Quit Letting Dumb Money Decisions Hold You Back

brought to you by the every dollar 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 in the fair winds credit union studio this is the ramsey show i'm dav ramsey your host ken colman ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host is also the host of a big runaway head on ramsey networks called the front row seat when i join you see all kinds of very interesting people jump in and join us today the phone number's triple eight eight two five five two two five cody is in austin texas merry christmas cody how are you merry christmas i'm good dav how are you better than i deserve what's up well i've i've stumbled against some some obvious decisions that's led me into about a two hundred fifty thousand and consumer debt that has uh... left me stumped on how me in in my significant other can make headway to get this taken care of in a short amount of time or or as quickly as possible and it just seems like we run into a brick wall about uh... beliefs on how we're going to do that what's a lot of them sorry what do you want what's it on break it down for me the two fifties on what so we have we have uh... i have a four one k loan that has about twenty one thousand in it we have student loans in around eighty thousand we have a car that's around thirty six and then we have legal fees things that that we've both had to acquire uh... over the course of few years it's around twenty thousand and then uh... we if we did purchase a house and we've added some some debt there as far as furniture and appliances and things that were were trying to get off and that's the lowest hanging fruit of around eight mhm can't look at looking around two hundred two hundred fifty thousand is just sitting out there and then uh... on top of that is that i have a a child with the formal relationship and and that one takes out a huge chunk of our uh... available money what's your uh... what's your household income so we said around before uh... before taxes well we about two hundred thousand dollars but if you take out uh... child service or child payments and things like that it's around one hundred seventy five so we bring home uh... after taxes around eleven mhm okay and significant other what's that mean uh... my fiance yeah so there's not a we then until you're married what's the wedding date that has not been set yet uh... we've had a uh... run of things that's happened in both of our lives and we just have that's been pushed uh... but you bought a house together that we did but did buy a house that's more difficult than getting married i don't disagree with you it's also dumber than crap because you're gonna get yourself into a mess buying stuff is so you're not married to and so and so you're trying to act like a missile okay uh... the legal implications the relational implications in the career implications of trying to do this without being married the data is all stacked against you so that is one thing that you're that you're out over your skis on one thing that you're trying to go uphill on the data is really really clear and there's a lot of research on this uh... nobody seems to be talking about it because unpopular talk about so everybody gets pissed at me when i talk about it but i can't act kind of like my spiritual gifts so it's okay um... the so that that that's one thing um... and legal fees has that all that's all from child support issues and other things in the past primarily mine i've spent a decade fighting for my first daughter in my first marriage is that over no sir so there's ongoing legal fees yes sir yes they detects a stax against the father so sure the um... uh... okay how much of the one seven five is you and how much is her uh... you just broke up broke up tried again i make one twenty and she brings home eighty so we're sitting at the two hundred but i take out the twenty five because that's the child support yeah that's gotta come out yeah that is correct we're doing a lot of go to not go to jail yeah okay that is the art of the weather um... take care of the kid that's a good thing how much of how much is being put into your 401ks uh... i have a uh... employer match and i'm on the uh... every paycheck paid weekly mine goes around one seventy five a week and then uh... that's uh... six percent so they match up to six percent so i just make the match okay and then she's and she's at four they match it four percent so she's at four percent of hers okay well here's the thing uh... you can do what you want to do but you called an ass so we're gonna be truthful with you because we love you and we want you to win and um... uh... what would i do if i woke up in your shoes knowing what i know now is uh... i had to come to grips when i went broke years ago with the idea of if i keep doing what i've been doing i'm gonna keep getting what i've been getting so if for something to change something's got to change agreed agreed and so and and then you can add with that formula then the more radically you change things the more radically things will change that makes sense and so in the words more bizarre you get and the more your friends are looking at you like you've joined a cult lost your mind the the probably the more progress you're gonna make away from being stuck which is where you are right now that's that's the you know the decision-making framework that i'm gonna give this advice in and then you got a pick and choose and uh... but i promise you if you will go do every single thing i'm getting ready to tell you in uh... and see three years you'll be a hundred percent debt free not counting the house in uh... in four years you'll have substantial assets in twelve years you'll be a millionaire okay i'm all ears so the first thing i do is get married this weekend merry christmas ho ho ho there we go you know that simple and uh... uh... rachel's uh... anniversary is this coming friday so you can get married on rachel cruz's anniversary if you want there you go so uh... she got she's christmas wedding is a lot of fun so uh... gather up some friends you all been doing this for a while you've been playing house for a while it's time to be grown-ups now you know college students sleeping around you know it's time to do this okay so and then then you're combined you're locked legally you're committed into the future you develop a shared set of goals a desired future where you want to go out stop all 401k contributions temporarily i would get on a detailed written plan called a budget i'm gonna give you every dollar as your wedding gift it's out the world's best budgeting and finance app and it's also gonna walk you not only do the budget was also walk you through the stuff i'm teaching you okay i would sell everything in sight no more renovations no more furniture no more nothing beans and rice rice and beans and i see the inside of a restaurant was your work in there you're not going on vacation that's for dad gum sure you are broke people and you've got to clean this up i'd look at selling this car probably almost symbolically it's not as much of the money issue as it is it's just stupid in the middle of all this and it's really the only thing you got you can sell you can sell the lawyer of the credit cards of the 401k so uh... and and then i'm just gonna list these debts smallest to largest and i'm gonna squeeze every dollar out of my life and like you said i'm gonna knock off the low hanging fruit first take the littlest smallest to the largest and go in that order and get an absolute crazy attack mode hang on christian will pick up uh... help you out with all those gifts give him a total money makeover book too and ken if you'd shut up i could talk i was gonna say what do i add to that i just slow clap like you made a part but i know life gets busy the to-do list never ends but some things are just too important to put off and making a will is one of them that's why i recommend mama bear legal forms because i've seen it too many times families are grieving a loss and on top of that they're stuck in court fighting over paperwork all because someone didn't take a little time to get their will in place that's not what you want for your loved ones you want peace you want clarity you won't focus on what matters most being present and leaving a legacy with mama bear you can create your will in just twenty minutes right from the comfort of your home it's simple legally binding and doesn't require an expensive attorney or hours of confusing paperwork and i'll tell you almost every person who uses mama bear says the same thing if i would have known how easy it was i would have done it sooner so don't wait go to mama bear legal forms dot com and use the promo code ramsey to save twenty percent that's mama bear legal forms dot com code ramsey uh... hunter is in syncing at a a hunter what's up hello mister randy how are you better than i deserve how can i help hi uh... so i am recently married within the past three months and i my wife has uh... loans student loans and car payments and we are in that uh... i personally have zero debt and i owe nobody anything and um... we are very believing separately by choice because we want to knock out this that before we went in and decided to buy a house or something so i wanted to see what your advice would be for us to knock out this that uh... before jumping into buying a house you you got married three months ago and you don't live with your wife unfortunately no we are in a very special situation where we're looking up at both of our parents to let us live at our perspective parents houses so we can warriors is what i call it uh... i also have a pretty hold on a second hold on hold on hold on what is we can worry i'm afraid to ask this but i gotta know they get to see each other you guys go to one of the others parents house on the weekend yes yes are you in different cities honey we are in different states okay where are we going to live when we get married planning on we are already married uh... but planning on really you're married to your um... plan on living in ohio granted i am a professional basketball player and i have been for the past two years now my wife has a nine to five job and we are we got married very quickly so she could join in and a contract for me to play overseas but i didn't get the contract that i expected to know we're kind of standing here married but not living together so your your