The Price of Freedom Is Discomfort

0:00Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, Jay Basha, Ramsey Personality Number One best-selling author is my co-host today. The phone number here is Triple-A, 825-5225, Matthews in Chicago. What's up, Matthew? Hi, Dave. So I was just reaching out and keeping an eye on your stuff for years. I think I'm looking for some advice because I've adhered a lot of debt throughout the years, including my son. He got RSV when he was very young, so the NICU will add it on my credit card and over

1:01the years it just kept occurring in debt and interest. I didn't have health insurance. I did, but my co-pay and the deductible is extremely high. We don't have great insurance with my employer. Extremely hard to find. Yeah. It's just like 20 grand or something? Or like seven grand. It's about 8,9,000. Okay. Good, and NICU. Okay, and how much debt do you have today, Matthew? I, right now, I've paid down 25% that I owe about 70,000 in credit cards. How much debt do you have today, Matthew? About 190,000. Okay. And 70 of that currently is on credit cards. What's the rest of it? One car and my... What do you owe on the car? I owe about 30,000. 3,000. Okay, that's 100.

2:01What's the other 90? About 80,000 is on my mortgage. That's all I have left for my house. Okay. Okay. So your son's NICU stay did not cause your debt mathematically. Not necessarily. No, not period. It was just one debt or the need of... Period. You have a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Eight grand was your son. Right. So, you know, that's not what you lead with in your mind anymore. You caused your debt when you bought a freaking car you couldn't afford. Not your kid. There. Okay. That's what the math says. Okay. Cool. I love it. I make about 80,000 dollars a year, 90,000. Are you wife work outside the home? Yeah, she does, but she dropped part time ever since we had a kid. Yeah. But that's made of roughs. And how's the baby doing? She doing okay? Pretty good. Yeah, he's going great. Praise God. That's an important thing, right? Sure. Good, good.

3:01Okay, so we got you making 80 and her making part time money maybe 20 or something? About 40. Oh, good. Okay. So we got 120 to work with and you owe 100 plus share. Sure house. Correct. Okay. Cool. Well, that's not very bad. I actually, I sold my Tesla a few days ago because I equity in it. So I sold that and now I have some play money to play with. How much play money? About 15,000. Cool. Cool. Great. The Tesla, that wasn't the $33,000 car. That's a separate car. It's the same one. No, that's a separate car. I have a Honda Accord now. Okay. Can we sell that one or how far upside down are you? I'm upside down maybe like eight on that. Well, you got 15. So we could essentially sell that car and buy two cars with what's left to hoop these. True. Why wouldn't you do that? And you have no car payments and you'd be down to attack on the credit cards. Correct. And your wife will hate Dave Ramsey.

4:03Pretty heavy. You can blame me instead of her. You can blame me instead of you. But yeah. Okay. Here's the thing. You got two ways to go out this, Matthew. Here's what I know about you. You already are taking action. You already know where you are. And so you're way ahead of the game. Most of the time I got to talk people into getting to where you are before they call. And so you're already there. You already sold it, Tesla. I got some money to move around here. I got some things. You got to buy a car out of that money, right? Because you're only down to one car. Correct. Okay. And so you got two ways to go out this. One way, either way you start with you and your wife sit down, do a detailed budget on every dollar tonight where every dollar of the $140,000 a year is going each month.

5:04And we're going to attack these debts smallest to largest. Number two, we're cutting up every single credit card. No excuses. These things have ruined your life. They're not a blessing. Okay. Number three, then you decide, are we going to fight this for a little while? Go buy a $5,000 or $7,000 car, throw the rest of the 15 at these credit cards, get this debt snowball rolling. Or are we going to use the 15 and sell the other car and get two $7,000 cars that are paid for or $5,000 cars that are paid for and have no car payments to attack all of this with. And you can run the math out in about 20 minutes doing either one and say basically keeping the current car is going to cost us five months. I don't even throw a third option in there. My household was a one car household for quite a while just to get ahead on debt. And if that's something that could work with you guys just for a short period of time, it could really be worth it because then you sell a $33,000 car, pay for what's upside

6:07down and use the money to get one vehicle that fits everybody, do that for a while and use whatever margin is left to throw it at these credit cards. Yeah. You can play with some options. But the bottom line is if you're making $140,000, can you get out of $100,000 of non-mortgage debt? Yes, you can, sir. You can win. Would you recommend... So I have quite a bit of equity in my home. Would you recommend downsizing? Not unless you hate your house. Do you hate your house? I have no interest. No, I love my house. I paid two for five and a half. Don't sell it. You don't need to do that. Don't sell it. I would give up two years of my life on beans and rice to keep a house. Okay. And that's what you're going to do. $50,000 a year and you're debt-free in two years. There. Yes. That's $4,000 a month. It means no eating out, no vacations, no whining, everything's on a freaking coupon. Beans and rice, rice and beans. The cats on Greg's list, the dogs on eBay.

7:07I mean, we're selling everything and we're getting out of debt. So we can keep our house. Because the house is the only thing in this whole equation that's smart. Correct. So let's keep the smart thing and dump the other stuff. I saw the car 62 times for us all the house. Absolutely. Plus, I think if you keep the house, it's going to help your wife stay on board with this plan. Yeah. But you guys need to sit down together and say, if we are willing to pay a price together, if we're both willing to roll up our sleeves and be grown-ups and say, we're going to clean up this mess that is overspending and that is buying cars we can't afford, you've already started the process. You were willing to sell your Tesla. The other car is hers. I can tell by the conversation. Absolutely. And so... But he did good. He led and he went first and now it's her chance to be an adult and she can go second. That's a stud. Yeah. And that's how you draw people in instead of like, honey, I've been listening to the day Ramsey, we're going to sell your car. Don't lead without one, okay? I can start with you. That doesn't work real good. So, you know, there's a couple of ways to get at this.

8:10You sell the cars, but the house is not one I'm going to do. And 100 times out of 100, I would live on nothing for two years where our friends think we joined to cult, our family thinks we need counseling and we're getting out of that for two years. No, is the answer to every question when someone calls you? No, we can't go. We ain't got any money, we're broke people. And it's not based on your son's niggas day. That's what the math says. When you take your car to the shop, you're probably thinking two things. How much is this going to cost me and is it going to get done right? What you need is a mechanic who will give you transparent information so you can make

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10:17$100 a month invested for 40 years from 20 to 60, 25 to 65, 30 to 70, 40 years, $100 a month invested in a good growth stock mutual fund at market rates of return is $1,176,000. Based on that math, anyone can become a millionaire. If $100 a month, they'll make you a millionaire, anyone can become a millionaire. The trick is they got to do it every month and they got to start early and they have to learn some basic things like you guys are doing listening to the show. Thank you for being here. George and I are going to show you how to do in-depth investing, my personal playbook for real estate investing and mutual funds and the reasons I do some things and don't do some things, all in the next two nights. We've done this. This will be the third time we've done the investing essentials to night event.

11:20It's a lot. It's a lot of nerdy stuff. If you want the nerdy investing stuff from us, this is the place to get it. All new content this year. We're adding some stuff on wealth planning, which includes your estate plan, reducing taxes so on. So you can get your ticket and join us. This is only $199, but it's going to be like two and a half hours a night and two whole nights of stuff. I mean, a lot. If you're having trouble sleeping, I can probably help. This is serious nerdy stuff. If you like the nerdy stuff, you won't sleep at all. You'll be wide awake like you're on a red bull, but you'll like it. All right. Tickets at $199. Get them at ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. John is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hey, John, what's up? Hey, they just want to know been watching your ton of clips on Facebook over the weekend, struggling with finances and just can't seem to get ahead.

12:22So we're just trying to told my wife I'm like, you really got to do something. She found out you guys had a map. And so I just decided I was going to take a few guys to call them. I was going to call and see if there's something you can do to help us out because we feel like we're just constantly drowning and trying to get ahead and doesn't seem to work out. That's a frustrating feeling. I'm sorry. I've been there and it's no fun. I feel like I freaking rat and oil work myself to death and all I got is bonnie fingers, right? Yes, sir. So what are you experiencing? Do you feel like it's an income issue? Do you feel like more money's gone out the door or is it a combination of both? I think it's built. I mean, we have a decent money coming in. I mean, we're not living high on the hog by any means. What do you make? I make 60,000 in my salary. And then we make about another 20,000 or so with like I spark doing a second job. And then my life does it when she can. She's a stay home mom. We have seven kids. Fiber adopted. And so we just try to juggle everything we can. But we seem like we have to get alone to get by and then you try to pay that loan off.

13:23And then we have to get another one to get something else done. And it just it's just frustrating. Yeah. I mean, $80,000. You've got a big family family of nine. That's got to go an awful long way. Did you guys have a budget? We sort of do. We write all of our bills down on the paper and then we check them off as we as we pay them throughout the month. And then sometimes we get to the end and we're a little short. So then I got to go and you know, stay longer out in the evenings or on my day. Well, it kind of does need you to have. We have about 10,000 in personal loans and about 11,000 and credit card debt and almost 70 in cars and auto loans. Okay. And then we can break those down for me. What's the two cars? One is 30,000. One is almost 38,000. Okay. So one of them is the school bus. Yes. One of them is the nine passenger vehicle and the other one I just recently bought like three months ago and that's because it's a hybrid. And so I bought it brand new so that way I can do the extra income and then even try to

14:25get ahead and get better gas knowledge. What do you do? What's your 60,000 job? What kind of work is it? I'm a manager at a convenience store. Okay. Your last purchase was dumb. It killed you. It put a nail in your coffin. It was not a help. It was a hurt. I agree. Okay. You were trying to do something smart but I didn't say you were dumb. I said your purchase was dumb and dude, I've done some dumb purchases. I know what they look like. That falls in the categories. So my experience is we have a lot of large families doing the Ramsey system, the Ramsey plan. And so we see a lot of them. They visit the office here. We get pictures and videos. They post all these other things. And so we, and my experience is that people that have large families do one of two things happens. One is they completely lose their minds because of the chaos. But most often that's not the case. Most often people that have large families become highly structured and organized.

