Yesterday’s Choices Don’t Define You — Change Starts Today

24:21Dave Ramsey:Please. Okay. So in 2023, if you had an index mutual fund called an S &P that reflected exactly what the stock market did in 2024, you would have made 23 % and 26 % those two years. Now, that's not normal. But just to point out, okay, here's what that means. That's$50 ,000 a year. you've lost a hundred thousand dollars by having that 400 sitting on its butt in a bank account instead of invested well a hundred grand yep why didn't you do it daniel what were you risk averse or were you just hadn't just never got around to it uh fearful i've been conservative all my life and good too conservative okay that's good i can i can work with that one all right so here's the answer there's two kinds of fear and we've all got them there's fear of something that will hurt you and that's a real fear and you should stay away from something that will hurt you the other thing that we're afraid of is things we don't understand and don't know about okay you're standing in the middle of the interstate 18 wheelers coming at you you should be afraid and you should move you're gonna die okay right you're gonna touch a hot stove you should be afraid you're going to get a third degree burn okay don't do that that's a real fear if you if your seven-year-old uh son or when he was seven he's 16 but if he was so he's learning to ride a bicycle and he's afraid well he might fall over and scratch his knee he ain't gonna die and he's gonna get the joy of learning to ride a bicycle so he's afraid of something he hasn't learned to do yet right when i drove a car the very first time i distinctly remember i was 10 years old my dad tossed me the keys and gave me no instruction which was a really dumb idea and i all i can remember is there's a gravel driveway and when i pushed down on the accelerator all the way to the floor i just about emptied the driveway with the back tires throwing gravel everywhere until the screaming stopped from all the neighbors my mother and my dad and i let off the accelerator finally but now i've learned to drive a car and i'm not afraid of cars anymore but i was afraid that day of cars okay with good reason because i didn't know what the heck i was doing right so that's where you are with investing investing is not the 18 wheeler or the hot stove it's you don't understand it right and it's not the good news is it's not rocket surgery you can do it everybody can understand this is not that hard so uh jade and i are going to send you to the uh smart vester pros at ramsey solutions.com click on the website get one of those and jade it's i mean you came at this the very first time i had a finance degree so i had a sure i had a jump start but you and sam sit down with a smart investor pro the very first time you didn't know beans no how's that that's pretty intimidating it's intimidating and i i will say i think it's helpful if you can engage with a show like this or do a little bit of research on your own so at least you can because there's lingo and jargon and you want to feel like you understand that but if you sit down with the right person they can help you understand it a little bit more it's really i mean because here's the thing you buy a house well that's an investment there's no guarantee the federal government does not get you know there's no fdic for your house you could lose the house you could lose the the neighborhood could go up in a sinkhole you'd lose everything there's always risk there's you know there's a but the neighborhood could go bad sure you know and instead you go okay i'm buying a house in an area that has a long track record right the trees are big enough i can predict the future based on the past that's right and that's what you do with an investment you pick out something that's got a long track record and then you got to understand how to do it like you had to understand how to buy that first house that's right and there's 19 moving parts but they're really not that complicated once you do it once you go yeah you start to figure it out it's doable so uh you know i think if you move that 400 daniel into some good investments and then get back to work and because you're gonna have a better life man it's just more enjoyable it's just no there's no dignity and sitting on your butt you got to use your skills in your mind go do something big man go go do something big go make twice as much money you've ever made in your life start you a business then you go wow i'm so glad i quit that ugly job act two it's yeah yeah here we go dave you know this is my favorite question if you didn't do finance and real estate what would you do if you had to make yourself have an act two finance and real estate well that's the only things i do i know but i'm saying if you didn't do that if tomorrow you had to pick something else what would you pick i don't have any idea i but before i decided yeah i mean before i decided to not do this i would have an idea but now nothing comes to mind i would go straight to the next thing yeah no i mean i'm a teacher at heart but i'm not going to the classroom no so um but i'm gonna teach something i'm gonna lead i'm gonna i'm a i love business i love running a business okay so i would open something something Open something, helping people some way.

29:19Dave Ramsey:And it would probably involve teaching in some way or another. But teaching is part of leadership, too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But yeah. I thought you might have something off the wall. No. A pilot. I never wanted to be a pirate or a secret agent. No, never did. A pirate. So just don't have any. I don't have any busted Dave dreams. None at all. It's all good. So none at all. No busted Dave dreams. Yeah, that's it. Anyway. Yeah, that's what I would do. I would sit down with a good SmartVestor Pro and get it going that way. And, you know, I think that'll show you. Begin to teach you. They've got the heart of a teacher.

29:57Dave Ramsey:And having the heart of a teacher is the big thing. And I do want to say this because you asked the question. When you first hear and learn about investing, the first time it doesn't sink in. The first time you hear it, it's just like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you turn the lights on to go to the bathroom. And then when you turn the lights off, you're like, you can't see anything. That's like what it is when you hear about investing for the first time. You're like, what was that? I don't remember. Where was it? And then when you hear it the second time, it sinks in a little bit more than the third time it sinks in.

30:28And before you know it, you've heard it several times. Now you're like, oh, I get it now. I understand. So it's okay if the first time you hear it, you don't fully understand it. That's normal.

30:38Dave Ramsey:Okay. I'll go with that. That's good. The point is learn about it because it's not going to kill you. Yeah. You need to learn about it and get comfortable with it, and that'll get you there. Wow.

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32:37Dave Ramsey:Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. If your private student loans are in default, it can feel like nobody will work with you. But Y-Refi was built for this. They'll help you explore a fresh start. Go to YReFi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Not in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Dean in Iowa. He says, if I have debt but also want to invest, why can't I do both and benefit from the compounding interest? I'm 21 and have over$95 ,000 in college debt. I won't be able to pay that before I turn 30, and I don't want to wait that long to build wealth.

33:16Okay. So, Dave, we hear this a lot. it's kind of like that age old argument of why can't I invest whilst paying off debt or why do I need to wait till I'm done paying off debt to invest? And the biggest thing, I mean, if I go back to the basis of it, it is your income being your biggest wealth building tool. So here's the thing. You have$95 ,000 in debt, which means a portion of your income is going to be going to paying that off. And the longer you wait, the more of that income is not helping you build wealth. So while you might be able to put, I mean, theoretically, yeah, you could put some money into investing.

33:53It's not going to be the full scale of what you could or should put in to build ultimate wealth. So why wouldn't you just clear that out? Because here's the thing, the compounding interest.

34:04Dave Ramsey:Works on your debt, too. Yeah. That's the thing. That$95 ,000, that's going to accumulate more and at a quicker rate than when you start from zero investing your$100 here and there. Yeah. So, Dean, you're 21. You can do whatever you want to do, honey. You're like an adult and stuff. But you wrote us an ask. You're full of opinions and they're all wrong. And you wrote us an ask. So here's the truth. The probability of you getting out of debt, if you don't focus on it exclusively and with great intensity and get your little butt in gear, the probability of you ever paying off that student loan is close to zero.

34:53If you think you're going to wander out of this over 10 years, like you've kept the flu for 10 years, you're not going to do it.

35:03Dave Ramsey:You're simply not going to do it. We've worked with people getting out of debt for way longer than you've been alive. And so, you know, tens of millions of people have followed our stuff and gotten out of debt. And one of the keys is for you to get fired up and wired up where you turn it on. Don't talk to me about being 30 years old and still having this debt. How about 24 years old and it's gone? Three years from now,$30 ,000 a year because all you do is work, young man. You have lots of energy. Go use it. Go get you some money. You have made a mess and you need to clean up your mess. And the faster you put this in your rearview mirror with the faster the intensity, the higher the probability that you ever build wealth and the higher the probability you ever get out of the student loan debt.

35:49Dave Ramsey:The number of people who drag out student loan debt and systematically pay it off over 10 years or 20 years is almost zero. They either do nothing and it stacks like cordwood in the backyard or they get after it and they knock it out fast. There's hardly anybody in the actual data that does the middle ground. It goes, I'm going to very slowly and methodic. Nobody does it. They don't do it. So you get fired up and wired up. So your set of assumptions are wrong. It's not going to take you nine years. You're going to pay off$9 ,000 a year. Come on. How wuss it is that? Come on. Don't be a wuss. Do it, man.

36:28Dave Ramsey:Come on. $9 ,000. Come on. That's nothing. You need to pay off$30 ,000,$35 ,000 a year because all you do is work. Clean up your mess. And then you're sitting there at 24 years old without this thing hovering over you like most broke Americans walking around with their own spare bedroom for freaking Sally Mae. They've kept her around so long she's like a member of the family, the old ugly aunt with a wart on her nose. And she's stuck in the back bedroom. And we're paying payments for her all the time. We can't get rid of her because you won't give her an eviction notice. You, dude, roll up your sleeves and punch it in the mouth.