your professional life is overseas plan ball yes sir and but right now you don't have a job i do so i i'm working for a friend uh... he owns an auction business and uh... he pays me in cash and i just work the hours that i can and the hours that i want but i've been increasing those hours and days because i want to be better for god willing our future family and what is the way i'm so there's so many things to talk about what what is that what's the future on the basketball contract when i come up again uh... so i signed a small contract coming up here and the month of february march april and may and that will be in the united states and they're providing housing for my wife and i for those months and then i will be getting uh... uh... before tax is that in the is that in the uh... in the a uh... sub-league i've forgotten what it's called now but is that what that is uh... it's the league right below the one that you're thinking of so it's so you're way down low so how much money this is not a lot of money and that's why i asked that how much is that contract for for those few months well be three grand a month before tax so what do you what do you when do you go when you're when you're in europe what do you make uh... it really depends on the league and it depends on uh... you know i asked uh... made twenty four hundred a month and then the last one was a thousand a month so you're not going overseas for that when you can make money in the nb a development league so what is your what's your career plan because those all suck uh... my career plan is eventually i actually want to become a preacher okay uh... but i i uh... how much debt does your daughter does how much debt does your wife have an emergency in in student loans uh... so in two loans one is little over five thousand another is thirteen and then federal aid and student loan is five thousand and then uh... car payment with five thousand left and so you're planning on base camp to be ohio yes sir you live right now yes sir okay well the best way to uh... attack this financial situation is to create a more symbiotic relationship and that would mean that you and your wife go get an apartment tomorrow and you actually live together seven days a week because what you're doing is unbelievably weird yeah you're telling me wait a second so i gotta ask really quick and i'm not picking on you but i really want to know you called and you're used to coaching if you responded to dave's comment that way believe me i know that leads me to believe tell me if i'm wrong that this is not an arrangement that you came up with this isn't your idea or am i wrong it is both of our ideas it okay and i we i was anticipating this contract to come by that's why part of the reason why we got married so early the main reason is because we both believe in god and we wanted to be married uh... but when i was negotiating it did not go the way that i know listen listen listen listen listen i get it i gotta tell you something you need to choose which first of all i don't think you should be in either parents house but you should choose one and live together let's get this thing going you as a pastor you would never tell a young couple to do what you're doing would you no i wouldn't and you need to get like an apartment and you really leave your parents both of you yeah and you've been being a basketball gypsy and now you got married and so if you're gonna be a basketball gypsy she's gonna be riding in the trunk with you and or you're gonna move on and moved to you know moved towards becoming a pastor and moving on so i appreciate that you wanted to get married rather than shacking up i appreciate that thank you for that good man good idea bad idea to live separately and in order for to pay off the debt that is not no no no and apparently there's not room or it's not conducive to uh... married couple for what for you guys to be at either families house which is suits me fine too i recommend all young people go get a life away from their parents married and unmarried especially married yeah get a life i and and that's going to make you more money and it's gonna make your career blossom because it's gonna make your manhood and your relationship blossom and um... you know you get she's got to be away from her mommy and so do you and you know mommy can just email recipes and that's about it over the fence that's it and that's you guys really really really need to uh... you're gonna do better to answer your basic to get her out of debt you guys out of that you phrase that properly but from the debt that she brought in faster when you're working together even with an apartment rent because you're both can be looking at this going on the work all the time and when i get home on the sea my wife and i'm gonna work all the time and i'm gonna get home on the sea my wife and we'll do thousand dollar a month stuff in twenty twenty five and call that professional that's slightly above hobby yeah i was gonna say professionally speaking i have a good friend who was in double a baseball many years ago he and his wife straight out of college and they gave it a timeline they both sat down and said alright we're gonna give it this much time and they're gonna put some measurables on it and you know you've played at the european level or wherever you played internationally and now you're in the lowest development league you know what the odds are you have somebody in your life coach on that team the general manager up the line let's put a real number on how long we're gonna give this and you've got to work extra like kurt orner famous now hall of fame quarterback stocking shelves this has been done before but you need some real measurables on the basketball side and your wife now we agree this is how much we're gonna give it is what we're gonna do together she's been on the road with you like david said you guys need to be in this together you guys can scrape by uh... on this three grand a month in hustle and learn how bad this situation i think you've got to be together i just really wanted to hit that but i think you've got to get to a point pretty quickly where we go we're gonna realistically measure what my opportunity is in professional basketball that's here and abroad give it a time link get retested and see if there's something there and if it's not it's gonna be hard to give it up but you gotta walk away and walk forward i couldn't do it i couldn't do it so i can't tell somebody else to do it so it's simple running a business is already complicated you don't have time to become a health insurance expert too and when you're self-employed there's no hr department to lean on but that's where my friends at health trust financial come in for over twenty years they've been helping families and small business owners cut through the confusion and find the right health insurance plan for their stage of life and budget health trust financial offers unbiased advice and there's never any pressure health trust financial helps you shop smarter and avoid overspending most of their clients save hundreds of dollars every month real savings you can put back into your business or toward building wealth i've worked with them for over two decades and they're the only ramsie trusted health insurance advisors so get clear on your options and talk to a real person who can help you make confident decisions about your health coverage go to health trust financial dot com today that's health trust financial dot com johnson loval kentucky hey john how are you doing okay david's pleasure to speak with you guys you too sir what's up well i had a series of unfortunate events this year and i just really want to try to get some advice on if i'm making the right decision for me and my family i'm a single income earner family of four me my wife and my two sons and at the beginning of the year in march my company sold out to another company and during the transition i was paycheck to pay i'm still paycheck to paycheck but i was managing my bills when my company sold out i was weekly pay and then the new company come in and did bi-weekly pay which set me behind three weeks without a paycheck after that last paycheck so i limped through that and then in may i lost my brother so i went from that to a week and a half out with my brother you know passing away and it just from then on i've been playing the catch-up game and i've got down to not only personal issues with myself and substance abuse and getting through that and then now you know i'm more than 90 days behind on every non-essential bill outside of what i need to keep house lights and things like that going so what my plan is and me and my wife have set down and we both agree 100% is that we want to invest you know it's not going to be a large portion like five six that seven thousand dollars into the home that we can purchase on it outright and place it on to her grandmother's property allowing us to have 100% access of my income to try to nip this out as quick as i can to get that back to square root but i think the only advantage that i have is i'm sub 15 thousand dollars in total debt so 15,000 clears your debt is that what you're saying yes sir okay yes sir and what do you make sir right now i bring home about 2200 every two weeks or 44 a month plus every two as every two weeks so plus two times a year you have sixty six hundred yes okay and what do you do i'm a truck driver okay alright and what what does it take to bring you current 1515 thousand makes 15,000 makes your debt free but what brings you current bring me current i'd probably have to be just south of probably 35 hundred dollars yes sir okay and where would you get the 5000 to buy the trailer well that's what speaking with my wife we agree to take what we potentially could get back on our income taxes next year to try to just wing it out i know it's a short matter of time before these things will go into collections and i figured it once we got what kind of debt is it i'm sorry what kind of debt is it that you're behind on i have two personal loans and credit cards and well i think that was three personal loans and credit cards and then my wife has credit cards as much how much is your rent my rent 1600 okay so you're not talking about making this move well now i guess you would file your taxes after the first of the year so you get the money probably in february right yes sir which would also be enough