15:28Come to the point that we have people come in here with two kids and they can't seem to figure out how to get a picture taken. People come in here with eight kids and they say get in line for a picture. I know. 30 seconds later, they're already. They're so organized, structured, dialed in and they know the whole world doesn't revolve around each one of them. Instead, the unit is what matters. And so as a family, we have to learn to serve each other. We have to learn to not be the source of the drama and so on. And so that large family just does that for emotional regulation. It does that for structure and for systems and processes because otherwise you lose your mind with that many people coming at you. Does that make any sense? Yes, there it goes. I would suggest that you guys are probably that. Are you? We are. Yeah. We'll put your structure. Until you got to your money. So I want you to take this same mentality where you crack the whip, so to speak metaphorically. To keep the children in line and all lined up like little ducks, let's start making the

16:32dollars stay in line and go where they're supposed to do. Go with little ducks because you're real structured and systematized until you got to your money and then it's chaotic. Yeah, the problem is that you're doing it on paper, which you're. But not doing anything. Yeah. And even those, because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening who think, oh, I write my budget down on paper every month. But what happens when you're spending in real time? You're not going in and putting every single time that you go to the grocery store. You're just checking off. Did we buy groceries? Checking off? Did we pay the light bill? Checking off. And you've got to have the same plan for all the detailed spending and all the nuance spending in between. So we'll gift you every dollar. And on every dollar, you'll be able to put in all of your main income, but also everything you make from your side hustles. Don't leave that out. And then plan for every single dime. And that's not just the fixed expenses. It's the variable things. And it's all the fun stuff in between that maybe you guys do as a family. Make sure you're planning every single dollar. A zero based budget is what we would teach for you to do because it works.

17:32And then from there, you're going to be able to see, okay, where are we bleeding? Is there actually margin at the end of the month? My guess is you're overspending in certain areas and that's what's causing you to go to go to the end of credit card. The chaos is causing overspending because you're chaotic in the money piece versus if you were dialed in and you said, all right, honey, the two of us sit down together. This is how much we're going to spend on groceries. Period. Period. This is how much we're going to, we're not going out to eat until we get this debt cleaned up. This is how much we're going to spend on X. This is how much we're going to spend on Y. Nothing else. That's it. This is what we are. It's a statement of fact. And then you hold to that and you don't go over one of those categories because if you lay all the categories out, no one plans to be in debt except Congress. Right? You are not going to plan. You're going to lay out a plan where every dollar has a name and then you freaking stick to it and regiment the crap out of it. Well, yeah, then because when you have it in your budget, now you can look at it and say,

18:35we only have a thousand dollars of margin at that rate. It's going to take us four years to pay this off. That's not like car in about 30 seconds. Exactly, but when you know how much. I think it's got to go. When you know how much you need, then suddenly you can get ahead of it and say, at my side hustle, I have to make two thousand dollars, not just picking and being okay with however much the side hustle brings and that's just what I make. You have to set an amount and go out and get that amount and work until you bring it in. Yeah. And her job, since she's head housekeeper, head, I mean, she's in charge. She's a head home economist is what I was trying to say. Head home economist. Her job is to make every one of these dollars scream. It has to perform. The food money has to stretch. The food, every dollar, the clothing money has to stretch. Everything's got, she has to manage it with as much regimentation and discipline and strength as she does seven children so that you don't lose your freaking mind.

19:36And you can't justify the purchase of this car with a side hustle. You won't make enough by the time you're a hundred to justify this car or this side hustle. That was bull crap. You bullcrap yourself. So I would sell that car in about 20 seconds if I were you. As your business grows, everything becomes more complex. There was a time when Ramsey solutions had too many disconnected systems and not enough visibility across the business. We wasted too much time chasing information instead of making decisions. That's why we got net suite. Net suite brings your financials, inventory, CRM and more together in one place. More than 44,000 businesses run on net suite, including Ramsey.

20:38And now they're taking the next step with net suite next, making it easier to put AI to work across your entire business. Net suite next helps you make the most of your time. Automating, routine work, like forecasting demand and following up on overdue accounts. With net suite next, AI is built into everything you do. So you can ask it questions just like when you're talking to a member of your team. And right now, you can try net suite next for free. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsweet.ai slash Ramsey. That's netsweet.ai slash Ramsey. Sharon is in Los Angeles. Hi Sharon, how are you?

21:38I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I love it. Well you're in the right place, Keto. What's up? How can I, I thought that the Christ, how can I sit boundaries with my husband's spending to help our marriage be healthy and strong, but also financially protect our kids and our goals? Tell him he cannot serve in Congress any longer. I agree. Sharon, what's it, what's it look like, the spending that you're talking about? I mean, it's got you in tears, so it must be extreme. Yeah. What's it look like? It's been trying to do the baby steps for eight years. He keeps not keeping promises. This is our third time trying to get out of debt. We use every dollar. We've tried marriage counseling with church leaders.

22:41I haven't signed a contract, so desperate. We've got allowances, wealth planning, therapy sessions, weekly budget meetings, nothing is working. We're touching through $3,000 a minimum debt payment each month. So the techniques you're attempting are not the problem. No. It's the fact that you're not doing any of them as a family because he keeps breaking the contract, not following through on every dollar, not following through on getting out of debt. And so what's broken, I mean, anybody said, looked at him and said, dude, what is up with you? No. No, because anytime I try to bring something up, I get two answers. The first answer is, you just need to be patient and compassionate with them. Or the second answer goes off the other deep ends, which is you need to make a secret account and have a lifeboat bank account, that's secret from him.

23:45But I don't believe in keeping secrets from my husband. Right. The third answer and that's divorcing. Which I don't think that we're at that point because I still love him very much. Well, you just told me eight years of misbehavior and you called a show and talking to strangers and the first thing happens, you start crying. You're not in a good place. And you said, I realized that most of it is my enabling behavior. I don't think it's an abri behavior. I think it's more that he doesn't believe that there's any consequences for continuing to destroy his family. Plus, Sharon, there's no way that this behavior is just siloed to money. No, I'm pretty sure it's addiction because at this point, like finally I'm calling it what it is. It's addiction. Now, let's talk about what you said before because you said the advice you're getting

24:45is on both ends of the spectrum. I do think in instances where there's some sort of addiction, whether it's gambling, pornography, whatever it is, there does need to be a separation of finance. I'm not saying it has to be done secretly as a matter of fact, I'm saying it's not done secretly, but there does need to be a hard cut where you're keeping the money safe for you and the family. I'm sure the one that's having primary control over it because he's not well. Until he's not well and he's not able to participate today. If that's what's really going on, I don't know if I'm going to call it that or not. I think this guy's just a child. Well, I've been very patient the whole eight years that we've been going through. Oh, you've been way too. I've been eight months and I'm having a problem. But can you see the purchases or is it he has credit cards somewhere that you don't know of? What does it look like? I see everything. I am part of all the accounts very recently. I started squirreling away anytime he spends money, then I'll take that exact amount and

25:49put it into savings so that's because his habit is that if he sees the money, he spends it. It's automatic. He just has to burn a whole lot of money. What gives you the idea that it's an addiction? If you told me, Jade, he's got 40,000 worth of credit cards. I can't log in. I can't see it. My name is attached to it. What makes you think it's addiction? What are you seeing that's giving you that sign? Because we will set aside, like I said, this is our third time going through the steps. We keep bouncing between one and two over and over. He keeps making promises and we keep together. Right. Tell us what the money looks like. Tell us what you're seeing in the purchases. How much, what type of an expenditure is it? Give us those details. He's spending at least 4,000 a month on just his wants and needs, mostly lifestyle creep. Like snacks and gaming purchases and lunch for work and gifts for family members like

26:53our two step kids birthdays and money for his friends. So what's giving you addiction? What are you seeing spending wise that you're going? I don't think this is an unknown, where is it going? That's making you think addiction. I know where it's going because I'm the nerd. I think she's saying spending addiction, not side addiction. Got you. Yes, specifically spending addiction. This is not spending addiction. This is a guy who cares only about himself. This is not spending addiction. Addiction. This is extreme selfishness and extreme immaturity. How long you've been married? He's a but. Ten years. Ten years. So 8 of the 10 years. That's what's going on. You guys need a good marriage counselor that will help you form some adult boundaries that both of you agree to stick to or that this marriage ends. That's the thing Sharon, it takes two to make it happen.

27:55If you're saying it's been 8 years, he won't go to counseling. You need to go. You need to go. The counselor needs to form the words and the sentences for you that turn into what we call an ultimatum that says, okay, either we're going to be working on this together and we're going to solve this as two adults or we're going to solve it separately. You need to decide are you going to come to counseling and are you going to solve this problem because I'm simply not going to live like this. That has never been said, apparently. I don't think so. It's time for it to be said. I don't want you to divorce, but also don't want you to live in another 10 years like this. You're a basket case girl. I mean, you're all to pieces and it's not fair to live like this. I wouldn't live like this. I've cried like that, but not days on end. I get up and change something that's causing that. We're just not going to be this way anymore. We know we get those calls a lot.

28:56I feel like we get a lot of these calls and it's no indictment on men, but it just happens to a lot of times be women calling. I feel like they're willing to put up with more of this behavior because they're looking ahead and they're going, gosh, if I make this move, what does it mean for me? If I've been a stay at home mom, oh gosh, now I'm going to be a single mom. Now I have to go back into the workforce. What can I do? It's like they're just spinning out all of these hypotheticals that they don't feel ready for. I mean, I'm going to take one step at a time. Restart my career. I'm on a contact with a divorce attorney. I'm going to find out what the rules are in California about child support and alimony. There's a new bill he's going to get to pay every month called taking care of these kids. If he can't come to the table, I'm not going to live like this.