37:06Dave Ramsey:Tell Sally she gone. You're out. You're done. You don't get to live here. I don't like you. You're ugly, and you're inhibiting my future. You are going away. You have to get mad about it and knock it out fast. It increases the probability of doing it. It destroys your little formula because now you're out of debt at 24 or 25, and now you can build wealth really, really fast because you're used to living on very little and paying off a bunch of debt. We can transfer that to living on very little and investing. You'd probably be a millionaire by the time you're 35 if you do what I tell you to do, what Jade told you to do.

37:42Dave Ramsey:But if you don't, you're going to be normal. And if you want to look up the statistics on normal in America, normal sucks really bad. You do not want to be normal. It's a disaster. So your goal is to be weird. That's our thing around here. I know that's right. Yeah. That's how you do it, man. That's the answer. And so, but yeah, if you make a set of assumptions, you're going to be there. And by the way, compounding interest works on debt, exact same math, works against you, and as it does working for you with investment. Right. The only difference is the rate. It's the same thing. The only difference is the rate.

38:15Dave Ramsey:If you're saving money at the same rate that you're paying off debt, not paying off debt at the same rate, you have broken even exactly. If you're doing it at a lesser rate, you still broke even because you're carrying around all this risk and the increased risk that debt represents. So the answer, folks, the way, you know, Jay and I was growing up, a bunch of us little big hillbilly kids, we were running in and out of the house. And the back door would be opening, closing, opening, closing all day. You know, your mother says stuff like, were you raised in a barn, that kind of stuff. And finally, the heat of the summer, she would have it.

38:50Dave Ramsey:She'd be done with these kids running in and out. The neighbor, kids, me, everybody else. And she would just go, that's it. The worm has turned. Now, we had no idea what that meant, except that the beatings were getting ready to begin, right? That's all we knew. But I found out later it's actually from Shakespeare. Who knew mom knew Shakespeare? But yeah, there you go. But all I knew was she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. She had had it up to here with these kids and putting all the air conditioning in the outside and running up the bill. She'd had it. And when you kind of got to get that thing going like, Mama, the worm has turned.

39:24Dave Ramsey:I've had it. I'm not living like this anymore. I make too much money to be this freaking broke. I live in the most prosperous time in the most prosperous country in the history of mankind and I'm broke. This is stupid. I'm going to change. When you get that thing going like that, a little preaching going on, then you can turn it. You can turn it around. But, Dean, it's not a compound interest problem, honey. It's a Dean problem. Just like when I went broke, it was a Dave problem. Listen, I think it's about him wanting to take the easy way out. That's all I think. I think you look at$95 ,000, you go, that seems like a lot of work.

39:59It seems a lot easier to go over here and put my little hundred dollars over here. I'm taking the easy route. And I think it literally just boils down to that. You can either do the work and get the full, the fullness of what you're supposed to have, or you can punk out and take the easy route.

40:15Dave Ramsey:You know, I said this on the show last week. I was being interviewed in a leadership situation the other day, and a guy said, you've got all these Gen Zs working for you. And I said, yeah, I love that generation. They're incredible. They're an incredible generation because they've grown up with a magic wand in their hand. And if you push a button, stuff happens. Things are up on your front porch. Man, that's right. Yeah. Anything's possible for this generation. They're a possibility generation. And it's fast. They think anything can happen, but it all happens fast. That's the downside. And he said, well, what about them being entitled?

40:43Dave Ramsey:I said, they're not entitled. They're just impatient. Yeah, that's good. Because they're used to everything coming fast. It comes easy, it comes fast. You just push a button and crap happens. You can't even have an argument because somebody's got the answer before the argument's done. It's like, good gosh. And so, you know, but here's the thing, guys. There's no such thing as good microwave barbecue. That's an oxymoron. There's only one way to get barbecue. You cook it long. The neighbor's dog is howling. That's how good barbecue is made, okay? And it's like a long cook, long, slow cook. And guess what?

41:21Dave Ramsey:Money's the same way, baby. And so you can't push a button. There is no easy button. And while all things are possible to Gen Z, you better buckle up, Buttercup, because you're going to have to learn some maturity. And one definition of maturity is learning to delay pleasure to get something better. That's an emotional maturity. That's psychological maturity, spiritual maturity right there. You delay pleasure to get something better. It's perseverance. And you'll get a callous while you're doing that because you'll be working all the time. And callouses are good for you and patience is good for you.

41:51Dave Ramsey:It's called growing up. Yeah. but I tell you man this is a great generation if we drop a little bit of that in the soup they're going to be the best generation we've ever seen because they believe anything's possible and they go after it like it's possible but quit looking for the stinking easy button you're right Jay you're absolutely right

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43:29Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Jade Washaw Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Alyssa is with us in Chicago. Hi, Alyssa. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? My question is, how much is too much to spend on a wedding? okay that's cool how much are you thinking about spending 60 000 cool nice wedding good okay and you have 60 000 uh so we're actively saving to get to we have about half right now so by next september when the wedding would be we would have that so mom and dad aren't chipping in that's you and him paying for it?

44:18We are going with the intention that we're paying for it. They've briefly mentioned that they might contribute, but no hard numbers have been given or anything like that. Okay. So you're assuming it's all on you. So what do you make? Yeah. I make 90 before. What's he make? 190.

44:39Dave Ramsey:Cool. Do you guys have any debt? No debt. Wow. It's not too much. It's not too much. Okay. Not if you pay cash. That's exciting. Okay. You want to know how I did that? Yes. Here's fun, okay? Average household income in America right now is about$75 ,000. The average wedding in America is about$36 ,000. It's about half of the average income. So if you spend more than half your annual income on your wedding, and if you're paying for all of it, which just sounds like you are, okay, then you're spending too much on a wedding because you're more than half the average. Now, here's the thing to keep in mind.

45:21Dave Ramsey:Average kind of sucks in America. We don't necessarily want to be average, but you're below 50 % of your – you're way below 50 % of your$270 ,000 income. and so you're you're you're on as on a ratio basis you are half of the national average which is half weird way to say that but yeah so i mean the national average would put if you if you spent 50 percent of your all's income maybe 135 so you're well below what the average and you're about half of that at 60 and so you're you're very conservative as a ratio but now for somebody that makes a hundred grand it sounds like that you know uh alissa's lost her mind you know but that's what people say they don't have any money and and you've got some money so yeah when you have more money you can spend more yeah of it without it being a problem yeah so and if that doesn't include the honeymoon and we added i don't know 10 or 15 on top of that I was talking about the wedding.

46:28Dave Ramsey:The honeymoon's a different story. Yeah, I think that'd be fine. And the engagement ring's another story. Yeah, that's a good differential, though, when we're talking about the wedding. There are those three components. There's the rings, then there's the actual party, and then there's your honeymoon. What do you all do for a living? I do medical sales, and he does product management. Cool. Okay. Well, he's going to really like this last suggestion. We've done three weddings at the Ramseys. I've got three kids that are all married and been married many, many years. And Ramseys, we like a big party.

47:03Dave Ramsey:We like to celebrate stuff like that. And so we threw major parties on each of these weddings. It was a lot of fun. But we learned, and we did it from the first one. We introduced this idea that for your fiancé will love me, your wedding is a project. So let's lay out a budget in detail. If we're going to spend 60, how much of that's the dress? How much of that's the reception? How much of that's the videographer? How much of that's the preacher? How much is the venue? And you lay out a budget. And then guess what? You stick to the budget. And that would be my word of wise for you, Alyssa. Because when you hear what Dave said, which is technically you could be spending more if you were being, quote, average.

47:47So for you, the hard part is going to say, even though we could spend more, we're going to stick to what we said in the beginning of$60 ,000.

47:54Dave Ramsey:I would pretend like that you work for someone and your job was to manage a$60 ,000 budget and bring the event in on budget, on schedule. Because you manage a project. It's an event project. I mean, we manage events here. It's what it is. And you'd get fired if you went over someone else's budget. Yeah. If you work for somebody, you'd get fired if you screwed it up, right? So just treat it like it's serious business. and I know that doesn't sound very romantic, but people use romance as a way to do a lot of stupid butt stuff. So, no, we're not doing that. So, no, just lay it out exactly. And you can pull up some percentages.