to catch you up like close to it yeah as long as i could find a cheap enough and you know something that would accommodate us no i'm just saying if you didn't buy the trailer and you stayed in the rental you could use the refund and be caught up uh close to it not not all the way i don't know you said you're 3500 behind and you're talking about buying a $5,000 trailer what's your refund gonna be which is it i say it's probably six seven thousand that's i mean it is that six or seven thousand makes you current so that would bring my loans back up to current yeah and you don't have to buy a trailer i see that but i mean the trailer wasn't end goal for us anyway to get out of pain rent to try to move on to purchasing property after we did you know paid off what we owed i figured once we could move into the trailer then we could wipe out pretty much every debt within a mere month and a half two months that's probably pretty close to true okay um yeah i'll tell you that you've done a really good job of analyzing and knowing where you are i'm proud of you you've really got your fingers around this because you're pretty stressed and in the middle of that stress you've still done a good job of laying out a game plan and thinking it through i don't have a real fault with any of your reasoning so here's what i would add to this okay sometimes i have seen people do stuff like this and then they don't play all the way through and you have to make a commitment that we are going to be in this trailer no longer than 24 months before months i mean my wife was thinking somewhere along the rhymes of three to five years okay 36 months 36 months not three to five not a vague number okay put a date on the calendar we are out of this trailer and we're gonna do whatever it takes extra jobs no vacations we're gonna be dead free have an emergency fund and a good down payment on a house and get out of this trailer because otherwise you're gonna end up raising your kids in a trailer that you didn't want to buy right and you don't want to do that you don't want to look back in ten years slips away and you know we can absolutely yeah what what needs to happen for her to be able to work right now me and her agree that because of the pricing of childcare that it would it wouldn't really be with she is in school she is learning going what she's back in school trying to finish out the studies that she chose which is what me and her agreed she wants to be a phlebotomist what's that gonna turn into let's assume she has that degree today what job is she getting she would basically you know be the person that would draw people's blood and doctors offices or hospitals mm-hmm how long does it take her to get that certification right now is as long as cuz the the school that she is in is kind of like a pay-as-you-go thing so like I said everything that's not essential to the house I've kind of just stopped yeah right now she's not in school so let's put her to work right now well she she has she does like delivering packages as kind of a contract job and that that helps make up a little bit but as far as finding someone to take care of our children how old are the boys my youngest will be two and on the 19th of this month and then my oldest is four okay you got little okay that makes a difference yes sir all right um so here's the thing here's what you want to do you want to put a deadline on the trailer if you're gonna do it I'm not sure I would do it but I'm not sure I wouldn't do it but if I did do it I don't want to get stuck there I want to make enough radical changes in our lives that we move away from that time in our life and it's in rear of you mirror forever okay you guys have been through hell and the crummy year that you've had has highlighted for you that living paycheck to paycheck is no way to live it's no fun not at all and so when Sharon and I went through going broke we had a never again moment and I want to make sure that you guys you the two of you hold hands tonight and look each other in the face and say never again we're gonna step into a trailer for 24 to maximum of 36 but never again are we gonna be here we're gonna work like crazy people and we're gonna have goals and we're gonna live on less than we make and we're not buying anything on debt never again are we gonna be back here we're having emergency fund so that allows the 10 grand doesn't put completely stand us on our head yes sir because $20,000 to change your whole life right now yes sir that's how that's how quick this could turn you didn't call me up with 300,000 you call me up with 15,000 and 3500 get your current so you can do this man and I'm telling you you have a good brain the brain you use to work through this was excellent I'm proud of you and you go now now go play through and look back a decade from now and go that was the time the year my brother died and they laid and they changed my pay I said never again and that's what Sharon and I did we look back we said never again 1988 no way I'm reliving that freaking year there's a bankruptcy filing on the wall right across from me in the office right here I'm not doing that crap again never again the holidays can come with a lot of pressure to spend family friends secret Santa at the office all the things but y'all this season should be about peace not payments that's a big reason why I love fair winds credit union they share the ramsey values of helping you reach your money goals without debt and with the fair winds smart bundle ramsey fans get a no fee checking account a high yield savings to grow your emergency fund and the exclusive ramsey be weird debit card it says debt is normal be weird right there on the front so every time you use it it's a reminder that you're doing your money differently so this Christmas skip the credit cards and celebrate progress not payments spend with peace of mind knowing that you're sticking to your budget and staying debt free and check out the fair winds smart bundle today at fair winds dot org slash ramsey and open up the smart bundle and grab your exclusive ramsey be weird debit card that's fair winds dot org slash ramsey fair winds is federally insured by the ncu a are you sick and tired of working so hard but having nothing to show for it well that's normal problem is normal sucks normal broke you don't want to be normal 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 you'll feel like you got a raise don't live normal when you can live like no one else start every dollar for free in the app store or google play maxis in san antonio hey max what's up hey thanks for having me on long time listener thank you sir how can we out well i'm 58 years old i've been divorced now for a little over five years and i've been dating the lady who is 57 and she is a surviving widow um she well if we get married before we're sick before she is 60 she uses all of her loses all of her surviving spouse uh social security benefits and he was a big contributor up and until he was about 58 years old so she would receive the max and i've heard your your conversations today with uh people about getting married how the chances are divorce if you don't get married within a certain point of time we've been dating after a little over two years and i was just wondering if it was worth it to get married now and forego that potential $4,000 a month for the rest of her life what's your household income or what's your income i'm sorry my income is about 150,000 a year and what's her income her income is just living off of what she she got and she's down to a little over 600,000 and uh okay what's your nest egg it's money my nest egg is a recovered to just a little over a million in my retirement account and i have no debt and i have a paid for house it's a little old house here in texas what's up uh 400,000 okay have you all been discussing marriage prior to this this thought pattern here sure yes sir we've been dating for a little over two years and fell in love immediately and uh been talking to both of our parents about it and both of our family she's got two step kids and i have two skeptics of course they're all grown everybody loves each other doing great that's good but okay i'll tell you you ask you ask a question and i'll give you a straight answer the sure the way i try to do stuff and max you said you're a long-time listener so you know this i try to put yes my i've never been in your situation i'm 65 so we're fairly close in age but if i try to put myself in your position what would i do if i were in your shoes and um for me the joy of a lifetime companion that i'm in love with um supersedes 48 grand a year sure and for me that's called marriage i'm a person of faith and that's called marriage and i don't have any confusion about that at all in my mind or in my spirit either one um and for me i don't want to look at her dad in the eyes um unless i'm saying this is my wife for me uh and i can't make that be for you you've got to decide that um you guys are you know you're going to have a net worth of two and a half million dollars uh or more and a really good household income uh and you don't have to have the 48 000 it's just a minor thing um and so for me it's just for 50 grand what can i buy i can buy a marriage license i have 50 grand a year but um but you know uh uh well we're trying to take that into account to where we need to retire and we're supposed to know since we just found each other late we're trying to figure that into retirement you got you got you got two and a half million dollars to retire off of i think you're going to be all right well the way we figure that out too is is uh it's not necessarily the the 220 thousand a year it's uh of course the broker has to take a fee of one percent and then it's taxed and we'd have to get our we'd have to get our income up pretty good to the tap net of what we feel like we'd like to be able to enjoy it max which way were which way were you leaning before you called us obviously he didn't want to marry her yeah i'm just curious oh no i do want i absolutely i mean all you did you answered my question with numbers telling me why you shouldn't do it and that's that tells me what you want to do so no i mean you do what you want to do uh i'm going to be mad at you either way we'll still be friends but um but uh but i personally i i just see a tremendous spiritual relational emotional and even financial value in being married more