30:00That's right. And you have to decide, are you willing to live like this? If you're willing to live like this, you don't need to call us. You can just keep living like that. I can't participate in you living like that because I think it's dumb. I wouldn't do it. But I do think there's a chance he could change, but no one's hitting him in the face with a big enough tube before yet. I'm the guy that's perfectly willing. You will do this or you don't stay. It's the same thing when someone's working here at Ramsey. These are behaviors you can't continue with. We love you, but the behaviors are going to leave or you are. We don't do that here. If you want to be a we, you got to do this and otherwise you can't stay. That's how life works, shall.

31:22This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. A lot of you are just trying to keep it together all the time. You show up to work, you pay the bills mostly on time. You smile at all the right times, but no one sees you when you're exhausted. No one sees you snap at your spouse or sit awake at 2 a.m. running through everything you wish you'd done and said differently during the day. Just because you're functioning doesn't mean you're okay. Talking to someone else is a great way to process what's happening in your life and get to the root of what you're experiencing. That's where BetterHelp comes in. BetterHelp matches you with one of their 30,000 licensed therapists. Someone you can be real with and finally put down some of the way you've been carrying. They can help you get perspective and see other sides of your situations and help you move forward with a plan for getting well. BetterHelp Therapist all follow a strict code of ethics. And if the first therapist isn't the right fit, you can switch for no extra cost. Asking for help isn't weakness. It's wisdom and strength. If you're exhausted from always having to hold it all together,

32:23trust a BetterHelp therapist to help you carry the load. Go to BetterHelp.com slash Ramsey for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P. dot com slash Ramsey. Aiden is in Asheville, North Carolina. I Aiden, how are you? Hey Dave, hey Jade, how are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Excellent. So happy to talk to you guys. The good mentor handed me your book four years ago. And it's truly helped my wife and I. They off about 130 grand in debt. We just wanted to talk in my own. Good for you. We're very thankful for what you all do. So my question is a bit of a soul searching one. And it's when does it make sense to spell our house and buy a new one from a lifestyle and a financial perspective? I mean, I'd want to know what's causing you to want to do that

33:24in the first place. Is it the kids are getting older? Is it that they're moving out? Like what's driving the decision? Yeah, so we're 29. No kids yet. I bought the house in 2023 before we got married. And we're actually in like the really nice part of town. You know, we're close to schools and conveniences, but I'm more of a country guy. And my wife and I are trying to look at houses a little bit further out of town. And because we only bought the house so recently, we're kind of just, I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd and she's kind of a, uh, follow your heart woman. And we're trying to just wrestle with when do we do this? So, okay. So you bought the house before you were married and after you were married, you discovered that you bought the wrong house. Yeah. So it sounds like I bought the house. Yeah, I bought the house. This is why we told we've allowed to. It's like I would never choose this had I been been involved. Yeah. So anyway, the, um, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, you're out of debt, you said, right? Except the house or is the house paid off to?

34:26Yes, sir. No, sir. We have about 220,000 inequity in it. Okay. And what do you owe on it? About three, 15. Okay. So it's a half million dollar, 550, 600,000 dollar house. And the price of the property that you would attempt to move to would be what? It'd be about hopefully 490 to 500 is kind of the highest we're willing to go. Okay. So you're moving down in price. Mm-hmm. Correct. And as long as, and you would take out less of a mortgage, then you have now. Correct. Well, that's kind of a no-brainer mathematically. Are you doing this on a 15 year? Uh, we have been kind of, we haven't picked out an actual loan yet because we haven't, uh, we've looked at houses. We haven't actually like put in offers or listed ours yet. So, yeah. I mean, if you move down in house and you keep the same size mortgage or less, especially if then you put it on a 15 like we teach,

35:29and you read that in the book, you already know that. So, um, then that becomes a no-brainer. Yeah. And it's a house that more suits your needs. Well, that's a no-brainer. But let's say you were living in a half million dollar house, when do we make the decision to go to an 800,000 dollar house? That's a different discussion, right? Um, when you save up the money to pay the difference or when you take out the new mortgages and on a 15 year fixed, where the payments less than a fourth of your take on pay would be the maximum move up you would do. But you're not talking about moving up, you're talking about moving down. And so do it. I don't see any reason not to do you. Yeah. I mean, as long as the payment suits your, you know, your budget at 25% after taxes. And again, I'm going to push you to move it to a 15 year. You need to get in the business of getting the right follow all the way through on the total money makeover book that you got, which is baby step seven. Let's get the house paid off. You're young, you're smart. You've already paid off 130,000 and you're making good money. And you guys are making this decision together. So let's take them, you know, a 15 year fixed.

36:30And even if it means we have to cut back on our vacation a little bit or something for the first couple years, I would do that and lean into that. That's exactly how I would do it. Great call man. You're doing good. Congratulations. Bob's in Ocala, Florida. Hi, Bob. What's up? Yeah, hi, Jay. Hi, Jay. I, I've been following you guys for and I don't believe I've heard this question or, um, anything close to it. Actually, um, I do have some money and I live in Florida and you can't drive 100 yards without seeing a lawyer bill board saying, you know, we suit or we got our client $5 million and $3 million. And I'm concerned about preserving the money that I do have. And I'm wondering what, what are our insurances and trusts and what is out there that can help me preserve my money from lawsuits. If I get an offender, bender, I'm figuring a lawyer is going to say not

37:35how much damage was done, but how big is your bank account? And I don't know what avenues are out there to protect the money that I do have. Yeah, you know what? $10,000, $10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean is a start. Okay. Anyway, yeah, go ahead and send me the emails, people. I'm love reading your, your gripe and when I do something like that, it just makes me happy. So anyway, the, yeah, so what is your net worth? About two million. Good for you. Well done, Bob. Well done. Well, the first thing we would tell people to do is have a minimum and in your case, a larger one, a minimum of a $1 million umbrella policy. The typical person can add a million dollars of liability to their homeowners in their auto for around three to $400 a year for five million, which is what I would get if I were you. Okay. Then that's going to cost you 1,500 bucks a year.

38:41And so if you have a wreck and it's your fault or you get blamed for it being your fault, whatever, and someone wants to sue you in your example, then the first five million is going to come out of your insurance company's pocket, which is going to take care of 99.9% of the greedy lawyers and their customers. Okay. And that, so that's the first thing. In my case, I carry an umbrella that's even larger. The second thing you can do is you can move properties and or assets into individual LLCs. And then the thing that happens in the LLCs, the thing that the LLC owns as the only thing that can be sued. So I'll give you an example. I've got one LLC that's got five houses in it. Attendant the other day had a, not the other day, a few years ago, had a guest over who got drunk off his butt and fell off the porch and broke his arm.

39:41And guess whose fault they thought that was? Someone who's not attending the party, me. Okay. So they decided to sue the landlord because this drunk bozo friend fell off the porch and broke his arm. Well, number one, it didn't get very far. We beat the snot out of him with a lawyer on our side because they deserve to have the snot be out of him. But I'm threatened to sue the other lawyer just for malpractice for even taking the thing on. But had they prevailed and won a five or a 10 million dollar judgment against us, the only thing they could have taken would have been the things that that LLC owned, which in this case would be five houses. So it'd be a lot for one drunk bozo. But still they wouldn't get all the rest of the real estate I own or anything else I own. They wouldn't come over and try to take Ramsey. They wouldn't have done anything like that because they couldn't because Ramsey doesn't own it. You know, the other LLCs don't own it. The only thing that owns that property and all the businesses done in that LLC. So you can put your personal residents in something like that or you can put it in a trust. You can put your investments

40:44in that to at this point, Bob, we've kind of seen it all in our place. And so I don't own anything anymore. There's not a single thing in my personal name. Even my cars are in LLCs, which is the most stupid thing in the world, but they are just because what you're talking about because if I bump into somebody, they're going like, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. What's your name, Dave Ramsey? Oh, God. You know, it's like, right? So I messed up. That's what's coming. So I think I think I just died and came back to life. Yeah. So that, but that's what you're worried about, Bob. And that's a real thing out there because we live in a litigious culture. How do you decide where to cap the LLC? Well, where we have a piece of property that's a large piece of property. It's a singular LLC for the property. The old office building, the old financial piece plasas are worth about 13 million. It's own LLC. Okay. And so on houses, we just decided randomly five of them.

41:45Yeah. Okay. Because it gets up to, you know, it gets three to five million dollars in there. And then they don't get a hundred million dollars worth of other stuff. Right? Yeah. So, but the problem is now I've got all these LLCs. So my tax return looks like a phone book. I'm sure it does. So, but that's part of the risk. And none of its for tax purposes, by the way, it's all for risk management. So, trust and LLCs dividing up properties, making the targets smaller by the greedy lawyers and their dysfunctional clients. And then on the other side, big umbrella policies. And those are the two things people do primarily, Bob. Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. If you're working the baby steps, every major expense deserves a second look. And healthcare is one of the biggest expenses in most families budgets. And that is why I

42:49recommend that you check out Christian healthcare ministries. CHM isn't insurance. It's a health cost sharing ministry. That means members help pay one another's medical bills. And they've been serving Christian since 1981. CHM programs start at just a hundred and fifteen dollars a month. And here's why that matters. If you are paying more than you need to for healthcare, that money could be going toward paying off debt, building your emergency fund, or reaching your next financial goal. And your monthly cost isn't based on your medical history or where you live. Y'all a lot of families find CHM gives them more room in the budget. That's why so many members say they're better with CHM. And right now new members can receive a 50% credit towards their first month of membership. Go to CHministries.org slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's CHministries.org slash budget and promo code Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio. Stephanie is with us in Phoenix,

44:00Arizona. Hi, Stephanie. How are you? Hi guys. How are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm a recently with my husband and I got married in May. Currently we're debt free except for the house. And I'm calling because we want to go our family and have a baby. But we're trying to figure out how to afford it. My husband's income isn't enough to support us financially. So my main question is how can we prepare to be a single income household when we currently need two incomes to survive? Well, there's no magic wand, Keto. I know. You're working or he's making more money, right? Yeah. So which is it? Or it might be it might be in where you live. It might be in your rent or mortgage. What does he what does he make now? So my husband currently makes $38,000 a year. What's he do? He's a mail carrier for the USPS. Okay. And what do you make? I make about $3,600 a