48:32Dave Ramsey:There's some good guidelines online for how much to spend on the dress. I will go ahead and tell you, if you're going to have a nice reception to have the big party, it's going to be your biggest line item by far. Like how many people you think? I mean, 60 ,000, you're thinking about inviting a decent number of people, aren't you it's not huge so we've already booked the venue um and we're going through that process but i'm more of the saver and he's more of the spender and so thinking of kind of the rough estimate that we put together with all the you know videographer photographer and all that it it just sounds like a lot of money so i yeah i i would but here's the thing you'll get hesitant and not you know what i'm saying you know what i mean when i say scope creep yes yeah this project this thing will creep up and the 60 will turn into 80 if you do not if you do not line item this and no rough estimates it's freaking what we're going to do and then when you're meeting with the caterer and they go well we can't have a lick no no this is all we got this is what we're doing and uh well you know we could spend you know freaking 85 000 on flowers who's getting married here princess die I mean, seriously.

49:39Dave Ramsey:So, you know, we're going to go in the field, pick some wildflowers so that we stay on budget. Rachel actually did that one. Well, if nothing else. Because she was over budget on other stuff. And the only way she could get it back in budget was to get the flowers down. If nothing else planned for 54, so at least you've got 10 % set aside just as contingency. Oh. That's what I'd do. A little slush fund in the line items. Just in case. Yeah, a little just in case fund. I'd have something in there for that. I don't know if I'd get away with that. But wow. Wow. Yeah, that's exactly how I would do it.

50:07Dave Ramsey:And, Alyssa, I think you're approaching it very wisely. You're not counting on the people who have been vague about their possible input. That way you're not under their control. As a matter of fact, whatever they come forth with, I'd probably just use that for the honeymoon. And I'd just lock this baby down on 60 and just go, we're doing it. And you and the fiancé sit down and agree to that, go, this is a project like you manage at work. We're going to manage this. We're going to come in on budget. We're going to get the details out. Because there's always something that you can go higher. You can always go one bigger, one better on everything.

50:38You get the extra large shrimp instead of the large shrimp.

50:40Dave Ramsey:What was the thing on Father of the Bride? Cheaper chicken. Oh, yeah. I want the cheaper chicken. You get ice sculptures. Yeah, that's it. And so, yeah, you can do it. And you can do that on a$10 ,000 budget. You can do it on a$60 ,000 budget. You can do it on whatever. You just manage the budget. That's right. This is what we're doing. And so we're going to have to get super creative. We're going to do this for$7 ,800. We had a lady here on the team that got married and had a really nice little wedding for$7 ,000. And she just slammed, you know, they were trying to get out of debt and that's the most they weren't going to spend.

51:08Dave Ramsey:And it was really very nice. Can I tell you the, okay, Sam and I paid for our wedding out of pocket. Oh, it was like$10 ,000. Okay. It was a little bit more. But my biggest regret to this day, and it was in the name of doing it debt-free, we didn't have an open bar. No open bar. That's your regret that you didn't booze up everybody else for free? I mean, we were on a yacht. It just made sense. There should have been some drinks on board. And there wasn't. There was no open bar. There was no bar. No. They couldn't even pay. No. Open bar would be like you paid. No. Well, I felt it was tacky to have people pay.

51:50So there just was no bar.

51:51Dave Ramsey:Just no. Oh, okay. I'll go with that. Listen, it was a mistake. That's okay. You know what? They don't remember it. You're the only one that does. I guess so. I don't know about that. Sam doesn't even remember it.

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53:12Dave Ramsey:Richard's in Oklahoma. Hi, Richard. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks. Boy, I don't know. I don't really know where to start. Okay. I'm beginning to think I'm a lost cause. I know. I went through a very similar situation, actually an identical situation that you did. but I was much later in life. I was 55 when the banking, I was in the mortgage business for 10 years when everything crashed. I lost everything. I was completely ruined. My confidence was kicked out the door. So I went through a few years of trying to get my act together and went to Florida. Basically, I went back to the one place that you never want to go, but the one place that's got to take you in.

54:07So my mom was very elderly at the time, and so I went down. I was taking care of her in Florida. And then it got to a point where I was going to need somebody to help, so I got to drive in a truck. And it was something that was kind of conducive because it was like I'd be in the truck, and they'd say, okay, where am I going now? and it was only going to be for a couple of years. I was going to drive for a couple of years and then join the Merchant Marines. I wasn't married. I'd lost everything. I had no children

54:45and then I was going to join the Merchant Marines. I figured, okay, I'll drive the country for a couple of years and then go sail the world for a couple of years but then I had to put my mom into assisted living. So in order to handle that, I stayed on the truck and was paying for that. And I also figured, well, you know, if something came down, I'm a day or two days away versus a month to two months away.

55:09Dave Ramsey:I'm sorry, Richard. How can we best help with today? Well, it's, you know, I never really planned it, you know. Based upon a previous caller, I was totally ignorant and intimidated and not knowing anything about investing, afraid of missing out, afraid of losing. How old are you now? Right now I'm 72. And how much money do you have now? Right now I've got$40 ,000 in a savings account, 5%. Okay. Because after a couple of years, then I got involved with something else, and it looked like it was going well and put good money after bad when COVID hit. Are you still driving? Are you still driving trucks?

56:04Are you still working, Richard? Yes, I'm still driving now. My plan was I wanted to have more of a nest egg. I wanted, well, I shouldn't say nest egg. I wanted to have, you know, my goal was to have$50 ,000 in the bank for me to get off the truck, get back to Texas, where there was a community there of people with common interests, and then really research what I could do without having to try it. What's going on with your—what happened to the house your mom was living in before she went in assisted living? Well, when she died, it was a—at one point, she had taken a reverse mortgage on it, so it went to the bank.

56:47Oh, shoot. Yeah, and it was a condominium there in Florida. So it was worth nothing.

56:56Dave Ramsey:Right. Yeah. Where are you living? Are you just living in your cab? Where are you living? Yeah, I'm living on the truck. Technically, I'm homeless. I was living in Florida. I had a room. What are you making? What are you making? Well, you know, I was just figuring that out. Because fortunately, the company I drive for that I've been with for a while now, a number of years, they have a minimum of$1 ,250 a week. Because you don't always, you can go out and get, the way it is with driving, they pay by the mile, but they can pay a dollar a mile. But if you're only getting 300 miles a week, that doesn't really do it.

57:36Dave Ramsey:So what do you make, Richard? With my Social Security, it comes to about$80 ,000. Gross. Okay. And you don't have any overhead because you're living in the truck. how much of that can you save? Can you not save$40 ,000 a year? Well, I've been, I had credit card debt, and I've been paying that down, and then... Is it gone? I thought you said you were debt-free.

58:02Well, no, I didn't mean debt-free. I'm sorry. Out of... How much credit card debt do you have now, today? $2 ,500 out of what was at one time$60 ,000. Good for you.

58:14Dave Ramsey:Good. And how much other debt do you have, hon? um really um really i i owe the irs uh but i'm getting with an account in the beginning next week how much i filed an extension only 2 ,500 2 ,500 all right so 4 ,500 and 2 ,500 makes you debt free and then you start stacking cash as fast and as hard as you can for as long as you can drive and you start stacking it to the tune of four thousand dollars three thousand dollars a month into a good gross stock mutual fund and you sit down with a smart vesture pro if you can do that for five years, you could build a good nest egg. I don't know if you got five years left, but in terms of passing your exams and everything to stay on the road and be safe and all that.

58:54But you've got to do this today. Like you've got to start today, get online, find that. Don't put it off because if you do, you're going to fall back in your same habit and you're just going to put it in a savings account and it's not going to do any of what Dave is saying it's going to do. So you've got to do it today.

59:08Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I want to set up$3 ,000 a month automatically coming out of checking account. And then I want you to add more in addition to that. Going straight into mutual funds for your investing. That's$36 ,000 a year. You do that for three years. It's a hundred grand. It'll be a hundred and a half by the time you get done with it with growth. It'll be a 300 before you know it after that in terms of more growth. So you can actually build a nest egg, but you kind of have to lean on it. And your adventures are over. Now you're just grinding. We ain't no more time for adventures. We're just going to grind and no more interferences.

59:40Dave Ramsey:We have to grind. Whatever comes up, we got to grind. Whatever it is, we got to shift the gears and go. Shift gears and go. Shift gears and go. Got to make it. You got to make that money. And you take all the runs you can take, and you pile the cash as high as you can pile it, as quick as you can pile it, because you are in emergency mode. You're not a lost cause. But if you don't change your ways, you are. But it's not because the math is killing you. It's because you're killing you. Do you think he owns that truck? You got to get those two little debts cleaned up right now. As soon as possible.

1:00:08Dave Ramsey:Go ahead and write a check.