than 48 grand a year i just do i just think it's valuable and if i were 57 and had met the person i wanted to spend the rest of my life with there's no way i'm letting her freaking get away over some math nerd stuff with my financial planner you know trying to figure out well i gotta put him one percent who gives a crap if you don't pay him one percent don't pay him but don't lose her either well i think it's really clear for our audience understand what how we view marriage and no judgment here but my guess is that they're living together and so when you've already made that decision we're living together fell in love with her early been dating two years i'm reading between the lines that's probably what's going on so therefore this is all about a money question and we're coming at this not from a money answer not in the situation it's just the way we see things so yeah but here's the here's the other thing it is it does end up being a money thing especially maybe not in his situation exactly but as much but in when i'm talking these 24 year olds and whatever and no we've been we've been living together for four years yeah great okay but all the data says when you're 46 that that you missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars that's right for that 24 year old okay so the it is math too and i've got to think that the marriage advantage plays into this situation although i can't put my finger on exactly where it will but i'm thinking it's 50 grand a year easy that the working together the combining of forces yes the combining of how we're going to get at this i just i think it has a monetary value that would not be my motivation to your point though that's all i'm saying i agree it's not the driving decision we just happen to have a position that the money plays out as well in other words we think this is a moral decision that also has money implications in the positive and it's not our opinion by the way dave's right there are tons of studies fakes there's probably a new one that comes out every year about the financial advantages of being married yeah now the um the 35 year old as an example it's not max's situation again right but the 35 year old that is married has 13 times the net worth of an unmarried 35 year old yeah there it is that means shacked up and that means single and that means divorced and that means widowed it could be anything but an unmarried 35 year old has 13 times less money on average in america it's a huge advantage married men live nine years longer on average than unmarried men deloni thinks it's caused wives keep us from doing stupid stuff there's no question i don't think that's the singular issue but clearly a key issue you're gonna eat that yes i'm gonna eat that it's really and i'm gonna have two of them or this is the one that i get a lot you're gonna try that are you aware of how old you are you know it's like the thing that could cause a lot of bodily harm which might begin the downfall sacy saves me from a lot of actual number and married ladies only live four years longer than unmarried ladies so it extends male uh what is it that we do for women let's let's let's let's get something a score for the men here how do we do that allows women to live longer i what do you suspect he um i i don't have it hard to hire net worth i couldn't do anything either so yeah oh man that's deloni that's deloni's take on it i don't know i mean all right but seriously there's all this data on your your uh your not only your in oh incomes married men's incomes are way higher than unmarried men's incomes way higher and i suspect that's because there's a lash on their back i don't know i got it david just came to me the reason that married women live four years longer if i got that right is because they have more purpose in continually trying to take care of us and raise us the maternal instinct of a married woman remains strong even after their children leave because they're taking care of us i think that's what it is i'm gonna stick to that they have purpose they have purpose that's what it is you you're probably onto something so owning a business can be a heavy load you want to serve your customers well make a healthy profit 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back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio ken colman ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today thank you for joining us brad is with us in chicago hey brad how are you doing good how are you better than i deserve what's up so my question is should we or should you ever borrow money for your tithe why would you have to do that uh so so we own a business and we've we had a pretty successful year but we bought some equipment and we paid cash for that which kind of left us a little bit cash depleted here in december to be able to what i like to do is give you know at least 10 percent not more so my question would be you give 10 percent of your net profit right yeah yeah well purchasing equipment lowers your net profit does it not uh yeah i mean but but i would depreciate it over seven years but that's a tax issue that's not a tithe issue if i spend a million dollars on a piece of equipment i don't have the million dollars anymore correct but if i look at my income statement it would still show you know a pretty healthy product the tithe is not on that the tithe is not on taxable income the tithe is on net increase according to do neuropomy if we're getting technical i mean i assume you're asking a technical biblical question and so approaching it from that angle to start with i'm not a a Pharisee about this and i don't think god is either i'm pretty sure based on my study of scriptures that god loves a cheerful giver and he loves and he loves tithers as much as he loves non tithers and when i went in doubt i over give because when i get up there i don't want to be wrong it's not any harder than that for me okay so it's not i don't try to figure it out too much i tithe on my taxable cash flow income and so if i spend a million dollars on a piece of equipment regardless of what the irs says they don't get to enter into the discussion on my spiritual walk for god's sakes really and so yeah so i mean i i don't really care what the eba die is and i don't care what the the venture capitalist says all i care is what's my net increase and i do that prior to taxes what my net cash flow is for the year and um and usually not counting depreciated depreciation issues it would be your taxable income uh was would be what you would deal with again with a lot of grace and mercy because this is more that but no i would never borrow money because there's a lot of indications in scripture not to borrow money and so to borrow money and go against one scripture in order to keep another scripture is oxymoronic so no we wouldn't do that ever but just the point is you don't need to if you just define tithing a little differently so to start with and ken you're a pastor's kid i want to get your yeah my theological get your theological i bring as a pc but the our pk but the um seriously i i i'm a tither okay i'm an evangelical christian and i believe in giving a tenth of your income to your local church and as i study tithing it is a new testament thing i believe i have good friends that disagree with me and they're wrong um i we have all these wonderful arguments christian arguments right that are fun and um but when in doubt i give because the purpose of the tithe is not because god needs your money and the purpose of your tithe is not so that god loves you more and the purpose of the tithe is certainly not salvation and a tither is not a better christian than a non tither none of that applies because we're all walking we're all sinners saved by grace those of us that are christians okay and that's what we call ourselves so we're all walking in this abundance of grace and mercy so why does god have us to give he has us to give to practice being a giver i will say that my challenge if i understood brad correctly my challenge with his question of course we're not going to borrow so that's honestly nonsensical and non biblical however the the principle of tithing is about the first fruits first fruits so i don't think it's okay to spend a million dollars on equipment and not have any money left over to actually you know so i get taxable income i don't disagree with what you said yeah it is first fruit meaning it's off the top but it's off the top of your profits i understand deuteronomy and first fruits are in the same thing i understand deuteronomy says of your net increase i i totally agree but in a business kind here's where i'm sticking first the first part of your net increase yeah but he went spent on a really no that's not a net increase if i if i if i increase payroll then i i've increased my expenses and my business did not profit as much right so i don't need to tie before i pay the payroll i tie the after i pay the payroll and i tie that the very first dollar of profit after i pay the payroll that's the first part okay it's not first before expenses i agree i agree with that but what i'm getting at is is that you i think as a steward of your business need to manage your books payroll is one thing a really expensive piece of equipment i think to be able to say well i brought in all this money and i had all these expenses uh i i i have a challenge with that i know you don't agree with me but i i'm challenged by that how do you i don't know enough about his equipment i'm i don't either but maybe you're saying he bought too much stuff that's what i'm getting took his margins down to nothing that's what i'm saying that might be risky okay but i mean out of the 300 000 that ramsey takes in i don't take anywhere and and we and we agree we agree on that most of it leaves an expense right okay no i completely agree on that salaries and everything else i don't i don't just because the company has revenue of 300 300 million i said 300 300 million just because there's 300 million revenue doesn't mean i get 300 million right that's not i'm that's not how that works but then that but then the and again and i'm again i didn't get the follow-up but my point is i'd want to know what that we're spending is on because in your case it's not willy nilly and we're trying to get out of the second thing is the tithe also is what he pays himself i'm assuming he's paying himself something yeah that's