45:02month and I work as a server at a restaurant. Okay. So when you guys were dating and talking about marriage and getting engaged and having babies and all that kind of stuff, you probably talked about this. Yeah. We did talk about it. And he used to make about 75,000 a year working as a bartender, but we didn't have any benefits. So he switched jobs so we could get health insurance. And I still wonder if that was even the right. No, not mathematically. For $40,000 worth of benefits. I don't think so. Yeah. How are you guys living? Are you renters? Do you own a place? What's it look like? We own our house. We owe $364,000 on it. What's the mortgage itself is $2,200 a month. Yeah. So I mean, it 100% is an income problem. And the question is, is there something that you can do part time to close those gaps? And if not, if there's nothing that you can do even part time to close those

46:03gaps, then he's going to have to look in a different career field. Because did he set out my next. How old is he? 38. We're kind of at that stage where if we need to have a baby soon or we're not going to have one. Okay, that's not the point. I mean, it is the point. That's why you call. But the thing is this, if you if this was not the way the question was framed and a 38-year-old guy called me and he said, I make $38,000 a year and my wife wants to stay on with baby, I would have said pretty simply, you need a different career path. And this is your wake up call. You probably needed one anyway, honey. He did, right? Calling him honey. And so, you know, he probably needed to be thinking about that anyway. Going, okay, I don't want to be a 84-year-old one of these, right? I don't want to be a 64-year-old one of these. I want to be a 64-year-old. It makes a hundred and $40,000 a year. And so I'm going to be thinking about what I want to be in the next chapter of my life. And what is it? What does that thing I want to be? Require of me that I don't have now. Do I need to get a

47:08certification? Do I need to get a degree? Do I need to get a printus program or a mentorship program? But the average household income in America today is about $80,000. That includes some single earners and some dual earners. You guys are just below that. As a dual household, if we go to him as a single household, then you would be by far, well, in the category of lower income and a lower income done living at $300,000. Right. So, all that to say, you know, I'm going to sit down with both of you and say, what career adjustments can you make that over the next 10 years makes this dual. But we don't want to wait 10 years to have kids. But we've got to have a light at the end of the tunnel. And you're not going to get a hundred percent raises as a male career career. Right. So, you just simply can't do the life you're doing on his income mathematically.

48:15And so, I'm going to figure out what I want to be in the next chapter of my life. And it's not this. Yeah, I mean, I hear three goals that you want. Do you want a baby? You need more income and you want to be a stay at home mom. And so, you've got to decide which is the highest priority and something's going to be a trade off. If you want to do this before, like you said, you don't have a lot of time, then you might have to consider having a baby and not staying home for a while. Like, you might have to give and take it order to get what you want. Why are you building his career track change might take a three-year curve. Exactly. And you may want to have a baby during that time. And so, you keep working. Yeah. People do it all the time. And it's a sacrifice, but sometimes, it's like that. People do it all the time. And so, but there's no, have your cake and eat it too mathematically. You've got to mathematically, you have to face the math. Math will not bend to your passions, wills, desires. It will cause you to change how you're doing those things so that the math changes. Yeah. And we can give her find the work you're wired to do. She can pass on to her,

49:17has been and hopefully that'll get the juices flowing on a new career path. Yeah, that's what needs to happen. Yeah. So that was a fine career path. There's nothing wrong with it until you add these other goals. Yeah, that's true. And then it exposes the fact that it's kind of stuck. Mike's in Bismarck, North Dakota. Hey, Mike, what's up? Hey, my or hey, David and, uh, Jid, super, super excited to be on a call with you guys. Thank you. So I have a quick, um, financial question right before I get to it. I just want to say the impact that you guys have on people goes far beyond finances. The beginning of this year, I made a goal to run a marathon or a half marathon. And every day I went out training, I listened to you guys to show the day of the race. I ran and finished to you guys to show it. Wow. Thank you guys do. Good for you. Thank you guys. It's, it's what you guys do. It's, it's pushing people to be better in all aspects of life. It doesn't come easy. Thank you. Good for you. Thank you guys. Um, so my question is I have three retirement accounts, one from my current employer, one from a past employer, and then my personal

50:22Roth IRA. And it's the one from my past employer that I'm wondering if I need to move it over into my personal retirement account. And here's why. So it, I used to have a high school teacher in the state. And so I have a state funded, uh, retirement account that currently has $32,900 at it. Yes, I would get online and get a smart investor pro and sit down with them and do a direct transfer roll over from that account into an IRA immediately. No, no question. Okay. Because the options that there's 8,000 mutual funds to choose from when you do that. You have limited options at your old workplace and probably a state funded retirement account. It probably sucks. Most of them. Yeah. Right. And that was the two reasons why I haven't done it is because yes, the return is basically five to six percent at best at worst, zero percent. Yeah. That's horrible. And, and, and, and it was kind

51:24of that security blanket of like, well, if everything goes a wire, I'm not going to see that number go down. But again, it's not ever going to climb up. And then the other side of it is if I would happen to go back and teach for one more year without touching anything in that account, then I'll qualify for a pension. And so that was the other side. I'm not going to listen to that. Here's the thing. In 23, the market went up 26% and 24 it went up 25% and 25 it went up 18% and 26 is up 14% so far. If you had started in 23, the 32,000 would be 64,000. And then you wouldn't care about a stupid pension because your money's growing. So you need to get your money growing, man. I would move it and it won't be it won't be the exact same account you can put in the same mutual fund, but there's separate account numbers, but it's called a direct transfer rollover. Anytime you leave, people take your 401k and roll it. Take your retirement and roll it anytime you leave. You can always

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53:26Trust to leave me to Smackdown Data Brokers and protect your personal info so the game of whack-a-moll can finally stop. Go to joindeleteme.com slash ramsi and you'll get 20% off an annual plan. That's join j-o-i-n deleteme.com slash ramsi or click the link in the description. John is with us in New York City. Hey John, how are you? Hi Dave. I'm not doing better than what I deserve to be honest with you guys. Me and my wife right after coffee we bought out our apartment and things were great and life was good. After a few years we felt like the condo was too small. The two of us were not enough as a family so we had our daughter and we moved in a bigger house. Things were fine. I did not really

54:28feel like the 30 years mortgage was that bad and we kept leaving our life very humble. So a little not time my job changed and started making more money. My income increased, received a promotion, another promotion, I worked more and more and I shared those promotion with my wife but she doesn't really know how much money I really make. So I quietly started to use the extra income to change our future. I paid off my car, her car, I made some improvements in the house, open IRA, raw taray, I opened a four-one K with her employer. At one point I even increased a weekly contribution to 75%. So you know I started talking the house, the mortgage. I want to get rid of the mortgage of our primary residence and a little over two years I paid down an amount of money that honestly surprises me and we gone from a 30 years of change almost to the finish line and if everything goes according to the plan I could potentially pay off our home by next Christmas

55:29and that brings to me the question I want to ask you today. Should I tell her now or should I just wait and do things that we have been doing them and eventually give to my family the best Christmas they could possibly imagine by just saying guys we are rich, we made it and so this is my question for you guys. What should I do? I just think that you have a good intent. You know I think you have a good heart. I could tell it by at the end you want it to be a surprise for your family but the question I have is why didn't you want your wife to be a part of it all along. Is that a cultural thing? Are you Indian? No no no it's not a cultural thing. I would say that this is more of a race that I'm running you know with myself with with step one and two intensity with gazelle intensity. Part of me wants to tell her everything I want to share the excitement because this is our life, our family and this is not a goal that I was able to reach together but at the same time I think

56:33that maybe she doesn't need to carry the weight of the race that I decide to run. She's happy. Sacrifices without knowing. She doesn't see the money that are in our account. And the widows that I have dealt with when their husband did this and thought he was giving her gift but left her ill-equipped to handle the real world when he died because she's never actually faced the real world because she was so take care of for. The old fashioned term would be a kept woman and while I'm with Jade it's a good intent but you've robbed her of the adult part of this instead of the child process. It's like you're giving your daughter a gift instead of having a full grown woman walking beside you and enjoying carrying the weight and being your partner and those kinds of things. That's been taken from her and so and she might be okay with it. I mean

57:37I remember like when we went broke my wife before we went broke my wife used to say things like whatever you want to do honey and she meant it. She didn't want a fool with it and just go do whatever you want to do. Well I drove the dead gum car off a cliff. In your case you did the other way. You've been very smart, very wise and have gotten raises and have ever gotten you know you've prospered but whatever you want to do honey leaves the other partner without emotional and without the emotional muscle to carry on if something happens to you. Yeah you're not a bad guy. I know you're a wonderful guy. I think you're I think you guys leaned into what you were most comfortable with not necessarily what was best for each of you going forward in a partnership. You're more bent towards being a nerd. She's more bent towards whatever you want honey but sometimes we have to press ourselves to be what's better for the partnership. Yeah that's a good point. So

58:37what would I do in this situation? If you've got everything paid off by Christmas the difference we're sitting in August right now the difference in August and December doesn't matter in this discussion so if you want to unveil and have the big Christmas surprise that's fine. There's worse things that's fine but but after Christmas and January each month I want her to spend 15 20 minutes with you looking over where are the money's going and being a grown-up and making the decisions with her husband and being aware of what things cost what it takes to live and so on and and again so that in a worst case scenario where she's left without you because of the proverbial milk truck right poor milk guys they get to blame for everything but all the number of deaths by milk truck hypothetically are a lot versus the ones that actually occur is almost none but anyway yeah the yeah you get hit by the milk truck and she's left there she doesn't have any she doesn't