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1:01:43Dave Ramsey:If you're ever around the Nashville area, stop by and see us. We do the show on the glass live from 1 to 4 Central Time every day. And there's usually 50 to 200 people out here, partly to watch the show, but partly because the coffee and the homemade cookies are free. So there's that. And come by and hang out with us. We do pictures at the commercial breaks and all that kind of stuff. And you might have the opportunity to see someone stand on the debt-free stage right here in the lobby to do their debt-free scream. Dave and Roxanne are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hi, Dave. Welcome, welcome.

1:02:18Dave Ramsey:Where do you live? We're from Calgary, Canada. Fine. And how much debt have you two paid off? $700 to$1 ,970. Wow. How long did this take? About seven years and four months, Dave. I smell a home payoff. Yes. Good for you. We're looking at weird people. I love it. What's this house worth? About$800 ,000 right now. Wow. Very cool. And how much in your nest egg these days? About$320 ,000. So you're millionaires, Baby Steps millionaires. Yes. How old are you two? I'm 37. I'm 45. And you're Baby Steps millionaires in Calgary, Canada. I'm so proud of y 'all. Awesome. Thank you. Way to go. How's that feel?

1:03:02Dave Ramsey:Feels amazing. Amazing, yeah. How many millionaires in your line? Your parents, your grandparents, all that kind of thing. No one. No one. You're the first one. You broke it. And my brother's here with me. I think he's a millionaire. Okay. Wow. Okay. All right. So both of you made it. All right. Good. So a whole new line to the family tree coming with you, too. Yes. Way to go, guys. I'm proud of you. Excellent job. All right. and your range of income during that seven years? Yeah, it's really interesting. We started at$30 ,000, almost made nothing. And by the end of the journey, seven-year journey, we make about$700 ,000 right now.

1:03:39Oh, amazing. $700? Amazing. What do you all do? We started, I was a general manager of a cleaning company and a facility company. I used to work in finance in a government. And along the way, we started an online business and in affiliate marketing. and the sales started to pick up, and that's what we do full-time now.

1:04:01Dave Ramsey:In freight marketing? No, no, affiliate marketing online. Affiliate marketing online. Oh. High ticket, yeah. Oh, wow. Good for you. Awesome. Pretty cool. Well, congratulations, you two. Thank you. Zoom, Zoom. What a wonderful income. This is very cool. All right. How did a power couple like you guys get plugged into the Ramsey stuff? It started, actually, I was listening to Joyce Mayer sermon, and she talks about Financial Peace University, Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. So I started searching about you. I got so excited about Baby Steps and I showed it to him and he's very skeptical. I was skeptical.

1:04:37I used to be a financial advisor. I wasn't a big fan of Dave Ramsey at the time. But our turning point was that it was February 2018. At that point, we had about 86 ,000 hours of consumer debt, 24 failed businesses. Wow. And the only thing that was left for us was that we were managing an apartment and we were living for free. Again, our income was about$30 ,000. We got home and we got an eviction letter saying, we don't need you anymore. And that kind of almost broke us. And I remember that day we were afraid. We were mad at each other for saving nothing and living for free. And I remember Roxanne prayed this very powerful prayer, right?

1:05:18Yeah, I asked God to heal our finances, to lead us to a solution, and to lead us to the right opportunity. And that's when Dave finally became open about looking into more about the FPU. Yeah, and that's when we, for me, it's like total surrender. I said, you know what, I may be a financial advisor, but as Dave would say, I don't have a six-pack, right? So I'm a fat financial advisor, so I need to have total surrender, and we went all in after that. Wow. Wow.

1:05:50Dave Ramsey:So you just plugged in online? Yes. Yeah, online, because they don't, from what I know, they don't have it like Canada. Canada doesn't like the word university when it's not like a real university, so they won't let us in there. But yeah. Wow, so cool, man. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Very neat. So what was the first thing you did to get the income up? Yeah, so. I mean, you're sitting there homeless. Almost, almost. So we started, you know, I started to apply on, I mean, full time and, you know, like we're employable. So I got full time job and then you get full time job. We started to go back to actual work because we had this mentality of, look, we want to be entrepreneurs, but we didn't want to have a full time job because we have a wrong mindset about hard work.

1:06:35So we all actually went back to full time work, Roxanne and I. And then we went intense. We had cleaning jobs. we had, you know, the best side hustle for us was like we had a, we rented our apartment that we were living in, right? Yeah. And because we were living in a two bedroom apartment and we started to rent the second bedroom to international students. And that I think it gave us like$500 extra. And then we sold our Mercedes Benz. It took us like three months to really think about it. So we sold that Mercedes-Benz. That frees more cash flow for us. And then we sold some stuff in Facebook Marketplace as well.

1:07:17And we did cleaning jobs. Yeah, everything that we saw that wasn't, you know, we had like three iPads for some reason. We sold two of them. I had an old golf club. We sold it. You know, we had an old suit. We put it in FB Marketplace. Everything must go. You know, there was a... So where did you grow up? I grew up in the Philippines and grew up in the Philippines too.

1:07:38Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. And so you moved to Canada. Yeah. Whole new opportunity. Yeah. Whole new set of things. A bunch of failed businesses take the full-time jobs plus all the side hustles, start scratching and digging, and one of those side hustles became the affiliate marketing that blew up. Yeah. Along the way, you know, I wanted to come here to thank you, Dave, because we talk about that this journey healed us because on those businesses, it wasn't the business per se. It was our impatience. We had a sickness called ABD. I call it attention business order, right? When the business became challenging.

1:08:16Dave Ramsey:Sounds like an entrepreneur to me. When the business became challenging, we said maybe there's something easier out there. But baby step two really taught us to be patient, have spirit of contentment, be creative, be resourceful. Everything an entrepreneur needs, right? And when we hit our, you know, the business along the way, it was February we started, October 2018 is when we started affiliate marketing. It took off because, you know, God blessed that business because we now have the character, the foundation that sits on it. So something. You guys are incredible. Thank you. It's amazing. Yeah.

1:08:50Dave Ramsey:Wow. Preach it. Preach it. I love it. Well done. So proud of you. Way to go. How's it feel now to be this age? And, you know, I mean, you go through all of that and now you're millionaires already. And it was not a smooth journey. It was a gut-wrenching journey, but rich, rich. And so how does it feel now that you're there? It feels weird to be weird. It feels amazing. At peace, knowing that, you know, we're taking care of God's resources. we learned that it's not our money it's God's money and we realized that if God blessed us earlier we would lose it but now because God knows that we're prepared so we can handle more when you're faithful in the little things you'll be given more to manage pretty much in his scriptures love it proud of y 'all very very well done and you brought your son with you right?

1:09:50Dave Ramsey:yes bring him up do you want to introduce him having part of this? yes How old is he and what's his name? He's four years old. His name is Caleb. Hey, Caleb. Well done, brother. He just made the handoff here. Yeah, right. I love it. Very cool. Good looking guy. Fun, fun, fun. He has no idea how much of a hero his mom and dad are. They've changed their entire lives. Very cool. Their entire family tree is completely shaken up. Way to go, Caleb. Pretty cool. You selected good parents, brother. So cool. Good job. All right. Dave and Roxanne and Caleb,$703 ,000 paid off in seven years and four months, making from$30 ,000 to$700 ,000.

1:10:33Dave Ramsey:Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. To God be the glory. We're debt-free. Yeah. I love it. Wow. That's about as good as it gets right there. Man, how fun. Way to go, you guys.

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1:13:03Dave Ramsey:If you died tomorrow, how would your family keep the lights on? How would they pay the mortgage, afford groceries? If anyone in your life depends on your income, you need life insurance. But how do you choose from all the options that are out there? Well, it's actually simple. Life insurance is one job, and that's to replace your income. If you die, term life insurance is the only thing that does only that. The others, like whole life or permanent life, try to add in investing. They end up doing a bad job at everything. You only need life insurance while someone depends on you financially. So if you're like most people, you need a policy worth 10 to 12 times your income for 15 to 20 years.

1:13:41Dave Ramsey:And it should be a level policy, meaning the premium stays the same. To find more info and resources, use our free term life insurance guide. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash Term Life Guide or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. Ryan is in Idaho. Hey, Ryan, what's up? Well, thanks to technology, I'm calling you from the tractor seat, so that's kind of neat. So I guess the main reason for my call is you always say, if you woke up in my shoes, what would you do? So I guess I'm just looking for a little advice. So me and my wife have been married about five years.

1:14:26We've had a couple of little kids, and I pursued a degree in diesel mechanics and then moved to a commercial potato farm as a diesel mechanic. So this time of year, I make a very large, substantial amount of money during the harvest, and then kind of papers off during the rest of the year as we do maintenance and other things. So I kind of live on a boom and a bust cycle, and we've kind of been working the baby steps, trying to get stuff paid off while we have the money to do so. And I've kind of just been trying to figure out what to do. My wife's been very sick. A lot of our debt is actually medical debt.

