I went into some debt at the time. I wasn't super familiar with your baby steps, but I'm in phase baby step number two now building a homeschool app. And I'm thinking about taking some certificates, paying to take some AI product management certificates to put me in a different tax bracket. Entry level is like 100K, can be like anywhere between 100K and 200K starting pay. And I'm wondering, is it like it's such a competitive field? Is it worth me paying in to take those certificates and putting that time in to come out the other side, hoping to put that money back into my business?

1:59:35Dave Ramsey:Are you already in the technological field? Well, I'm the product manager for the app that I built. Like I built this app from scratch for homeschoolers. That means you did it by yourself at your kitchen table? No, no. I hired a web development company, but, like, I chose, like, how everything's supposed to function, like, where the buttons are supposed to be, what needs to connect to what. Like, I designed it completely from that. And that's what a product manager does. I know what a product manager does. I have a bunch of them work for me, okay? I'm sorry. That's okay.

2:00:15Dave Ramsey:So I – but I just didn't visualize how you were doing. But you've got no software engineering experience at all? No. Okay. And what with the courses, is it what you're going to get and learn in those for the app? Or you said it's going to put you in a different tax bracket? She just means she's going to make more money. How, though? Make more money so I can move the business faster. With the day job? Make more money in what you're currently doing or with the app? Make more money with getting the project management, AI project management certificates to get a different job. Okay. So to go into the field and to do it.

2:00:55Because right now I'm a caregiver and I make about 60. I gotcha. I gotcha. And the field at which you're looking to get in.

2:01:01Dave Ramsey:Is AI project management. Yes, I know. Thank you. Yes. But I'm asking, is the type of online course that you're taking, do they see that as, because it's kind of, it's all pretty new. Do they need that as a standard or are they looking for something else? I just want to make sure you don't get in this and get something that people are like, I don't even know what this is. And it does, it really doesn't do much for you. No, the Coursera certificates that you can get are specialized for project management training. And then there's some for AI project management training. And if you pay like$300, you get access to like 10 ,000 different courses.

2:01:41I only need maybe four different certificates. And I'm really burnt out at my job that I'm at, and it's not moving the needle fast enough for me. Okay.

2:01:52Dave Ramsey:Okay, so yes, I would spend$300 on continuing education. Yes, I would pursue your dream. Where I've got a disconnect is that someone told you this guarantees and opens these doors, and I'm not sure it does. Right. That's why I'm like, should I? Okay, so yes, do it. But I don't know that I'll get a job doing it, but I know that I have it in me to do that job if I were to get that job. Yes. Have you talked to people, though, that the job is out there and you could apply for it and they're saying, hey, you do need these courses and then you could be in the running to get it? Have you already got any certs in project management, not counting AI?

2:02:36No, I don't. I just have proof that I can do the job because of what I've already built.

2:02:44Dave Ramsey:The app that you did. It's proof too. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I'll be, here's what's running through my mind. All right. We have 400 people of our thousand people that are in the technology side of things. Obviously, we're leaning heavily into AI. And obviously, we have several project managers and lots of product squads working on things that are being led by different people. and I'm trying to think through if this would cause us to consider hiring you. The fact that you built an app for your homeschool thing, I don't know if that qualifies you to be a project manager, even though you actually did manage a project.

2:03:30Dave Ramsey:I'm not arguing that. I'm not sure we would hire you, and I'm not sure we would hire you because you had a certificate that says you're an AI project manager that cost you$300 to go through Corsair. I think we would talk to you That's why I'm asking the companies that you're wanting to work for Jasmine what are they saying? It's not a golden key that opens the door Yeah but it's not Ramsey she's asking No but it is She's wanting to get a job making$100 ,000 a year I know but in technology companies trust me I got some friends working in those plenty of money there it's crazy so I was wondering like when she's looking at these jobs are they saying this is a hole that has to be filled and this is a way to fill that hole or is it work experience Like, I'm trying to figure out what it is for that next step.

2:04:14And is it courses or is it not?

2:04:16Dave Ramsey:Yeah. There is plenty of money in technology companies. And we pay a lot of money to the technology team here. That's true. All of those are true. The only question I've got is whether this actually is the golden key that opens the door. And I'm not sure it is. And so... What would be the next step for her to get on that path is my question. I think I would talk to someone who's actually doing the job that she wants to do. Talk to the company she's applying for. I agree. Find someone that is doing AI project management and say, okay, what would make me get an interview and possibly get hired? Would this certificate help?

2:04:53Dave Ramsey:Or is it a slam dunk if I've got their certificate? Or nobody gives a crap if I've got their certificate? And talk to somebody who's actually doing that. And I think you're going to find that they're going to want some, if you want to be a project manager and you want to be an AI, both are cutting edge situations, you probably are going to have to have something more than what I'm hearing here. But I might be wrong. So I do want you to discover all of that. I don't want you to spend$300 and then be vastly disappointed that you didn't walk into the first place and they went, oh, we have to have you.

2:05:26Dave Ramsey:You got a Corsair certificate, which I'm pretty sure is not going to happen. Okay. And you suddenly go make$100 ,000 a year. No, I don't believe that's going to happen. But I do believe that you're on the right track, and I want you to continue pursuing this. Yeah, I would use Ken Coleman's principle, the proximity principle. Go talk to people in that field, Jasmine, and again, to those companies that you're looking at to apply for. And go out to coffee with some of them. Be like, hey, what are the first four things I need to be doing to get myself in the running for this? Because this is a passion of yours.

2:06:00You're obviously somewhat educated in it because you built an app, and you're actually in that world doing it. You're pressing the buttons. You're talking to the people developed. Like you are in this world. And so what's the next formality to actually make you in the running for it? And it may be this certificate. It may not. We don't know. But I would go talk to people in that field.

2:06:21Dave Ramsey:Folks, the danger I want everybody out there to look for is this. Don't, when someone tells you in a trade school or a certificate program or a four-year education that this is going to be the magic pill that makes your life all good. It's not. You're the secret sauce. not the education piece. You're the secret sauce that gets the job, keeps the job. And so when someone says, oh, we'll put you in a higher tax bracket, that sounds like a sales pitch from a trade school to me. And so I don't want you to fall for that. I want you to have good, solid information to make these decisions. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books.

2:06:57Dave Ramsey: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.