what it should be on so what you're trying to do is on what you pay yourself so i i just wanted to circle up on that i again equipment is equipment you got to do it but i'm also saying that i think if you're not careful and again i want to not be a Pharisee i don't i don't yeah it doesn't matter at the end of the day when in doubt up up the tithe but you know like for instance we he should be tithing personally we teach you i'll go ahead and take it a step further since you and i were having this discussion because it's fun yeah i teach we teach entree leaders yeah to hold back some of their profits and retained earnings right savings yeah to run the business well yeah and i would not tithe on that until you take it home i don't by the way yeah until i take it home because it could be spent in the business it's here to protect the business and could be it's it could end up being an expense right like during covet it was an expense because we had to cover payroll right we used retained earnings so some of it so the uh that kind of stuff so and and that's taxable and correct that's right you know you don't get the the irs taxes you on that whether you take it home or not yeah so it's an interesting discussion but the big thing is is the good on you for thinking about it that's good on you for loving your faith walk and your god that's enough that you even care about the answer to the subject uh and good on you for being generous but to borrow to pay a tithe isn't missing the principle of the tithe it's missing the whole thing yeah absolutely then you're banker tithed for you oh i think i'm gonna puke a little uh yeah hey y'all you know i'm all about keeping your budget in check especially during the holidays and that's why i always start my grocery shopping during the holidays at aldi from fresh produce to holiday favorites and charcuterie boards for parties aldi has it all and at prices that will help your family save big up to four thousand dollars a year for a family of four so do what i do for my family shop at aldi first to save on groceries without sacrificing quality or holiday joy find a store near you at aldi dot us that's al di dot us savings based on regional analysis of aldi versus select competitors prices may vary by location product availability in the market so alisha is in main merry christmas alisha how are you hey dave i'm good how are you better than i deserve what's up um i recently found out i'm pregnant with our second child yay yay yeah very excited about it uh all you think is our house is pretty small it's about nine higher square feet so we've been trying to rack our brains on how to either expand it or be able to afford a new house but my husband is the sole provider and he makes you know he's a mechanic so he doesn't make a ton but um so we're just really stuck and don't know how to make enough income to bridge the gap in between where we're at now and if we lose the assistance by making more money that why does him being a mechanic mean he doesn't have money it should mean he does have money unfortunately in our area where we live um we're in rural main there's not a lot of opportunities for them to make a lot of money did i hear you just say losing assistance if he made more money yeah we're like in this weird place where if we make a little bit more money then we lose assistance from the state i am unfortunately well versed in government programs so you're on some type of welfare yeah so my daughter is under maintenance care which is like insurance is a huge expense here okay that's i'm sure a lot of other places um we save we get about 400 or 500 dollars worth of assistance per month if you count the health care and the wick okay you're not going to do this but here's what you should do you should move told you i know it's so hard because no it's not hard it's not hard people who are broke and have no opportunity in an area have moved to an area where there was opportunity in economic growth since time began yeah the chances that i'm going to let my wife and child be on welfare because and live in a 900 square foot home because i can't make any money because we live in an area that doesn't support a normal mechanic salary are zero i'm going to load up the truck and head to beaver lee yeah how long is your family how long has your family been in the area my family has been here but i mean my grandparents are from here okay so long long time have you seen many people get out a lot of my generation has left why do you think they've left yes i know it's because of the opportunities okay so you really are you called us for one reason and i think you didn't expect this but i mean this really davis absolutely right you can't call and say how do we increase our income to get a little bit bigger house here in a 900 square foot place you're a welfare if you aren't willing to get off of government income and you're right they will penalize you that's the whole point of benefits they're going to cap you and and then you get stuck in this cycle so days and yet i'll talk to the guy the other day and i don't i know your husband's probably not a diesel mechanic he's probably a car mechanic but i talked to a diesel mechanic the other day making 120 a year they ain't on welfare i know someone that can make good money they ain't on welfare and we don't we don't want to live on welfare that's our thing like then i don't want to live there real estate but you're okay with it i'm okay with it for now because we don't really have another option that's not a true gave you one okay that if he's a mechanic he can have another option for you if you stay there i do agree i just want to give her this you he if he can turn a wrench he can do hvac he can do electrical he can do plumbing i'm telling you he can learn all of the trades are the trades are exploding and you simply need to change zip codes in order to change your income it's that simple i'd go get a diesel cert in a heartbeat and and be in a major metro area and buy an airline ticket and come home and see grandma ever so often come on i mean i could keep going welding i mean a hundred hundred sixty thousand a year it's unbelievable the money people are making by the way and make some of these lawyers look bad i mean you know the joke about the plumber and the lawyer right i'd like to hear it actually plumber lawyer called a plumber and he came in and in 30 seconds he fixed the sink and he said that's 350 dollars and he goes well that that's like two thousand dollars an hour he goes i don't i don't make that i'm a lawyer he goes i didn't either when i was a lawyer yeah micro would love that that's great you know in all honestly dave you tell you let's just i'm just throwing this out there because i think this affects our larger audience when you start getting outside of ways like dave just told us to move all right if you go for main and we get real crazy and we go to the nearest big metrop metropolitan area in the northeast boston this is one of the wealthiest cities in the united states they need tradesmen and to dave's point if you're willing to go to the big city and in surrounding areas by the way it doesn't have to be in boston proper make big bucks come back and see the family it's that simple look it up what a tradesman would make in boston what a what a car mechanic working in a Chevy dealership makes it's a lot more than you're making honey they're not on welfare i promise so um yeah you you guys have got to make some changes in order for changes to happen if you keep doing the same thing over and over again you expect a different result i don't know if there is a way for him to maximize his income in your area but i think you know and i think you know there's not because i don't think your man's lazy that's not what i said i don't think he's got opportunity in his field that's why i asked her the question by the way if you see people leaving why why are they leaving you know and um sadly i mean it's happening to small town usa everywhere it is but it is the reality of economics it's just and when when when there is a lack of opportunity people move john grisham had a uh an old book out years ago you know he's a fiction writer it's a fiction book called painted house but he talks about he's about a cotton a kid growing up in arkansas cotton fields and dirt poor you know white trash and um grew up and he talks about the cousin that moved away to detroit this is in the 1940s in the great depression in the dust bowl right you know and the cousin that moved away to detroit and he came back we're in a fancy suit driving a brand new car working in the car factory and had married a Yankee wife you know and that's what they talk about when he's coming back but that was a classic example of what you call a diaspora which is where people move due to war that's right or due to weather katrina caused cajun restaurants to be all over america because people left norlands and never went back yeah because everything was torn down the levees broke the whole place is flooded it was a mess and they just said screw it i'm out of here and consequently there's cajuns all over america that weren't planning to be and you know you've got economics you've got a weather you've got um all kinds of other issues that drive it but sometimes it's just opportunity well let's not forget david i'm so glad you took us there let's not forget the the origins of this great nation is it really began to to really explode after colonial times we're talking about the statue of liberty you're talking about the irish scots the italiens of aid new york is the melting pot that it is because people from across the globe said we're going to leave family and thousands of years of tradition to go have an opportunity so we're asking somebody to leave rural main let's not forget how america gets where we are today it was because people left their homeland we're talking countries that have been around forever and said i'm going for opportunity and it was desperate you're getting on a ship yeah and going across the atlantic i mean that's yeah and you may or may not make it yeah a hundred percent absolutely that this is real stuff y'all and it's not just picking on alisha and her husband but there's just something to talk about i kind of comes back to this thing too i can't afford a house well where do you live i live in san francisco of course you can't afford a house you have to be in