1:15:08and we found kind of a, I guess, like a hormonal therapy. It's kind of an extensive program to help her feel better, and I'm kind of in a weird place where I'm making a lot of money, and I'm like, well, do I take the money and start paying off debt, or do I take some money and help her feel better so we don't have as much medical debt in the future? You help your wife, sir, before you do anything.

1:15:38Dave Ramsey:Before you do anything, you take care of her. What's the nature of her illness? It's more hormonal. All the doctors have kind of said after she had babies, it just kind of messed with her hormones. And so we've kind of been to a bunch of different doctors. And really the biggest issue is that it's not covered under any kind of insurance. It's not anything we can just take care of. And so we've sought out a lot of professionals. So is she struggling with depression after the postpartum? Oh, all sorts of different things. Depression on top of just actual illness. I mean, she's sick all the time.

1:16:16She doesn't feel good. And trying to take care of two little kids while I'm out in the field gone all day. What's it costing you? What's it costing you to do the treatments? Are you just, you're hitting your max every year? Is that what it is? No, it's completely, it's got to be completely out of pocket. So the doctors have said it's about a$6 ,000 procedure, but I just have to come up with cash. $6 ,000. Which I can do. Obviously, I make a lot of money right now. What's a lot of money? But I won't be able to pay anything on my debt.

1:16:45Dave Ramsey:What's a lot of money? I make about$20 ,000 a month during harvest. Okay. And so for three or four months, she makes$60 ,000? Yeah, I can stockpile a lot of money right now. So you make$60 ,000 in three months, but then you don't make much the rest of the year. Yeah, what do you make the rest of the year? I average, so I make about$80 ,000 a year. Okay. And so I'd say probably half. It's probably closer to$30 ,000 or$40 ,000 during harvest, and then the rest of the year kind of evens out. So I still have a consistent paycheck. Okay. All right. Okay, so I don't know anything medically about where you are.

1:17:28Dave Ramsey:But if you have a high probability in your mind and you've solved for that, that this, I mean, you work on engines. And so if the doctors have convinced you that this will work on your wife, you know, is this a high probability of a fix? I don't want to throw$6 ,000 on something that they just hope it might work. You know, it's a 10 % probability. No, thank you. I'll figure out something else. But if there's a high healing rate for whatever it is she's struggling with with this particular procedure, and you can do it for$6 ,000, I just put that at the top of the list. Okay. Everything's paying minimum payments and you're living on a budget and you come up with six grand.

1:18:07Dave Ramsey:And then we go back to we're living on a budget and we start paying down the smallest debt to largest debt. Okay. and that's kind of what it was kind of hard because it's not it's one of those things where it's like i feel like we should pay it but even my wife's in here like we need the money for other things we're trying to pay off debts we're trying to get well i mean you're probably spending six thousand dollars on medical bills though right that's the thing if you don't do this you're going to spend the same money coming in and out of the hospital right on other things yeah i guess I don't know.

1:18:42Dave Ramsey:I don't know what you're dealing with. And I'm not a medical doctor. You know, I couldn't tell you if I did know. But it's a fairly, the way you've explained it's pretty vague. I have no idea what she's facing. But, you know, I don't know. It sounds like it's an immune disorder of some kind. I don't know, but I do know, I think the hard part is when you're wanting to go, you know, hard on the baby steps, it's hard to let other things go in front of that. But the truth is, yeah, health, health, when you have a health concern or something that's very seriously affecting your health, that does need to jump in.

1:19:17Dave Ramsey:Yeah, well, not only do we not want to be sick and not want to hurt, but on top of that, just the mathematics are you come out ahead. Yeah. If you don't have the medical bills because you paid the money to get the treatment. That's right. It's a treatment, you know, assuming it works. And that's the thing you've got to understand. Y 'all need to be your own advocate with these off insurance procedures and make sure you've got a high probability of this stuff. And it's not some witch doctor thing. I don't have any idea what you're getting into here. But I truly know nothing about it. And I can't tell anyway.

1:19:49Dave Ramsey:I couldn't tell based on what you told me anyway. So, yeah, if you think it's going to help your wife, then it gets first. but I'm going to want a high degree of due diligence to really know that I know that I know that this is going to have a you know that nine out of ten patients they do this then they quit having the ongoing illnesses right yeah that's right whatever it is we're trying to accomplish here let's let's let's see some cause and effect to this not just oh well I think this will work let's try her as our next guinea pig no I don't want to do that either thank you Kermit that's Okay, we'll pass.

1:20:22Dave Ramsey:Jay's with us in Arizona. Hey, Jay, what's up? Hey, so I got a question for you. I don't really know where to start. My little sister was killed in an accident a couple years back. Oh, my gosh. The company responsible for it basically just failed to meet a whole bunch of safety regulations. How old was she? 22. Wow. So sorry. Sorry. We have received a wrongful death payout. The grand total, I don't know about. I have requested that. I have no interest in knowing. I just want to know what affects me. And basically what affects me is that my parents have set up trust accounts for everybody with enough in them under the management of a financial advisor that I'm told that we'll set up generational wealth.

1:21:19I will not have to worry about retirement. My kids will not. My grandkids will not. And we are being given, on top of that, all of our debts outside of floor walls are being wiped out. Wow. And then a one-time financial gift of$38 ,000.

1:21:37That part sounds weird. My parents' financial.

1:21:40Dave Ramsey:Where did that amount come from? um in arizona the maximum amount that a married couple can give their kids is uh 38 000 before uncle sam wants his house got it okay thousand a person uncle sam lives in washington not in arizona that's fair um but um they've i mean they've day-branded the crap out of their finances they're almost debt-free um and they weren't five years so your mom and dad are receiving this money Correct. And you don't know how much it is. I don't know how much the grand total is. No, what I would do is operate my life as if it wasn't there. And I would say for retirement and I would say for my kids college.

1:22:23Dave Ramsey:And then if any of this money does come your way as a result of all this trust funds and all these things they're doing, then it's just gravy on the biscuit. It's just extra money. But I would continue to operate my life normally as if this wasn't there. And then if it comes fine, if it doesn't come fine.

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1:23:38Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Barbara is in Dallas. Hey, Barbara, how are you? I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm very nervous. That's okay, darling. We've never lost a patient. How can we help? I'm calling because I'm going to try to get through this without crying. My mom recently suffered a series of strokes, and since then she had some short-term memory loss, and the medical staff basically said that she should not be by herself anymore until she does live alone.

1:24:21and she lives about four hours from me. She used to live with me. I'm wanting her to come back to live with me, but I'd have to build onto my house to do that. I'm recently debt-free following the baby steps and I just don't know what to do because I don't have the money to build, saved. So I was hoping y 'all could help.

1:24:50Dave Ramsey:How old is she? 75. And you said she's had a series of strokes? Yeah, she had seven mini strokes. Oh, wow. So is she mobile? Yes. Physically, she's strong. It's more her memory that's been affected. Okay. Yeah, that sounds right. All right. What is her financial condition? She has no savings, no retirement, nothing basically. She has no money? No. She owns her house? She has a mortgage, but yeah, she has her house. What's it worth? Probably about$150. And what is owed on it? $50. Okay. All right. Are you the only child? No, I have two siblings. Okay. Are they going to take care of her?

1:26:01They are right now. My sister lives about an hour. She goes on the weekends, and then my brother lives about 30 minutes. But they work in town, so they go during the week. but she's by herself for the rest of the day. So that's probably what that would look like if she stayed there.

1:26:25Dave Ramsey:Sounds like that she needs to sell her house and be moved into assisted living to me.

1:26:33Dave Ramsey:I don't think you need to build on.

1:26:38Okay.

1:26:39Dave Ramsey:Number one, your brother and sister are in town where she is. You're the one that's four hours away. You're going to move her four hours away from them. And you need their help. And you need their help, and they're willing to help, and they're good people. They've been trying to help as best they could with their schedule, okay? Yeah. And number two, if I'm 77 and I've had a series of strokes, I don't know what my probability is to live five more years. What do you think?

1:27:09I have no idea.

1:27:10Dave Ramsey:I don't know, but it doesn't sound good. You know, I don't think this is a—most people that are in that situation don't live 15 years. Would you agree with that? Sure. Yeah, I mean, we're all going to go sometime. I'm not trying to be cold. I know it's your mom, but I'm just trying to say, you know, you don't need to go spend$50 ,000 or$60 ,000 for something that's going to be for four or five years. Even if she did live longer than that, it's probably going to get past your ability to care for her. yeah because even if you even if you took let's just say look let's say you did sell her house and take the money and use it to build onto your house it still doesn't cover the fact that you wouldn't be working because you'd be home taking care of her right because so the fact remains that someone still has to take care of her during the day yeah listen I I love your heart and I I hope my kids want to take care of me as badly as you want to take care of her.