59:43understand reality that's right and we get those calls oh we get them in there if they feel very helpless there's no muscle tone in the math and in the you know and they're like you know they say things like but I I really I want to know you really can't you know any money or you've got enough money and calm down yeah and I just want to say because I know there's a lot of couples who operate just like this it's kind of like whoever's been towards money and being the nerd they do that and whoever has no interest in it whatever you want honey and yeah and I just think it's it's worth it to know you know the way that we teach it's okay for someone to take the lead in the area you know it's okay for someone to be hey I'm the one who kind of gets out the budget I'm the one who says hey today the meetings coming up but the other spouse has to attend they have to pay attention they have to have eyeballs on it they have to make approvals right you can have a you can play a part in the process without being the main lead and I think that's the thing because

1:00:46when you do at least you know how how much money you have where it's going where it's being invested you've agreed yeah that's the right amount for groceries you've agreed yes that's the right amount for vacation or what have you and then each person has a say in it even if the nerd is the one that you know filled in the numbers yeah exactly and and it's just a healthier environment when things come up then I mean and usually it's when there's a problem right this is exposed not in his case everything's going good how good for him so there's no there's the the system he's using has never been stress tested yeah you know and when you start stress testing your system that's when you can tell if something works or not in my case we start stress testing whatever you want to do honey and we discovered that honey wasn't doing bright stuff me yeah and so like I went broke because I borrowed too much money honey and so you know that that was what happened now would her objecting to that have kept that from happening probably not

1:01:47we probably would have argued and I would have won the argument but but still the the idea that she had I remember distinctly walking down the street one night and saying um the kids were you know had just gone to bed it was early like eight o'clock at night and uh high stress in our house and going um well I don't think we're gonna make it I think I don't think I'm gonna be able to turn this I think these guys I've been fighting them for a year and a half and I think it's gonna come unravel and she said well I had a feeling and I'm it yeah you had a feeling she had no knowledge of exactly the tactical nuanced garbage I was shoveling that I had buried myself under and so but I remember having to confess that my plan uh what was causing us to baby bankrupt and then she had an opinion and uh no I don't know what she still like to hurt she she didn't say whatever you would undo honey but um she didn't say well I told you so because she didn't you know so can't really do

1:02:54that if you didn't do that so but it was more of a like I had adapted to the stress and to the reality that we were gonna lose everything and then she had to swallow all of that at once yeah that's tough and that's that's not fair yeah you know and that's not John's situation he's on the other end you know like she she has adapted to um not having to be stressed about anything and now she's gonna get a big Christmas present yeah and what a great guy though he's a good guy he had a good heart yep hey George camel here listen if you're behind on dead payments and drowning in debt I already know what you're thinking I can't afford a lawyer to help and honestly that's exactly what creditors

1:03:58are counting on but here's what most people don't know guardian litigation group doesn't work like a traditional law firm there's no massive retainer there's no hourly billing that costs more than the debt itself guardian is a law firm built specifically for people in default behind on payments or staring down bankruptcy and their model is designed so people in that situation can actually access real legal protection from day one you're assigned an attorney if a creditor suits you you have someone who can actually represent you not a call center that isn't built to defend you in things escalate the best path out of debt is still doing it the right way budgeting working the plan changing the behavior but if you've already hit a wall and you need real help guardian delivers their attorneys have settled over six hundred million dollars in debt for more than fifty five thousand people so go check it out for yourself guardian lit dot com slash ramsey that's guardian l it dot com slash ramsey attorney advertising results may vary in no specific outcomes guaranteed I'm so excited about a i everybody's all worried that it's going to take over the world like robots

1:05:11are going to tell you what there's an all bull crap so here's the thing about artificial intelligence artificial intelligence is artificial it's not real that's helpful if you think about it the other thing about artificial intelligence that you need to know is it can only regurgitate spit out an answer based on the data set that it's operating from so unless you feed it garbage or you allow it access to a garbage dump like Google allows their artificial intelligence to search reddit so you're going to get trash out of that because reddits full of trash if you allow it to search tick-tock you're going to get trash okay so that's a data set we decided our team decided to take uh... three years of this show with the answers from jade and Rachel and George and me and deloney and every book that we have all written all the best seller books and they're over

1:06:14two thousand articles that are on our website on all kinds of different money subjects and dump them in as the data set and the tool is called ask ramsy and so if you can't get through here on the air and it's kind of hard to do you can't get through to us to get your question answered just go to ramsy solutions dot com click or click the link in the description and use the free ask ramsy tool and it will give you an answer that sounds exactly like you would hear here on the air because it's what you because it's from what you would hear here on the air we didn't pollute the data set with a bunch of trash from redditor tick-tock or some bozos opinion about something we don't need any bails opinion we're right this is what ramsy says if you want to know what ramsy says ask ramsy janits in canada hi janitor are you i'm great thank you how are you better than i deserve what's up i have a daughter who is a young adult and she's also neurodivergent

1:07:17if you're not familiar with that term it means that you know she might be in pulse of lack sort of regulatory like is she on the spectrum is that what you mean well one between autism and ADHD if you met her high functioning okay got you yeah she's being lovely um the implication is when it comes to finances or financial decisions she doesn't have the same control or she she might be in post with an agree with something and because she can legally find leases or agreements she has gotten herself into some situations where she's disadvantaged and as a parent i'm happy to see her being independent she's moved out of the family home she has a job but it's low pain so i do help a little so that you know she can buy forward food so that she can get therapy

1:08:25that she can continue to expand life how old is she she's at 25 okay very cool what's her attitude about accepting advice from you well accepting advice is limited and that's part of part of the DNA of sometimes people that are neurodivergent um well she's open to she's open to persuasion by others but not by you correct correct um you know sometimes social cues sometimes understanding the big picture seeing around corners that's not only the strength and sometimes there's a lot of that's not the strength but what i'm asking for because basically you there's no middle ground with this you either have got to leave her where she is which is what I would love to see uh and that she's standalone she makes her own decisions or she's declared incompetent

1:09:27and then you just have to care for her and i don't i would not want to go there this you've come too far you've come too far in the right direction and so uh things have turned out at at the best that you would hope for i assume and so um i'm happy for her but you know that what goes with that though is i would ask her that as a part of her independence that it's wise for her to remain humble about asking for help opinions on things uh to keep her as a safeguard to keep her from getting taken advantage of and so uh i'll give you an example in a different setting and it's not exactly the same but it's the best i can come up with it on off the fly it's uh when we teach people uh to start handling money together uh one of the things we found is is that uh if a married couple will agree to not make a decision unless it's a in the budget or b anything over a thousand dollars

1:10:29we have to do two things one in is we have to talk about it and two is we have to wait overnight and so this is an act of humility to submit yourself to that system to keep you from being to keep a person that's not got the issues your daughter has but people like me to keep me from overspending it at at sam's club right yes and so i got to check in with my wife it's got to be in the budget and i can't come home with a new basketball right and so um and um just because of my emotional immaturity in that case right but a little different but it still has the same effect so i've submitted myself with humility to a system that protects me from my impulsiveness and that's called growing up now i don't know how that applies in this situation but if we could get her to do that and say honey you do whatever you want you're independent but for your own sake please agree to

1:11:30check with dad or check with me or check with your pastor i don't care whoever it is someone outside the deal before you do a deal of a certain size and it'll keep you from getting screwed over honey yes and that's that's excellent advice i think the complexity to this situation is um she actually has a decent amount of money and you might say how did she get a decent amount of money but she ran her own business at different stages and it was cash business and she actually has a decent amount of money um up and invested but she's entered into life which is moving out and moving you know on her own and now um because of the lack of judgment because of the lack of understanding of uh financial agreement she's burning through that money yeah yeah um and i would

1:12:33sit down with her and scare her about that honey that's not working will she be oh does she is she able to follow the advice that that davis suggesting or will her impulse take over in a moment that's an excellent question thank you for asking i think because there's a high functioning functioning individual it's almost like they're we're battling like a teenager would yeah yeah a little bit different so um having a parental uh voice or having um the scaring there's a high desire to be independent and on the one side i think yes let her create her own problem no i don't i don't want to do that that's not that's not the purpose of the call but but here's the thing it's a little bit like one of my teenager would say dad treat me like an adult and i would say sure act like one and that applies to the situation you want independence you don't be left alone then act in such a way that you're not going to lose your independence because

1:13:37you lose all your money with bad decisions and that means the bible says in the multitude of counsel there is safety and that applies to all of us to get counsel there's safety and that's just what smart people do regardless of our issues and we've all got something um but yeah i mean she's going to have to deal with that to maintain her independence or she's going to lose her independence because she's going to lose her job she's going to lose her money she's going to be handcuffed by these car leases and all these people that ripped her off uh and signed her up for a bunch of stuff because she would not humble herself to the idea that i need other people in my life which by the way we all do that was kind of my point it's not unique to her and that's part of being a teenager moving into adulthood too dad i just want to be an adult great act like one adults talk to other people for they make big decisions and then they get to maintain their independence they don't lose it

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1:17:05yrefi dot com slash ramsie might not be available in all states okay today's question comes from rane in west virginia she says my husband and i disagree about what to do for our daughter she is an 18 year old incoming college freshman we have a five twenty nine for her and she has scholarships so college is paid for she has some money and savings and her checking and she's not a spender so she won't need all of that anytime soon i suggest i suggest we help her open a mutual fund account to allow a portion of her funds to grow so that she can use it when she graduates to start her life he wants to put money in a retirement account because she is so young that a small amount can end up being more what is the wiser thing to do i have a couple of thoughts on this assuming it's if it's her money if it's money that she has i would just have her put it in a h y s a high yield savings account have it there let it grow that's her emergency fund that's money for her to continue to build on later on if she wants to you know one day have an