the top one percent of income earners to buy a house in san francisco right now i live in downtown manhattan in new york right it's not unless you make 200 grand you don't um you know you're gonna have to be in abalone in texas honey hello and um you know you're going to go somewhere where you can afford to live and so if you you know if you're gonna buy a home you may want to think about a different location for some of you um and because the economics don't fit and you can't just decide well i'm in california and they don't really do math here i know they don't do math but that doesn't mean math doesn't work you dave we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens one day someone's healthy they're working providing for their family and then a curveball hits you know we hear it all the time a car accident a cancer diagnosis a heart attack and suddenly everything changes yeah and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from zander is essential because it protects your family if the worst happens yeah that's right you need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage no gimmicks no whole life junk just straightforward term life protection but there's another piece that people often overlook and that's long term disability insurance yeah it's important to understand the difference between them life insurance steps in when you die disability insurance steps in while you're alive but can't work so it replaces a large part of your income so the bills still get paid while you get back on your feet now if your employer gives you free disability insurance great take it if it's discounted there at a better price take it but if not zander can help you find the right plan whether you're single or married it's not optional if you're going to be out of work for a while then you need to make sure the money's still showing up and that's why zander is our go to they make it super simple to get the right coverage at the best price no pressure no upselling i've trusted jeff zander and zander insurance for over 25 years and so is my family so don't wait it's fast it's easy and it could make all the difference go to zander.com or call 800 356 4282 protect yourself protect your income protect your family the ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by why refi if you've been turned down by other lenders because your private student loans are in default well why refi is for you they help borrowers restart with dignity in a clear direction to get out check out why refi.com slash ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com slash ramsey not in all states today's question comes from victoria in new hampshire my father-in-law started a business many years ago but hasn't been actively managing it so my husband and i have been running it the three of us are on the company payroll along with our employees my father-in-law feels the profits should belong to him because he started the business we want to include him but we also need to make wise financial decisions about the money that we not him have worked hard to earn and manage how can we honor our parents while still being responsible stewards of the business we now run full time i had dinner just the other night with our mutual dear friend Henry cloud and i can just see boundaries flashing light here i understand the frustration that we can read into this email but the reality is the father-in-law did in fact start the business it does own it still owns it you don't own it so we don't have clear boundaries uh professional boundaries as to who does what why they do it how they get paid it's just kind of you guys have all just been going about your business and now there's tension because there isn't clearly defined lines and without that if Dave and i were on some of those one of those goofy judge shows i'd be going look i get your frustration but this isn't your business so you're very little that you can do here until we sit down with father-in-law and ask for some type of restructuring at which point he gets to decide what he's going to do with his business yeah look um we don't want to run it anymore and not be the owners that's what you're actually saying and so um we did not we took it over just as a favor to you and we've run it for a while but we need to go along with our lives in our career and so we're going to move on unless we can work something out to where we become the owners of this but we're not going to continue to work here as employees because that's what you are you're not do any of the profits victoria it's you're wrong it's right you're wrong um you don't own it you work for someone else that owns the proper owns the business and you should have changed that when you walked in the door so now you've got to go back and unspill the milk which is very difficult but so the conversation is hey dad we came in we stepped up we helped you out for a while but that's not working for us long term uh because you keep all the profits and we do all the work and so we either wanted to work out something we're over the next little while we become the owners through some process that you feel good about and that we feel good about or we're going to have to look for a different career and you're going to have to look for a different manager for your business yeah and either one of those is okay but you guys went in here um and sat on your assumptions and your assumptions were that you were going to be the owner and no one sat out loud that you were or weren't and so you weren't because the title to the business is still in his name so he is you 100 of the profits he owns the business you don't own it and you have to change that um or if you don't change it and don't like the arrangement you need to move on either one of those is fine and that's not dishonoring or honoring to your parents you use stewardship and honor parents so i'm sensing a hyper christian take on this stuff and it's not dishonoring to parents to have boundaries it's not dishonoring to someone to say i don't want to work here uh when someone leaves ramsey it's not dishonoring to me unless they intentionally dishonor me but i mean just the fact that they don't want to work here anymore doesn't mean that i'm a awful person or that i'm automatically that they that they think i'm an awful person a lot of times they have something else they want to do this difference that's all and so that's not dishonoring in any way you know there's something there you've just pulled out that classical how can we honor our parents while still being responsible stewards here's the thing that is a bit of a self-righteous tone that you can clearly see there and here's the here's the lesson from this unclear expectations lead to bad relations right it's just 100 percent of anger every time because you had this expectation your father-in-law had a very different expectation nobody got clear about it at least to write it down and get some concrete steps moving forward davie nailed it here and and so you get angry when you expect something you didn't get that's it yeah like when you tried to chip shot that shot up onto the green the other day and you missed yeah that that's anger right there i saw that that's the frustration you expected that to work yeah i saw it didn't work yeah and i chili dipped it and it went six yards and it's supposed to be a 35-yard shot that is that is my expectations number one being unrealistic let's start since we're going to teach out of this i don't play golf enough to be good enough to expect it i was just in it i was no but it's actually an illustration let's just mix metaphors an underhand pitch but yeah so all right yeah it's too fun so that's it yeah the secret to happiness is lowered expectations and clear ones realistic and clear that would be your two attributes lisa cindy cleveland hey lisa what's up hi how you doing better than i deserve how can we help thank you for taking my call i just started listening to you this year and i'm undertaking student loans for the first time so good for you you mean you're you mean you're getting ready to pay them or you're taking them out getting ready to pay them oh good okay i'm glad starting in january so i have a plan all laid out but i just need a little bit of um advice okay um uh first of all financial and then the second of all the more spiritual so it might be a first on it so so um my first question um financing student loans should i refinance them or should i just start paying them off starting what are the interest rates um january um it's 6.25 for both of them i have a subsidized loan um at 29 407 dollars and 48 cents you don't refinance student loans unless you get a better interest rate right i want a lower one so if you get a lower one you get one time one time you can refinance student loans and so you got to feel really good about the new interest rate that you're going to get it's going to be a way lower and and and you don't think interest rates are going down which they might be by the way so i would not refinance right now i might wait till the end of the year on government insured we're talking about federally insured student loans right right yeah okay so wait a little wait a little towards the end of the year and let's see if rates come on down a little more so if you've got a six and you can get a four and a half yeah let's you know let's get a better rate rate's not going to save you what's your balances um so for the the subsidized one is 29 000 and some change and for the unsubsidized one is 50 thousand some change because it's total of 79 000 some change so one percent of 79 000 is 700 dollars so if you save one percent by refinancing you save 700 dollars okay that doesn't go a long way toward paying off 79 000 so the secret sauce is not a lower interest rate to getting out of debt the secret sauce is you dumping tons of money on these things and getting rid of them fast right and and that's my goal so a little bit of backstory i'm a child lean cna sort of fine nurse and assistant good um we don't we don't get paid like nurses do but you know that's why i started you're paying more than a stain at home yes yes absolutely yes yes um so i been traveling for eight years i got these student loans back in my 20s um i'm much older now um tag on about 15 years and um three things really jarred me into like my you you mean you listen you've got to do it you got to do it um so i