1:28:09Dave Ramsey:I think that's awesome. And that's an act of love, and that's a good heart thing. I'm just trying to help you through the actual realities of your desire. What is your desire? What's the reality of your desire to do this wonderful thing? And then what's best for mom? What's going to give her the best quality of care? I think she's got those two kids right next to her. I would find some kind of assisted living there. and I'd sell the house and put her in that. And if she outlives that money there, then we'll work on something else. Okay. But I suspect that you could probably get, you know, reasonable care in that area.

1:28:50Dave Ramsey:I don't know. You just have to shop around and find out what's available and what can be done and so forth. Does either your brother or your sister have room for her if they had someone there to care for her in their home? They do, and they've offered for her to go live with them, but she keeps saying she doesn't want to. She wants to come here. Is there something with that? Because whenever we've mentioned your siblings, you kind of have a bit of a pause. And yet they're both doing their thing. They're helping. Yeah, they are. They are. They definitely are.

1:29:30Do you just have the closest relationship?

1:29:33Dave Ramsey:Say it again, hon. She used to live here with me. And when my dad was here, my dad passed away in 2018. Are you single? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, how many bedrooms do you have? I have a three-bedroom house. Why would you need to build on? the problem is is that she's got three dogs and i have three dogs no she doesn't this is not this can't be about dogs we're not building onto a house for dogs yeah no no different discussion yeah sorry mom you want to live here we don't have three dogs i can help you with that i love dogs i love my dog more than i do most humans but no way No way. Dogs don't make this decision.

1:30:29Dave Ramsey:This is too important, too big a decision. We're trying to figure out how to care for a lady who's had a series of strokes. And now dogs enter the discussion? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, no, she can move in with you. The dogs can't. She sells her house. And you put her in one of the bedrooms and you hire somebody to care for her there. During the day. If you don't want to put her in assisted living. It's actually a better economic value anyway. So, yeah, that's easy. Okay. Let the dogs go stay with somebody. re-home them. Is that what they call it now? I don't even care. I just, now I know what the real deal is with the situation.

1:31:03Dave Ramsey:Yeah, the kid, the brother and sister said no dogs. Yeah. And now you're going to go into debt. You called us to go into debt to build a wing for the dogs. Come on, girl. Seriously. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now we've gone. No, no, you take care of your mom. That does not include taking care of her pets. This is a lady who has no money, has saved no money her whole life, and now her family is going to have to care for her. They are not obligated to take care of her dogs. I'm sorry. Dave's so cold. He's so mean to animals. He doesn't like animals. I love animals. Yeah, but this is ridiculous.

1:31:40This is just way off the chart.

1:31:43Dave Ramsey:See?

1:31:54Thank you.

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1:33:58Dave Ramsey:They're the top agents in your area. Find a trusted local pro for free at RamseySolutions.com slash agents or click the link in the show notes. Joseph's in California. Hi, Joseph. How are you? Hey, I'm doing great, sir. I got a question about a few problems I'm facing currently. Okay. Yeah, so I've been a full-time gig worker. I've been driving for Uber and Lyft, and I financed two vehicles. The first one I financed was the Honda CR-V, and when I bought it, I bought it at the peak when prices were so inflated. Dealerships were marking up prices, and there was low inventory, and the car prices were much higher.

1:34:41So what did you pay? So I bought it in 20— I financed it for$60 ,000. This was in the beginning of 2022.

1:34:50Dave Ramsey:You financed a Honda for$60 ,000 to drive Uber. Okay, so it was like$59 ,000 out the door. Well, I mean, you financed a Honda for$50 ,000 or$60 ,000 to drive Uber. And a CRV. Correct. So the thing is, I got advice from other drivers that, hey, you can really make good money. You got financial advice from other Uber drivers. Yeah. You just said that out loud. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Okay. So you got the$60 ,000 car. What else? Yeah. And so it was just a regular SUV. And so I was making decent money at first. I was making about$2 ,700 a week easily. And then I started seeing my earnings go down because then Uber, you know, they got rid of this one program called Uber Green.

1:35:40which most hybrid vehicles qualified at the time uh and you know uber green is like that feature that gives passengers the option to ride in a vehicle that's uh eco-friendly right and so a lot of them think that uh you know a clean hybrid vehicle or tesla is going to show up to pick them up so they got rid of that feature so all hybrid vehicles don't qualify for that so then my i would say my earnings dropped by like five or six hundred dollars then i was like shoot i was talking to other drivers they were like hey you might need to level up get an excel vehicle which is like a three-row seat SUV.

1:36:12Right. So then what I did was... So did you trade in the CRV for... No, no, no. I went to the dealership. I put down, because I had savings of$50 ,000, I put down$30 ,000 to get the... It was an Acura MDX. So you kept the Honda CRV and then got an Acura MDX? Yeah. Why? They didn't want to... The dealership was like, hey, if you take it, there's a lot of negative equity. So I was like, maybe I should just keep this car. So what did you pay for the MDS? About$54 ,000 for it. Oh, Lord. But I got this a little later. I bought this one in 2024. You financed 54. So you put down 30 and financed 54? So you paid 84 for it?

1:36:59Correct. Yeah.

1:37:01Dave Ramsey:That's exactly. How old are you? I'm really pissed off at my... Joseph. How old are you, Joseph? 29, sir. Okay. All right. Do you have a real job yet? I did at the moment, but I wasn't making the kind of money that I was making doing Uber and Lyft. No, you weren't making any money doing Uber and Lyft because you haven't been smart enough to factor in all the losses on your vehicles. You're right. When you factor that in, you didn't even break even. And by the way, you didn't take out gas and repairs either, did you? Yeah, and I was going to get to that. By the time you do all of that, you didn't even make money on all this.

1:37:41Dave Ramsey:You've been working for free for Uber. That's true. At first, I saw the money was great. No, the gross revenue was great. The net profit was not great. There's a difference. Okay, so now you're stuck in these two cars, honey. What a mess. Yeah, two car loans. And do you have a job now? currently yes I do have a job what do you make unfortunately about 22 an hour not a lot okay what were you doing I don't have a lot of skills what were you doing before your Uber escapades I was just I was working as an I was just doing regular minimum wage jobs you know like working in customer service industry like fast food restaurants you know service industry and then, you know, security.

1:38:34The Acura, you put$30 ,000 down. You should not be upside down. You should be able to sell this vehicle. What's it worth?

1:38:43Okay, so if I were to sell it to a dealership... Private sale, please.

1:38:49Dave Ramsey:Private sale, not dealer. Private sale, I mean, it's worth on Kelly Blue Book about$48 ,000. And you owe what? And you owe what? uh 54 a little over 54 so and but the problem is i don't have any money left over so i wouldn't be able to pay the difference i understand that i'm just trying to you put down 30 000 you've driven it one year and you're already upside down yeah oh my gosh are you sure women that is that that's what the dealer there's just no way yeah i mean how many miles one year how many miles you put on about 30 000. oh something doesn't add is that does that sound right no i was gonna say that doesn't add up to me um okay so well here's the deal well no because it's a newer it's a 2024 that's why the value is not so low that's why i dropped so much mm-hmm it is still oh no wait i'm confused were you guys expecting a lower number than well well typically expecting a higher number yeah because you put 30 000 down which means there's that much room you had to lose 30 000 in value before you got upside down right right but when i bought it it was brand new had zero miles i could 30 000 miles on which is not a lot it is in one year but it's not enough to devour it that far um all right and they're rough miles we bring um okay is your is your is Is your credit terrible?

1:40:22Can you go down to the bank and get a loan for the difference? Yeah, it's kind of bad because I've been late for a month on one vehicle.

1:40:33Dave Ramsey:And I assume both of these loans are with the car companies, right? Yeah, both with the same, yeah. No, they're with the same? Who are they with? You know, Honda, what do you call it, finance. Yeah, they have like their own finance. Yeah, got it from the same dealership.

1:40:53Okay.

1:40:53Dave Ramsey:Well, what I'm going to do is try to scramble and get out of these cars with car loans and extra work. I want you to work a bazillion hours and not at Uber. Actually, you've got two cars sitting there. You could go make some money with Uber now and pile up some cash really, really fast. You need$6 ,000. How fast can you make$6 ,000 and just put that aside and get rid of this one car driving the other one, drive the Honda? So that's what I was trying to tell my family members, that maybe I should move to a different market where I could make that money. Because my earnings dropped from$2 ,500 a week.