1:18:09apartment as she's ready to move out and start life on her own if it's money that's coming from you all i you know i davi i'm the type if you want to gift kids money i kind of feel like now is more helpful than later like them making a retirement account for her it's like that's really nice but i would be more likely to throw it in a brokerage account have it build up you guys still have control over it but when you're ready to gift it you can i'd probably go that route yeah i like that i like that the thing is we don't know how much money we're dealing with here we don't in this call and this there's a lot of things so if it's five thousand dollars it's one discussion if it's fifty thousand it's a different okay it sounds like it's i'm just i just have a field that is north of twenty or something okay and so it's enough that it doesn't need to be sitting and checking right so so there's a couple of things this can be used for if it goes into a simple brokerage account into a mutual fund some of it let's say let's say there's thirty thousand bucks

1:19:11there and you move twenty of it that way okay that could be the purchase of her first house when she gets out of college and talks about getting married or just purchase her first house when she gets out of college whichever right that that could help move that that way if it's fifty thousand there's another thing oh by the way there's another thing let's we can add some money to this yeah you can pull out of the five twenty nine and you should pull out of the five twenty nine the amount equal to the scholarship with no taxes that's very good that's a good loophole and i would take that money and do her do a Roth IRA because only seven thousand bucks do a Roth IRA and then do the rest of it towards a brokerage account for the house now we're talking like it's a lot of money so if it's all five thousand bucks then we're not doing that okay but but if there's twenty thirty forty fifty thousand dollars including what you're pulling out like every semester that she doesn't have to pay tuition you're allowed to pull the equivalent amount of cash out of that tuition out of the five twenty nine completely tax-free and then I would

1:20:15use that maybe to fund the Roth and use her stuff to fund her future that's cool house purchase or something with an hsa i'm sorry how you'll saving his account and maybe a little mutual fund in there so some some some some some mix of all of that would be there the big thing here is not actually the money it's the teaching moment with her you've done a great job not being a spender and this gives you the opportunity to think long term i wouldn't only think retirement long term that's too far out there but if i got enough i would throw some that way just because the numbers are real and then but i would also so i can't think you all win the argument here yeah i i i yeah i would do all of it if you can and if we add to it that you can pull out of the five twenty nine equal to the scholarship tax-free that helps the equation even more so that that might be the way to do it but i agree with you the the biggest thing here is it's kind of like when somebody calls says hey my 16 year old has five thousand dollars they've

1:21:17been cutting grass mm-hmm they want to open a mutual fund that's okay well we got all this compound interest for the night next four hundred ninety two years it's gonna be a lot of money yeah sort of it's hard for the teenager to get excited about that but that's the biggest issue the only reason you the big reason you don't want to open a mutual fund for a 16 year old is for them to learn how mutual funds work and learn that their hard work can be put to work in an investment i want them to get those emotional philosophical mathematical understandings more than i'm worried about what five thousand dollars will turn into when he's 65 yeah that's you know it will turn into a lot of money because it's a long time to compound but it's still not you know it's not twenty million dollars or something right you know so it's it's but teaching the kid how to invest and how to work hard and how to live on less than he makes and how to have the the chops and how good it feels to see your mutual fund statement come in and know how to calculate it that's cool little nerdy but it's a pretty cool pretty cool skill and by the way that's what rich people teach

1:22:19they teach their kids how to handle money and they talk about money because they have some and it's that that's how that's what the thought discussion is around the kitchen table so make that the discussion this is a good question by rn i very good question tony's an oh my god Nebraska hey Tony what's up how's it going thanks for taking my call sure how can we help so i was calling by the potential career move that i don't know if it's a good idea or not right now i have a interesting job where i'm gonna make around 24 bucks and how i work for a local i mean this poll so i i uh i work for the parks department how are you rent utility free i'm i'm 35 okay your single and uh uh yep i'm newly single i i have two kids okay i got a so you make twenty four dollars an hour and you're thirty five and you work for parks and rec yeah so i make around fifty eight k a year because i get a lot of overtime um but that's i also

1:23:23have to live rent utility free and after that's all factored in it's it's not too bad um my main thing is the amount of overtime and working weekends i have to kind of juggle like my kids and so the other option that you have what the other option i have is another job which would be monday through friday and i'd make anywhere from 60 to 66 k a year i also do high of additional income coming in i'm i'm the i play gigs around the area and i i pull in around like why would you not take the job with more money is it because the rent the rent allowance the rent around here like when i do the math it's i do it actually be less money on paper no it's not i'd be you're doing the math wrong so you're making a you're making a total of eight thousand more a year you're not making fifty four at twenty four dollars there's not that many hours on the calendar i think uh so i work six days a week

1:24:30i work overtime on top of that yes so what are they paying the triple time and overtime uh it's sometimes built on holidays it's double time uh like the highest year i've ever made was sixty grand and you're working like eighty hours or ninety hours to do that is to twenty four dollars is thirty thousand what do you bring home a month of i so my paychecks and that's that's before tax and that's that's before my pension uh no i know i know what do you bring home what do you bring after tax home every month so after after tax on every month about let's see when i'm not working overtime to about twenty four hundred a month which is thirty thousand dollars a year oddly enough but yeah that's not fifty so right and so you're telling me you're making another twenty five thousand dollars an overtime bull you know you're not mathematically impossible dude you're doing your math wrong you can't do it i'm

1:25:33scaring up here but i don't either i'm either but i mean you'd have to be making sixty dollars an hour and working another forty hours to get there you're just not doing it it's not it's not happening on a month with overtime what what what's your paycheck so my paychecks i'm bi-weekly it could be depending on the overtime between like uh sixteen eighteen hundred that had two thousand dollar paychecks bi-weekly okay um it's just kind of all it's just depending on what's going on yeah i would take the new position buddy i don't think you're gonna have to work as much if you take the new position as well take the new position you're gonna make more money and work less and you have to buy your own apartment why yeah just go rent your own apartment and get your life back you're starting over after your family falling apart and you need the margin you need the you need the time in there you're working all the time now

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1:27:50welcome back to the ramsi show in the fair winds credit union studio i'm Dave Ramsey jade washall ramsey personality is my co-host today chris is in seattle hey chris what's up in your world hi Dave my call today i really appreciate it sure how can we help um well i have a real estate so my wife and family and i we are moving out of washington state we're moving away and there's a lot of people that are leaving washington state right now and because of that the market is really flooded our property would be considered luxury real estate at this point and all luxury real estate specifically is really dumping into value right now so we could all the rich people are lily sale it exactly you are 100% correct and family people are leaving as well so we basically are at

1:28:56point where we have we just built an ad on the property i was the general contractor for it we were able to build that without taking on any debt and if we have to fire sale this place we'll be taking will be basically breaking even on what we put in to it over the last several years but we could sell it and it would give us enough equity where when we move we could be debt free or thanks to our low mortgage rate that we have here and you know we didn't take on debt to build the ad you we could keep this property use it as a cash flowing rental immediately and we would still be able to afford our new mortgage payments at our new home and that's just kind of where we're stuck is we have two good options and we just don't really know which one's the better one to take i would not invest in real estate in an area that i believed was going in the wrong direction

1:30:02that's very true and keeping this is the same as investing yes yes it is because if you believe it's going in the wrong direction that you're going to continue to see a flooded market and values are going to stagnate or drop if that if that actually occurs okay i don't know i don't know the market and i don't know what's going on i'm going on what your observation is but um for the same reason that you're leaving i would not keep it as a rental is that logical that's that's very logical it's also what i you'd say i'm predicting now the other thing the other thing is this the other thing is this you could it sounds like you guys are in good shape financially we are okay which means you could have patience on selling the property patience equals price yes and that's yes um one thing that we are

1:31:12considering as well is uh take it off the market let it be a rental for about 18 months until we get into the spring of 2028 and then attempt to resell it then if no skin off our backs will definitely be able to get renters that are going to cover the mortgage see if the market heals a little during that time you feel there's some indication the market will get better in that 18 months not worse no okay i mean i'm not i'm not i'm not being i really don't know i mean i think that's a fair thing to think of if to Dave's point there's some indicator that it's going to be better you're not saying hey i'm renting with the idea to be a renter i'm just renting this to buy time until i can sell it for fair price i feel like those are two different two different things yeah in the second makes sense i guess it's not to be it does make sense and not to be too political about it but there's a

1:32:13key bit of legislation that's that's in contention in the state right now that's a millionaire's tax yeah if it gets struck down by the people which it might the conditions in Washington state will bully and they will get better they want to be as good because the damage has been done but right now the potential buyers for a property that we're selling are very limited because they are the type of people that are currently leaving the state yeah because it turns out you can't tax people they leave correct that's a basic tenet i mean people for some reason people that want to tax millionaires don't understand that you can't tax them they leave so um right it happens all the time we've seen it we've seen it in mass so anyway the so the answer to your question is if i mean what's the price point on this thing so that that's what i was about to bring up the price point this property should sell for a little over a million or right around a million because of

1:33:16its location the two buildings all that jazz in order for us to sell we would probably have to get it into the high eight hundreds selling what period of time anytime that's just kind of the going way so it's just no longer worth it's no longer worth a million now it's worth a 900 yeah because market value is what people will give you for it it's not what we wish it would bring yeah or what it used to bring yeah it's what people will give you for it what a willing buyer will give a well willing seller when neither is in the rest that's the definition of market value in them in real estate all right so um and and eighteen months from now you don't think that price is going to change much unless it went down the no depend on that piece of legislation I guess yeah um here the other thing is this you are leaving for um what has become for you a very emotional

1:34:27reason and I don't blame you on and for that reason everything you do with this house is going to piss you off I'm getting rid of it just because I want to be free you've said I'm I'm going to head up I'm going to load up the truck and move to Beverly I'm I'm out of here hills that is swimming pools and movie stars I'm out of here I'm leaving okay and every time you got to go back over there and something doesn't go just right you're going to be mad again all over again all those emotions are going to bubble up in your stomach and in your throat again and I really like a clean break when it's from something extremely negative and I don't have to continue to deal with it unless there's a serious return on investment for the crap I'm getting ready to shovel and there's not here you're not telling me this is going to be worth a million two and eighteen months you're telling me it might be worth seven hundred yeah and you got to deal with a renter long distance yeah yeah I think I might agree with that I just didn't see a good enough chance that things