um ended up getting a couple of travel contracts um in new york and i get one that you know pays very well through our hospital nursing home and um i uh with with um overtime i take home a roughly if i get 16 hours a week i take home about 8 000 something down wow that's awesome live on nothing kiddo and dump it on these student loans and clean it up they've been following you around for too long they're not a pet let's a victim celly may is an ugly woman throw her in the street the holidays are supposed to be joyful but they can also be expensive between gifts travel and about a thousand limited time offers your budget can start feeling anything but mary and that's why i love this boost mobile helps you treat yourself and your wallet right now you'll pay 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noxville hi wilson how are you hey good afternoon dad i'm doing all right i uh i'm reaching out to you uh i've watched a lot of the s o dawn line um you get a little back for my father passed away in july i'm sorry and um oh thank you um he uh he divided his estate with uh me and my two sisters and i had just bought a house in july maybe two weeks into having the house dad daddy passed away um so uh my question to you is uh it's kind of a two-parter number one um i don't want to get rid of my father's house because my two sisters didn't grow up there i grew up there and uh you know that was the house from all my childhood memories you know it's a real sentimental piece to me my two sisters however do want to uh just sell off the it's all favorite thing um it's kind of a big lot too uh along with dad's house uh there's a house next door that would be my grandma's old house we're selling that and then it's i guess maybe in total five six acres with a working farm a barn a detached garage uh and so it's it's a big temple land um so i guess first first off my question is uh what would you do if you were in my position on that well your dad's will dictates that everything be split three ways and generally that means the assets will be sold off so that was pretty that was pretty much your father's intent okay um and so i think your sisters are going along with that now what is the the house that you grew up in what's it worth um well we haven't oh about about give me a number uh we'll say maybe six hundred thousand okay what's the grandma's house and barn and so forth worth uh grandma's house i would say we'll say two hundred just for the house and if you add on the land barn all that you might be working at maybe four fifty five okay so this is a million dollars worth of property and did your dad have other assets substantial assets uh not no nothing that would really stick out on that no sir okay so there's not like two million dollars an ex on stock or something no no sir no sir he uh because we could give your sisters that and you took the land i mean you could divvy it up three ways and you end up with it but basically most of the larger portion of almost all of his estate is these two pieces of property a million dollars worth right yes sir okay okay so it's uh and what is your personal home worth wilson oh we'll say right 300 000 okay and what do you make sir um i would say about five fifty five hundred a month uh my year to date right now is uh i think i'm right at 70 000 yeah okay um so the math the math the math says this yes sir that you're you lost your dad and it breaks your heart yeah and with that you're not in a position to buy your childhood home and so it's going to be someone else's home now yeah and you're going to get your memories and your nostalgia from something other than the family home place yeah so my grandmother uh grew up in a home that was her parents beforehand my dad grew up in that home and when my grandmother and grandfather passed away none of the three brothers and sisters my dad and uncle had any need of that home in several acres a beautiful old place um and they sold it and i was as one of the grandkids i was kind of sad yeah but it also was a very reasonable thing to do for an adult because you go i mean what am i going to do move to another town in this old house old country house just because it's sentimental no i'm not and it doesn't make sense and so it needs to be sold and it needs to be divvied up but there's a sadness that goes with that and you've got that sadness combined with the sadness of losing your dad this year and so it's kind of a it's kind of the year of heartbreak for you and i'm sorry um i guess my leading to the other question i had um once i guess all everything's all sold and you know say i get my my portion whatever checked out today well in your opinion what would be a good investment opportunity for me like do you have a mortgage on your home sir yes sir yes sir yeah i'd pay it off okay you have any other debt all right um no uh mine my personal uh my personal truck i i'd paid that off last year um and you know my fiance she uh we already got the wedding paid for everything coming up in may yeah um and let me oh congratulations on that that's good news so a new a new fresh start and everything and let me encourage you this um i don't think your sisters are bad people i don't want you to have ill will towards them because they're just doing what your dad said to do yeah it's not you know none of y'all are gonna live in that house you can't afford to and so they're liquidating it and splitting it three ways and that's that's what he that's how he had set up his life and so they're not they're not doing anything wrong sir so the last thing i want you to lose your dad lose the house and then lose relationship with your sisters too yeah wilson i'm just sitting here listening i want you to reframe this your dad in his generosity is essentially paying for your first home for you to get started in your new life with your new wife yeah uh this is a blessing i have fun with that it's i think that's truly what you need to do is go man my dad he left me and my sisters with enough for me to start my life debt free essentially wow that's a big deal and you can become very very wealthy as a result of that yeah your fiance's income combined with yours and no house payment and no payments i mean you're gonna be making a hundred something thousand dollars a year between the two of your more and you're young and yeah but also it's okay to just say out loud that this hurts and it's sad and i don't i don't like it but i do like the future that he gave you so i'm gonna go with that that's a good reframe can i like that and you know you got this barn and all this you know before you sell it is there something nostalgic from the house or the barn that you take your sister and go ahead like to take this and there you can take something with you sure yeah you know and honestly truthfully uh if you're gonna have something nostalgic it ought to be a little smaller yeah it's exactly right like i always think of a cool sign in the barn i got my grandma's bible i don't have her house okay yeah i would that's it easier to carry around yeah that's true so yeah and i got my grandpa's gun and i'd it's easier to carry around right and so uh which is kind of how we did things she had the bible he had the gun but the um but that's uh yeah wow and so um yeah look for nostalgic things like that because memories are not in real estate dirt or bricks and mortar and real estate can trap you with emotions it's family dirt that's generationally been there i've seen some of the worst decisions in my life made watch people make some of the worst decisions in the name of the emotions of generational family dirt and uh man you can just get trapped in the emotions of that when the old man that bought it originally would have never wanted that right you know now you know the great grandpa in this case or whatever or my great great grandpa yeah would have not wanted us to do something stupid with that piece of ground i was talking about a minute ago yeah and in the name of family dirt because he here's just something he bought you know it wasn't family dirt before he bought it so somebody now somebody else's family dirt so let's just um there we go hey wilson there's a lot of good can come from this you and your sisters can be closer you get a good fresh start and um it's okay to say it's that i'm sad about it so welcome back to the ramsey show in the fair wins credit union studio ken colman ramsey personality number one best-selling author and host of front row seat ramsey networks runaway hit he's my co-host i'm dav ramsey the phone number here is triple eight eight two five five two two five merry christmas america we're glad you're here ryan is with us in salt lake city hey ryan what's up in your world hi davie hi ken thanks for taking my call uh my wife and i are in baby step seven with a net worth of about 1.6 million dollars i'm calling because i have a plan to leave my corporate job for my side hustle and i kind of need a sanity check i just want to know if i'm being a a fool to trade security for independence or you know or is this exactly what baby step seven is for well give us the numbers i love this question tell us what your income is in your corporate job okay so i make close to 200 000 a year right now and the side hustle this is not great consistently it's about 2000 a month that i bring in net and that has been over the course of two years a consistent thousand that we can count on what is it so it's just buying and selling abandoned storage units i tried the first one is kind of a hobby and now my wife calls this my hobby jobby and i buy five or six a year so it's really uh not a lot and i've just done this in my spare time yeah this is just above a hobby she's right right um so how old are you i'm 44 what how old is she she's 39 what does she make so up until about uh four months ago she only had part-time jobs and worked in the home but starting in september she got a full-time job as a teacher her dream job that she's always wanted to do and now she's making uh about four thousand dollars a month net so she's netting four thousand what do you do with your corporate job what's your career so i'm a software developer okay the answer is no because we always answer what would we do if we were in your shoes and uh would i walk away from a 200,000 gig for a 24,000 hobby not at 44 no uh you still got a lot of earning potential i think there's still a transition i think you