1:41:26Listen, you can make$6 ,000 doing anything. I don't care if you get a job at Target. Ma 'am, I get that. It's not simple. You know, especially with, like, I got to pay for, like, groceries. I got to pay for, you know what I mean? What market are you in? That's very California.

1:41:42Dave Ramsey:I know. We're in California. Yeah. San Francisco. Okay. Yeah, you probably do need to move to a different market. You're in one of the most expensive markets in the world. The only good thing is the Uber is expensive, but other than that, your cost of living is killing you. Yeah, that's going to drive you. But I do want you to do something to earn a bunch of money as fast as you possibly can. And, yeah, if you move, that's fine. But you've got to reverse the things that are killing you. And the first thing is to not be driving the Honda, the second car, because we've got to get out of it. It's the one you have a chance of getting out of.

1:42:19Dave Ramsey:The other one, you're neck deep in it. And if you just turn these cars in, they're going to sell them for 50 % of what you think they're going to sell them for. And they're going to sue you for the difference. And you're going to find yourself in bankruptcy. And you're going to find out that Uber, your Uber career bankrupted you, along with some really stupid decisions. but that's where you're going to end up if you don't fight your way through these. So voluntary repossession or straight-up repossession are really, really bad for you, Joseph. So your best thing to do is to control the price of the sale, the sale price of the car, and the hole that you're in that corresponds to that by getting these sold, by covering the differences.

1:43:06Dave 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 smart vester program smart vester 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.

1:43:42Learn more at RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor.

1:44:04Dave Ramsey:in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage zach and mckenna are with us hey guys how are you good doing well yeah welcome to be here where do you guys live uh we're out in the seattle area in washington state cool welcome to nashville good to have you and how much debt have you two paid off a whopping just north of 68 000 nice good for you and how long did that take Took about two and a half years. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started off at about$117 ,000, took a dip to zero, and now we're looking at finishing off at about$150 ,000 this year. Good. All right.

1:44:37Dave Ramsey:What do you guys do for a living? I'm a police officer. Cool. Yep, and then I stay home with our four kiddos. Awesome. Love it, love it. Congratulations. And what kind of debt was the$68 ,000? Well, it was a little bit of everything. A big chunk of it was medical debt. We had car debt. We had credit card debt. And I think that was about it. Yeah. Pretty much everything you could have. Kind of normal. Good mix. Normal's no fun. How long have y 'all been married? It'll be 10 years. Okay. That's about the mark. Yeah. It took you that long to get there. Yeah. Okay. And then two and a half years ago, something happened.

1:45:11Dave Ramsey:What happened? Yeah. We were kind of, it felt like our paycheck was constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul type of thing. Our credit cards were just about maxed out. And when they just had just enough wiggle room, we'd pull from another account to pay for that bill and this bill. and it just got to a point where we felt like we're on a sinking ship and we just had to change something so yeah yeah it was pretty I feel like two are just our I mean we had always felt fairly stressed out you know with finances and we were always just barely making you know it to to pay our bills and and that was really stressful obviously and then you bring four kids into the picture.

1:45:49Oh yeah, sure. All of a sudden that stress becomes just even more so. And so how'd you find us? It's funny. My mom, I was a missionary for my church way back in the day and she gave me a book. The, I forget which one, we've read a whole bunch of them, but she gave it to me and I read it. And for, for whatever reason, I didn't think we had to go past the first baby step of a thousand dollar emergency fund. We did that forever. And then it was like, oh yeah, we're not supposed to have debt. So we've always been around and exposed to it. And then my little pea brain finally figured out that we're supposed to get past that, that first baby step.

1:46:19And that's kind of where we just, when we hit that head of, we can't really pay for anything anymore and we got to make a change. And that's kind of when we got back into things. So yeah. Wow. What's the

1:46:28Dave Ramsey:story on the one 17 to zero? Yeah. So I got, I worked in the tech industry and it was during COVID the market was real hot. It was really easy to get a job. And that's when I got up to one 17. And then as COVID kind of died down, I got laid off for about five months. And so that was went down to zero. And that was in the midst of us trying to pay off our debt. So that was a really big hurdle in the middle of that. And that's why I made the career change from working in tech to now being a police officer. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. And is Seattle proper? Just outside of Seattle. Yeah, real close. Okay.

1:46:59Dave Ramsey:Good for you. Yeah. Wow. Well done. That's a big deal. You know, paying off$68 ,000 with four kids at home, middle of a career change. I mean, I have some guesses, but what was the hardest part? It's just the, I think we were talking about this earlier, and for us it's just the time away. Being the sole provider, it was, I was putting in 60 to 80 hour weeks for almost two and a half years. And so it was, just the time away from the family and the kids was really, really hard. Yeah, we had a lot of conversation with the kids because he went from being a work at home dad, you know, he was at home with his tech job.

1:47:34And so it was really hard all of a sudden to have him at home 24-7 basically. and then he lost his job for a few months he was home extra and then he and then you know we made our goals and we're like we got it we just got to work really hard especially with his job he was able to work overtime and uh so I mean he's been gone a lot and he still is because we've got some goals we're working towards and um so yeah it was we had lots of hard conversations with the kids and uh luckily though they've been on board with us which we've been grateful for and um we'd rather do it now while they're little then you know later and and stuff gosh yeah yeah you're changing

1:48:13Dave Ramsey:your whole family tree it's worth it yeah they'll be better off you'll be better off everybody will be yeah the whole mindset change too is huge i remember the first time when we first were like okay we're actually sticking to a budget and we're in the i think it was walmart self-checkout and we were like a dollar over and it was for some stupid poster board and i had to do the walk of shame all the way back to the back of the store yes can't afford this like yeah it's a dollar and I can't have it. Right, but it's the principle. It is, and that's what made that change. That snaps your brain. We had to change a lot of habits of, you know, the immediate gratification and delaying that was huge.

1:48:43There was a lot of peace with that, too. I mean, even though we were still in debt, you know, working towards getting out of it, it was amazing. The peace that came because we actually were reaching. We weren't digging the hole deeper anymore. Yeah, and it was just, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, finally. I want to ask more about that because a lot of people will say, you know, When we're telling people to be gazelle intense and just really go hard and baby step two, the pushback is, well, I got to pick up my coffee and I got to do my run through Chick-fil-A, whatever. But what you said about the poster board, it is true.

1:49:14How you do anything is how you do everything. So talk to that person who says, Jade, my latte doesn't matter. Or just this one thing, talk to that person. Yeah. I mean, you get to choose which discomfort you have, right? Do you want the short-term discomfort of not having your latte or the long-term discomfort of being in debt and that stress. And for us, it was an easy choice when we put it in that perspective, that lens of what would I rather have now or in the future? And it's, it makes it real simple when you look at it in a bigger perspective. I agree. Yeah.

1:49:43Dave Ramsey:It shuts down the need for it then. I mean, what feels like a need just becomes a want and you go, I don't have to have it. I'm in control. I'm going to live like no one else so that later I can live and give like no one else. And these kids, the whole lives are changed because of you. Way to go, Hero. Proud of y 'all. Thank you. Very well done. Very, very well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Just make a plan and stick to it. It's just like working out, losing weight. The answer is really, really simple. You just got to stick to it. Just make that choice, and whatever that reason why is, make it bigger than the discomfort.

1:50:19Yeah, and I think being okay having to do a little bit of extra on the side or whatever. I mean, we had to get real creative over the past couple years, and there were times we were doing plasma. We were doing, you know, selling things. Yeah, it was just whatever we could do. We were trying to find, because every little bit just, again, got us closer to the end. It's not forever. It's a short period of time if you do it right. And it's not that, it's not that once you're done, you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad. I couldn't handle that. Who cheered you on? Our whole family. Yeah. It's her side of the family, our family that's right over here.

1:50:50They're cheering us on the whole time. Yeah, that's great to have. Yeah, we've got a lot of family that's debt-free. So a lot of them are out of debt. And so they were great because they all knew what it felt like. And so they were there encouraging us kind of along the way. Go, go, go. Yeah, I love that. It feels good. Yeah, they knew what it felt like. So, yeah.

1:51:08Dave Ramsey:That does make a difference. And it's worth it. It's worth it. You know, I know it's hard, but it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of cheerleaders you need, ones that are knowledgeable. Very good stuff. All right. And you brought a couple of the four kids, right? We did. Yep. We left two at home because they're little babies. But we brought them with us. Thanks for the debt-free scream here. Introduce these fellows to us, their names and ages. So this is Oliver, our oldest. He is seven years old, and this is Everett, five. All right. And our two little ones are Lucy, who is almost three, and then Asher, who is almost one.