1:35:32would turn around and even it's so with the legislation he was talking about it could still be yeah time yeah it's just it's moronic when I mean California did it to themselves too and others have done it it's moronic when these legislators and in the state of Washington state the governor is an absolute moron the when they pass when they want to pass something and they think they're going to tax the rich it's logistically impossible in a free country to tax the rich unless you do it to the entire country and even then they'll even go to Costa Rica yeah just pick up and move and be an expat you know I mean so you just they're going to leave and so you know who left California all those people that were producing money who stayed some that were producing money and everybody else that I mean that you guys that's just straight up basic economics stupidity

1:36:40Dave Ramsey here for more than 30 years I've been talking to folks on the air and I can tell you that most people are broke not because they don't make enough money but because they don't have a plan you need to give every dollar you earn a job because when you do that something changes you stop guessing you stop worrying you stop stressing our every dollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash pay off debt and finally start winning with money but most people won't do it they'll keep living paycheck to paycheck keep hoping things will change without making a change it's time to say enough is enough it's time to take control of your money it's time to start your every dollar budget for free today go download it in the app store or google play and

1:37:44Annie is with us in Dayton Ohio hi Annie how are you hi I'm doing well thank you so I've got a question because I have two children and we've always had very open financial discussions I think we're fairly reasonable people modest but like reasonably financially solid and I'm thinking of doing something that might not be so reasonable and more emotional so we lost my husband a number of years ago so it's just me and the boys and at 21 and 24 both of my kids have recently purchased a home and in our like part of the world you can do that fairly recently so they both have mortgages and they don't have any other kind of debt like college debt or anything like that and I want to start I don't believe in going children that's why they've got grandparents but I would like to give my kids something and I don't know kind of the best way to do that I feel like I want to just help them pay their mortgage because when I paid my

1:38:49house off like the security that gave me felt like something good for you I just you know as a parent that's what you want for your children I'm 55 yesterday good for you happy birthday and what's your net worth million yeah good for you well done why are you hesitating like you're ashamed you didn't do anything wrong you did everything right well I know but it's yes I know I'm nervous who I'm thinking about trying to retire and I'm okay again it comes to security how much are you talking about giving the boys just just like little bits like instead of like giving them a thousand dollars for Christmas like can I just put that on a mortgage or we're selling the home that that we raised the basin and I now have a new house and I'm close to them which is very very good and I feel like I want to take some of that money because that was the house that their dad was

1:39:52in and that I was in and we raised them I want to give them a little bit but not like they're doing okay they have jobs like yeah are they married one of them just got married and they bought a house in the my other son I'm 21 and he just bought himself a house he's not married and and you're not remarried no okay all right well you can do what there's nothing wrong um you're not going to suddenly break their character with a two thousand dollar gift okay um and just if you give them just write them a check and uh tell them that your your request is is that they've paid it down on their mortgage because two thousand dollars doesn't move the money too much on the mortgage either it's not a lot of money no no and I mean when I die they're going to get it all anyway they're going to get an eventual so an individual an individual can leave an individual up to or give an individual up to 19 thousand dollars a year with no gift tax okay but I don't know if I can do that and then we're talking about it like that you're not saying

1:40:54you have to yeah if you want to up to and yes you can if you did that for 10 years you'll still have two million dollars if you're two million dollars is invested well you could give away you know twenty thousand dollars a year and still have lots of money okay but I'm not saying you have to but I'm saying you know that this idea that somehow you're going to even approach with a small gift like that destroying your nest egg you're not now you start talking about giving them a couple hundred a piece we're going to have to sit down do some math yeah no and it's just the idea because I thought well maybe if I open a brokerage account like find me no no just just do just let them run their lives okay tell them what you would do if it were you hey I'm going to give you this you do what you want to with it if it was me I'd put it on the mortgage okay or if it's me I'd open up a brokerage account I can I can do that and maybe after I'm retired for a little while I might feel like I could I just I'm gonna give them that that security but I feel very insecure about retiring like

1:42:00that that kind of that kind of scares me so you say well invested I do tend to hoard a little bit so some of it's invested really well if you have a part of it it's just the security thing if you've got a million dollars invested in good mutual funds it's producing hundred to hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year oh wow okay okay all right and so if you don't spend more than that you're probably not going to run out of money no no no you're two million if a million is invested in good mutual funds as an example I'm just giving you some math okay because you know this year the stock market to date and we're only in August is up about 14% and so that'd be a hundred and forty thousand on a million mm-hmm since January okay all right and I don't have quite a million because I have several properties I don't have a lot of properties are producing 10% of what they're worth yeah same thing okay so that that the point is I sometimes if

1:43:04I said have people sit down do math they quit worrying about their retirement like you and I'm not trying to do that to get you give them more I'm just wanting you to quit worrying there might be something where you can sit down Annie because it sounds like you you want to give but you're not exactly sure what you want to do and what impact you want it to have there may be something that you save up for four while and then you're able to do more of a lump sum to go specifically towards whatever it is that you decide versus a thousand dollars here a thousand dollars there now what's the balance on the boys mortgages one has like a hundred and twenty seven and the other I'm not sure that I know exactly what they about they're young about yeah probably 200 okay so they're both under two hundred okay I mean you could do something like if you once you sit down with your smart vester pro and do some calculations about your retirement and if you see you've got room you could you could do something like I'm going to match whatever extra you pay on your mortgage

1:44:09up to nineteen thousand dollars a year okay and you throw that on the mortgage and so if they pay down twenty thousand and you pay down twenty thousand that's forty on one twenty seven that mortgage is going away in a couple years yeah I like that when I take off our house like it just opened a hole that's what I'm trying to get to yeah yeah and then you change your you change your family tree right yeah yeah because these boys everything you've said about them is positive about the young men all the great kids yeah so they're not going to screw this up paying off their mortgage and I'm not going to suddenly go off off the ranch right right of course now now they're you're good yeah they're they're smart we've always kind of walked logically through things so I would stretch you and say if you sit down and do the math and you can get calm that you could give away forty thousand dollars a year and not go broke which by the way you can then I would probably do

1:45:10something like I'll match you guys on your debt reduction up until whatever you put extra on the mortgage I'll match it up to nineteen a year in a calendar year I can do that without any gift tax and that's more than you were thinking of but I but the math tells me you can do that and not even blink it's not even going to scratch the surface for you you're going to be just fine so assuming you get this stuff well invested and you're looking at these properties they're actually producing good rents you're doing a good job managing the property and getting good money out of it same thing with your mutual funds and if you take two million dollars you can do all of that and and by the way if you did nothing except make ten percent on that two million your fifty five when you're sixty two it's four million when you're sixty nine it's eight million if you don't touch it and don't add to it don't take any out and don't add anything to it and it makes ten percent that's what it'll do so that's the thing to kind of keep in your head and

1:46:10that's what's going through my head when I'm going nineteen around I know you should get started and I'm gonna be a thing so yeah and we get their houses paid off early and then these guys can be millionaires by the time they're thirty because they don't have a mortgage and they have a smart mom that taught them how to live right live on less than you make sounds like she changed her family tree to me absolutely wow and hope her boys pay off their houses there you go that's it I hope they're smart enough to do that match I think it'll work I think it'll work good and that's the kind work when you do a match like that you're rewarding the behavior you want to cause to happen yeah and you're actually causing the mortgage to get paid off when you put enough on it to cause it two thousand dollars is more symbolic than actual

1:47:31you have only one more day to get your ticket before investing essentials starts you shouldn't feel uncertain about investing and you don't have to at this two-night virtual event me and George camel will walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning will simplify everything from 401k's and mutual funds to passing on wealth join us September 1st and 2nd tickets start at $199 don't wait get yours at ramsysolutions.com slash events or by clicking the link in the show notes guys if you like what you hear around here help us out and share this show tell people about it click the like button the save button the subscribe button and all of those buttons and do what they do let people know we're here if you like what you're hearing if you hate what you're hearing well

1:48:35we're sorry good luck next time you stop somewhere hope it works out for you folks if you're sick and tired of working so hard but have nothing to show for well that's normal normal's broke and you don't have to live that way our every dollar budget app helps you find extra money every month and builds you a personalized plan to beat debt and build wealth in just 15 minutes you'll find thousands and hidden margin and you'll feel like you got to raise don't be normal when you can live and give like no one else start every dollar for free in the app store or google play stacey is in Dallas high stacey how are you hey stacey you gave her your doing thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up i've been a huge fan first of all before i start with a question i just love watching your show thank you very quickly i am worried about paying my kids college education my doctor just went to college out of state so i have to pay four hundred thousand

1:49:37dollars for my daughter and that made me think that now i have to pay another four hundred thousand dollars when my son goes to college in next three years how much money do you guys have i have cash liquid cash nine hundred thousand dollars i have non liquid photo one came my house gold jewelry all that kind of stuff is about one point seven million we make me and my husband together we make about four hundred and eight thousand dollars annually okay would you allow me to argue with you for a minute yes sir i don't think you ought to spend four hundred thousand dollars on education in your situation i should not no it's too much oh what is she what is she studying she is gonna study economics where going she went to UV Berkeley this year

1:50:41okay and what does an undergrad economics professor or economics student make when they graduate i would think about 120 150 to start out with no not even close you didn't even research you just made that number up i think so days okay no one is hiring first year undergrad students for a hundred and fifty grand out of UC Berkeley nobody not with an economics degree no sorry um so you're you know the thing is education the purpose of blessing our children with an education is to give them the tools to become an adult and stand on their own okay and so what i want to do is i want to teach on what the kids to get an education that allows them to go pursue the career that they want to pursue as long as it is a reasonable career that um can have implications in the marketplace and i don't