1:51:38Dave Ramsey:Wow. Nice little grown family, yep. Very fun. Beautiful. Well done, guys. Proud of you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. You paid a price to win, and you win. Yep. Very well done, and a great example today on the air. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. All right. It's Zach and McKenna, Oliver and Everett. $68 ,000 paid off in two and a half years, making$117 ,000 to$0 ,000 to$150 ,000. Lots of overtime, baby. That was the solution, but now they're free. So count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

1:52:19Dave Ramsey:I love it.

1:52:24Dave Ramsey:You know, those little guys don't look unhappy. They don't look like they've been deprived. No, no. I think they're in good shape, but they didn't see their dad a lot for the last couple years. And so we do get a lot of questions about work-life balance. And the truth is there is no balance in life. You're going to concentrate what you concentrate on. Some of you have been concentrating so much on hitting the submit button after you filled your cart on Amazon. And you've been concentrating so much on going on vacations that you couldn't afford and buying cars you couldn't afford and living a life you couldn't afford that now you're going to have to concentrate on something else called work.

1:53:02Dave Ramsey:And work is what's going to get you out. My grandmother used to say there's a great place to go when you're broke. To work. It works, this work thing. Look at this guy. What a stud, man. Pretty incredible. Very well done. This is The Ramsey Show.

1:54:03Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. Jordan Peterson says you should be better than you are, but it's not because you're worse than other people. It's because you're not everything you should be. Tracy's in Virginia. Hi, Tracy. How are you? Hello. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I am looking at retiring in about three years. I currently gross about 130. I'm estimating low because I gross a little more, but I don't like to work with actual high numbers. So I gross about$130.

1:54:45I have about a$10 ,000 debt right now. $3 ,000 is a loan that my son is paying off because it's his student loan, and I told him he had to pay it back. $5 ,000 is from appliances I bought. They're interest-free until next year. and then$8 ,000 is actually on a credit card. I'm looking at whether or not I should, and I have about$12 ,000 in actual cash cash. So I'm trying to decide, since I'm close to retirement, is it best for me to pay off my house? I owe about$360 ,000 on it, and that'll be debt-free because the other debts are relatively small and I can pay them off fairly quickly. Or if I should look at supplemental income, I have about$45 ,000 in stocks and mutual funds.

1:55:43I also have an IRA and two whole life policies. Or if I should buy another property so that I'll have that as more passive income. I know I'm talking fast. There's a lot going on. I'm trying to be respectful of the time. Okay, you're fine.

1:56:01Dave Ramsey:You're fine, honey. You're doing a good job. So real estate is not passive. Okay. It's active. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate, and it has to be managed. There's nothing passive about real estate. Not even a piece of farmland that you do nothing with except hold the earth together. It's not even passive. My neighbor called, and one of my trees fell on his yard. I ended up having to send somebody over there for that. Not even that's passive. and there's nothing on there but dirt. I can't even get that to be passive. But if you deal with tenants, it's anything but passive.

1:56:37Dave Ramsey:If you deal with water heaters, heat and air and roofs, it's anything but passive. So you're going to be actively involved in real estate, and you don't have the money to play in the real estate market. Okay. You don't have enough money to fool with it. You have a good income. Yeah, you have a good income, but you don't have any money. So let me get this straight. You have$10 ,000,$3 ,000, and$8 ,000. Is that the three debts? No, I'm sorry. Overall, it's about a little more than$10 ,000. The$8 ,000 is credit card. The$3 ,000 is the student loan. Your son's supposed to be paying it, yeah. And then you've got the$5 ,000.

1:57:13He calls me the bill collector. I make him pay it every month. So he is paying that. And then$3 ,500 is for appliances. I needed to replace some appliances in my home. She said that was$5 ,000. Yeah, I thought she said it was$5 ,000, too. I'm sorry, that is five. I got it written down. I have$3 ,000 for my son,$8 ,000 for credit cards,$5 ,000 for the client.

1:57:38Dave Ramsey:So$16 ,000. So$16 ,000 clears you? Yes, but the reason why I said three is because I got my little note under here. It started off at five. It's now down to about$3 ,500. Got it. And then you've got$3 ,000 in cash? Cash enough out of your mutual funds and your funds? In cash, I have$30 ,000. Yeah, you need to write a check today and pay off your debt. Okay. That's step one. I'll just pay that off. That's step one. All right. How old are you? 56. And how much is in your IRAs and 401Ks? In my IRA, I have about$300 ,000. Yes. Okay. Is that in good mutual funds? No, no, that's in my 401K. I'm sorry.

1:58:21That's okay. My 401K is$3 ,000. My IRA is... $300 ,000. $300 ,000, thank you.

1:58:28Dave Ramsey:Is that in mutual funds? Well, it's through my job, so I don't know. No, it's a 401k. You do know. You had to select it. You just don't remember. Okay, you need to go find out what that's invested in and make sure it's in good growth stock type mutual funds. We recommend a fourth in growth, a fourth in growth in income, a fourth in aggressive growth, and a fourth in international with good long track records. If you're doing that, you should be earning north of 12 % in the last several years. Okay? Okay. Because I do know that they gave us like these boxes now that you mention it, but I don't know what it was.

1:59:09Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I want you to go back and double-check all that after you listen to this back. It'll be on the podcast and on YouTube. You can listen to it back, okay? So it'll give you all the details. So growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international, the fourth in each of those long track records that have over 10 % rates of return over the last decade or so. And you ought to be making well more than that, okay? So if you're doing that, your$300 ,000, without adding anything to it, will double about every seven years. So you're 56. At 63, it'll be$600. At 70, it'll be$1.2 million. If you don't take anything out of it, if it just grows.

1:59:48Dave Ramsey:I don't take anything. I know, but I'm telling you, they're 70, okay? Tell us about your whole life policy. I have, well, they're for my, I got them for my kids. I have two of them, one for each, my son and one for my daughter. I want to get one. I just qualified. What I want you to do is cancel all of them. They're crap. Oh, okay. It's the worst financial product on the planet. and use that money to build wealth and leave that to your son and daughter. Okay. But this is not a good place to build wealth, and dying is not a good way to create an estate. The math doesn't work out. You're going to have a better rate of return investing that money in the same mutual funds that Dave was just talking about.

2:00:37You're going to have a higher rate of compounding interest.

2:00:40Dave Ramsey:Yeah. So I do dabble, and I do use that word loosely, dabble in stock and mutual funds, and I have about$45 ,000 in that right now. Yeah, I would tell you to sit down with one of our smart investor pros, and let's make sure that you're getting 15 % of your income going into retirement, canceling the whole life policies. You can use some of that money to beef up your retirement. You're debt free, because we told you just now, write a check, pay everything off. You've got a good emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. You're in good shape there. so now all we've got to do is work towards putting 15 of your income away and getting your house paid off and so if you'll put 15 of your income away and you're in and your current nest egg is invested well you're going to be in really really good shape at age 65 and you need to be in a paid for house so if you move into 65 with a million dollars and a paid for house on top of a paid for house you're going to be in great shape and that is what you leave your kiddos and you will So that's where you'll be if you do all the stuff we just outlined.

2:01:43And it's so – it's clean. You know what I'm saying? I'm listening to everything she said and their stocks and whole life and should I do real estate.

2:01:51Dave Ramsey:And interest-free on the appliances. Oh, gosh. It's just so much. Please don't do that stuff, y 'all. No payments until the year 3039. Yeah. And then we're going to backcharge your 38 % interest through the whole stinking thing because you didn't send in the check just like we told you to. in the form we told you to send it in. Yeah, it's, guys, it's simple. Just keep it clean. Clean and crisp. Simple is best. One thing at a time. A couple of rules on investing. As we've studied millionaires, they all use the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid. They really do. And they don't put money in things they don't understand.

2:02:32Dave Ramsey:And they're steady and they're not flashy. And they don't care what you think. Yeah. And these are attributes of the typical millionaire. And we've studied 10 ,000 of them. It's in the book Baby Steps Millionaires. The white paper of the research project is in the back of the book. You can read all the detail. And you can also read the conclusions we've drawn from the actual study and from 35 years of sitting at this desk helping people become Baby Steps Millionaires. So she's right on track. She's going to be just fine. Yeah. A few little adjustments, a little bit more confidence as she steps out these things.

2:03:07Dave Ramsey:And not confidence in whole life and not confidence in fooling around with trading stocks and mutual funds. Let's just get in there and start investing. Let's just be that tortoise. Well, that's where the bulk of her money was. And stay away from, there's no reason for you to do real estate. You're not in a position to. You do not have the cash to do it. Your cash is all in 401ks and you don't have access to it. That puts us our The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.