1:51:48think somebody with a three million dollar net worth ought to spend a million dollars on the kids education because the ROI is not there we're talking about investment you can get an economics degree from university of Texas in Austin for a half of that and be just as marketable as you are at a UC Berkeley now that might not make your little 19 year old smile but i'm not real concerned about that what i want is your 29 year old smile because she's a standalone woman on her own so that i i would not spend and i did not i have three kids that graduated with undergraduate degrees all three of them they went to school for four years graduated in four years that in and of itself is a statistical anomaly and but they did do that and you know went to a state school university at university and and they're all very successful all three of them and are um

1:52:50functioning in their degree field actually all three of them are so um and again we didn't spend the money so that we can say we went to Berkeley um now you can if you want i mean if you told me you had 20 million dollars and you want to spend a million of it on this okay i don't really agree with it but i might consider that's your choice but out of three million dollars you should not spend a million dollars on two kids undergraduate degrees i just think i wouldn't do that it's the return on investment for your children is not there and the purpose of sending them there is not so that they can say they went to a certain school it's not a prestige move it's a gathering of education of knowledge that's usable in the marketplace that's the purpose of education it is it's not a it's not a prestige move it's not a purse not that we buy a coach purse it's will the purse carry the money that's all we care about when it comes to education we don't care if it's a coach purse or not because no one hires you based on where you went to school

1:53:54and if you don't believe me where's your doctor graduate from you don't know do you where's your dot where's your lawyer graduate from oh you don't know do you i know where my general council graduated from because we just interviewed him and hired him the other day so i can tell you were my one of my lawyers graduated from i can't tell you were some of the others that do work force out in the marketplace graduate from i never even asked them wow i just said can you lawyer can can you help me with my pain doctor you know and can you show me a supply demand curve economist yeah um i'm just shook she was going to do this times too so i'm sorry days i hate to burst your bubble but there you got caught up in one of my speeches but um i hope you guys would i'm i'm gonna ask you and your husband to reconsider this because i think it's a bad investment not your child is a bad investment not an economics degree is a bad investment but spending four hundred thousand dollars on one is kind of ridiculous and you need to

1:55:00with think you need to rethink that that's what i would do if i woke up in your shoes now i don't think she's gonna tell her daughter know though do you know because she's got 900 cash and she's sitting there looking at it and it's spent in her head and her daughter's dream is to be at Berkeley and so in the problem is you're not gonna create probably not gonna create a capitalist there you're probably gonna create another socialist so and you spent four hundred k to do that which is kind of an irony if you think about it but yeah oh man you think about where your kids going school oh man yeah the chances of coming out of um Berkeley you see Berkeley anything but liberal and left wing and socialist leaning from an economics perspective is fairly low fairly low if you want to study socialism and if you want to study john mitered canes canes in economics and canes was a socialist instead of Adam Smith who was the ultimate capitalist if you want to and i've studied all these things obviously i've got a degree in finance and economics so

1:56:05but if you want to study that that's you know um you you'll get a good dose of it there so oh man yeah oh man i guys let me go back aside from her just a second and remind you the the movie borrowed future of the documentary that we did that's award winning you can see it for free on youtube we've almost got two trillion dollars the student loan debt now now she's not taking out student loan debts it's not in there okay but the biggest cause of student loan debt is the choice of where to go to school not whether you go to school and not whether you study but whether you go to school in state versus out of state because if it's 12,000 in state it's 22,000 out of state it's almost exactly the same school i mean university at Tennessee is in state if you go to the university of Georgia it's out of state they're both excellent state colleges you get a business degree from either one of those we would hire you here in the heartbeat um but but you're going to

1:57:05pay twice if you live in Tennessee just because you went across state line so don't their football teams better now or is usually but don't go across state line and you know pay for a football team that's either that's the thing um so you don't do it don't do it you know think about what you're getting for what you pay and it's the primary cause of student loan debt now not in state is case she's got 900,000 way to go states you by the way very nice way to go building up some well yes yeah

1:58:11hey guys Dave Ramsey here every day on the show we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next now you can get that same kind of help anytime with ask Ramsey ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained ask Ramsey is here to help it's fast simple and free to use go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try ask Ramsey today that's Ramsey Solutions.com our scripture today is Jeremiah 2913 you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart

1:59:24see us Lewis said there's only two kinds of people those who say to God that I will be done and those to whom God says all right then have it your way oh oh watch the second one and watch out when you trip over that second one Bryce is in Philadelphia hey Bryce what's up hey guys how you doing great man how can we help great so I'm a 31 year old man I'm in Philadelphia I'm currently I'm an assistant principal at school and I also I'm just a real estate out of state I currently move back in with my parents just to get my finances together and pay off some debt I own four right on properties in Ohio and I'm health management well someone helps manage them out there I'm probably management come to me all of this your parents are in Philadelphia jobs in Philadelphia how do you end up owning real estate in Ohio long story short I used to live in California in New York City and it was too expensive so I just invest in the real estate out there some of my portfolios worth about

2:00:30545 and how much of debt do you have about 324 sort of equity I have is 220 so my question is I have about 36,000 dollars in personal loan debt that's up to like you know six up properties and stuff like that I don't have any card that was through loan debt so I'm trying to figure out should I sell my portfolio out of state and just buy buy house out here yes put a decent amount down payment yes yes yes and yes and you because you're living with your parents right now right I need exactly in a time like I don't need to yeah what caused you to move in with your parents well be well so what happened was I was buying properties fast out of state and then you know the first big expense came up at a place at roof and I didn't have to cash to buy it so to take out a personal so the tick-tock course didn't give you the whole picture huh yes this didn't work out yes to

2:01:31everything you said it's it's it's a crying shame that you have these properties they're not producing cash free they're causing you to go into debt and they're causing you to live with your mom and dad that's a really great indicator that we need to go in a different direction so I'm glad that you called and I'm glad that you're even considering going in a different direction because I would I would look at these properties you said there's four of them I would sell all four yes what will it bring if you sell all four two hundred grand so it will be I have like 220 equity yes and you got to pay off the thirty six thousand dollar loan and then you got to put it down payment on a house yeah that's perfect and I have a lot of cashers there's life fear I guess the fear I have only thing holding back is the properties do generate money you know that you're broke no they don't right you haven't even cover their own expenses you had to take thirty six thousand dollars out in personal loans and you had to go live with your mom and dad yeah that's how I feel right now yeah okay so let's stop a second brice because I mean Dustin or Bryce here's

2:02:35the here's the here's the mistake the tick tock get rich quick real estate morons don't tell you okay rent minus mortgage does not equal cash flow in the real world where those of us who know how to do real estate investing professionally what we know is rent minus mortgage minus heating an air minus tenant didn't pay minus lawyer to get rid of ten it that didn't pay minus roof that leaks minus taxes minus insurance equals cash flow you don't have any real cash flow you've got what we call gross cash flow your rent minus your mortgage is a positive but by the time we adjust for reality for the other things that are hitting you you end up not having the money when the repair occurs and that's how you've ended up where you are and so don't don't let the mythology that you were taught stay as a reality in your head learn something from this experience and that is is that

2:03:41properties that have a mortgage of more than 50% of their value never actually cash flow residential properties don't cash flow okay if your mortgage payment if your mortgage balances 250 in that properties worth 500 you're breaking even if you owe more than 50% you're losing money in a calendar year cash flow and you're not going to get rich in real estate you're going to go broke in real estate following some moron on tick-tock and so that's that's what's going on and so Jade's exactly right Bryce hey just visualize what your life would be like if you had no mortgages and no tenants and no debt and had purchased your own home with an emergency fund I mean principal of a high school and your 36 year old guy you're like and you know it's a perfect situation so the only good news is you're going to sell these things and make some money on them absolutely and do

2:04:41it today I would call go to Ramsey Solutions click on Ramsey trusted for a real estate agent in that area find one that's high octane get a sign in the yard by day after tomorrow get these things gone gone yeah life will be so much better there's no reason to keep these and I love real estate but I hate what real estate done poorly does to people and that's what these idiots on these social media things three thousand dollars to buy nothing down real estate come see me that's been going on for like 45 years and it's never worked the guy who wrote nothing down was a guy named Robert Allen in 1982 I read that book and went and did what he teaches and Robert Allen went bankrupt doing what he teaches and Dave Ramsey went bankrupt doing what he teach did he never bounce back back had never heard from him again he disappears he wrote up in two books nothing down and creating

2:05:46wealth and neither one work oh that's too bad and I hey if he's dumb I'm dumb or I did exactly what he said to do yeah and that's what happened to Bryce Bryce fell into somebody like that and thought oh I got to get in the real estate business I got to get in the real estate real estate where all the money is no it's not real estate because you go broke if you do it wrong it's a horrible investment for broke people and when broke people buy real estate it makes them broker that's why they call them real estate brokers shoo man it's a problem oh Bryce please please go get your life back honey all right Dustin is in Little Rock Arkansas Dustin I got just a minute ask your question fast hello first off I'm a pretty big fan I'm kind of new I've been watching for six or eight months thank you um for about seven well but over seven years I've been a surveyor I've probably worked on the road and I've made you know the past few years roughly 13 to 15 thousand dollars a month

2:06:50my son will be two in December my daughter is six and working on the road was just getting to be too much time away what's your question Dustin I took a job local was making about a little bit over 3600 dollars a month doing survey and after yes that's a big cut yeah I'm doing civil survey now and I was surveying on the pipeline yeah can you not make more than that doing civil that sounds low um I'm not sure I reached out to all the companies that were pretty close to where I live but you need to find out what a surveyor makes I think they make more than you're getting paid that may be the case I've looked around and most of the places right here close paid 20 to 25 dollars an hour that's not right now I bet they do for somebody dragging a chain but not somebody knows how to actually do a survey that that's not a 25 dollar an hour job um it's a

2:07:56it's a valid profession and it pays more than you're getting paid so you need to do a little work on your career tracking and make more I agree with you coming off the road but we're gonna have to make a little more money or you're not gonna eat sun so bad move wow surveying I didn't run into that in a while you know it that's an ancient art actually I don't know that I know all that it entails I mean you think about George Washington did survey you know interesting Daniel Boone did survey that puts this hour 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