need a better side hustle and let me just tell you my rule of thumb on when do we leave a full-time job to a side hustle just so that you have some context because you're not there but i would want a minimum of six to 12 months of my income and in your case that's 200,000 i would want six to 12 months of that in the retained earnings is what we call it here in the company the side hustles bank account uh before i even thought about moving out but in your case i don't even think that's the right because this is hard to say some percentage of your income it's a hard to scale business if you had a side hustle that was 150 you know you could make that jump yeah that's fair and but here's the thing i'd go in from you said software engineers is that what you said yes sir from software engineer to junk dealers probably not my plan i understand that there's probably there's probably a middle ground here i liked what you said from corporate world to independence yeah let's talk about that and how can we maybe be a software engineer freelance start doing some consulting contracts and you decide who and when you want to work for and all that kind of stuff and maybe you make 250 doing that i don't know you don't necessarily have to go down but you got your independence and you can set your hours and do some of that stuff sounds like you got a pitch i want to hear this out a little bit more because i do have a follow-up question go ahead i know you want to say something so i if i could push back just a little bit uh about two years ago i was ready to just jump and leave the corporate world i was burnt out and i still am and i felt like i could barely hold on i found something that i could gravitate towards and uh something that i loved and was passionate about and something that i felt really proud that i had built and bootstrapped from a $500 initial investment to something that consistently makes $2,000 a month in cash and we also planned two years ago i knew i couldn't jump then it would be ridiculous to try and say that i can replace a $200,000 a year income ever but that's not what i want why would i don't want to pile up money in a bank account just to have $10 million when i retire if i'm not happy and i would and my soul felt like it had been sucked out of my body totally get it let me ask you a quick question on that what is that what would you say is the greatest source of your burnout is it people is it the environment is it the workload those are usually the big three what what is it for you yeah i would say it's the the corporate nonsense and the lack of independence that there's just okay so much of those mean you have to make less to be happy i know but does it mean that i need to make more or the same to be happy if i can be content no but it's just it but to so automatically assume less equals happy that's a that's a not a proper framework yeah i understand all right let me ask you another question i'm very happy and i'm like a lot more i i i just yeah i'm sure what has to happen ryan you've done this a long enough to know something about this business if you gave it 40 hours a week what do you anticipate the income becoming i i thought about this a lot i know and i i've had so here's here's my plan so um i the best month that i've had was $6,000 in net net profit okay and that was that was from buying multiple lockers instead of having to space them out so much because i had more spare time to do it i have a sabbatical coming up because i do have a great corporate job it's very cushy you know i have a sabbatical that comes up for having worked at the same company for 15 years and i have six weeks off in march i want to take that six weeks and i want to bust my butt and put my nose to the grindstone and see what i can do putting 40 hours 50 60 hours a week what do you think you can do what do you think you can do i think that i could average 6 000 a month and i could have uh breakout months of 10 okay so i'm gonna tell you something after hearing your cause of burnout and i'm on your team but i'm going to give you some some tough love that is a mindset issue that you actually can control i didn't hear toxic environment i didn't hear a jerk boss i heard cushy job so i'm gonna tell you what's going on you can control your desire and your desires to be independent i love it but i'm going to tell you this right now i love the six weeks sabbatical do not quit your job right now this is advice i would give to myself let's prove out this hypothesis in the six weeks but let's not immediately quit if that goes well and i think you need to change your mindset starting today that yes what's really going on in this burnout is is i'm spending all my time thinking about my desired future and i'm not willing to be patient to get to that desired future in a much better way and i think you're just so ready to leave and be your own guy that you're missing what is a phenomenal platform by which to step into that desired future i think you can step into it too soon and talk yourself into making less money because i just want to be happy i think you need to be wise i think more wisdom less happy is the mindset right now yeah i'm a little bit afraid no i'm a lot afraid that you've confused the freedom that you feel doing this business with an actual passion for the business yeah you just bonus on junk i mean it's okay it's not exactly like you're changing the world or there's passion where's the passion come the passion comes from your independent your control in your own destiny and that's where you're getting your passion from it's not the actual actions and i think you can do that in a way that is better for your family of 44 years old than 24 000 a year when you're tired of feeling stuck with money there's just one solution to get different results you have to do something different no one accidentally wins with money you have to have a game plan and that begins with our get started assessment go to ramseysolutions.com start answer some questions and we'll show you what steps to take next don't stay stuck take control of your money starting today go with ramsey solutions.com slash start if you feel like you're always starting from scratch with your money well trust me you're not alone it's not because you aren't disciplined it's because you're emotionally overwhelmed i'll start again next month now that's not managing your money it's emotional survival mode you're stuck because you're ignoring the emotions that work with your personal finance in our new book what no one tells you about money jade wash all our ramsey personality gives you a clear guided process that helps you diagnose the emotions fueling your daily money decisions gives you a clear path you can do this stuff pre-order right now for 24.99 and get over a hundred dollars in free bonus items an enhanced audio book book comes out in january but we bribe you to buy it early because it helps our marketing so we give you a hundred bucks worth of stuff for 24 dollar purchase shut up that's a deal the early access to the ebook instant access to an exclusive video your financial checkup with jade exclusive three-week on-line book club and a live q and a all with jade you are going to love this jade and her husband paid off 460 thousand dollars worth of debt yeah they know the emotions and she can walk you through help you navigate this pre-order today at ramsey solutions.com slash store or if you're watching on youtube or podcast click the link in the description. Cindy's in Dallas hi Cindy how are you? I'm good how are you? thank you. sure what's up? so i have two paid off vehicles um 106 Honda Odyssey and a 2010 Chevy Traverse but i keep having so many repairs i don't make a lot each month i'm a single parent why do you have two cars? well they each keep breaking down you have a spare? yeah um you have a teenager? no okay it's me and kids how old are the kids? they're all 10 and under three of them. she don't really need two cars? my problem is uh whenever one breaks down i use the other but they both have so many repairs. what if you sold them both and piled the money together and got a good car? i don't know that anyone would give me a whole lot for both i don't want to end up back where i'm at like one needs a timing chain and the other it's been leaking oil i just i feel like i don't have enough to get a decent car that's not gonna have the same problem how do you know? i've asked around for people to buy the the worst car i haven't i've asked two different mechanics a dealer you ask a mechanic to buy your car well he sells these cars i bet he does which means he buys yours cheap and resells it for a profit bad information okay i want you to take these cars and look them up on kelly blue book kbb.com private sale i think you have a three thousand dollar car and a five thousand dollar car that's what i think and i think that's eight thousand dollars and then you go get an eight thousand dollar car do you have any money at all? i have some that i've put thousands into how much do you have in money i have about two thousand okay all right and so if you got eight thousand out of these two cars and put your last two thousand with it you could buy a ten thousand dollar car do you have any family in the area? some what? i have some what's some who? my parents okay you say that with great enthusiasm how old are you? i'm 34 okay how long have you been by yourself kid? three years is there a large church what we call mega church or good-sized church or multiple good-sized churches in your area? sure she's in Dallas yeah there's a large church okay here's here's what i want you to do because you're a single mom and i'm not saying these churches all have it but i know several churches in our area have a program where they help single moms that have automobile issues so that could be a free mechanic to get this timing belt change to then be able to sell as david's been my point is i want you to know that there are some real possibilities for help but you've got to know that as a single mom there are people out there that want to help you with the car they may give you there's a large church that david and i go to we give cars away to single moms you got to be okay asking for help here because it feels like if we can fix this car situation this is going to take a huge lit of stress off of you am i right? yeah it would be a lot better are you willing to show up and say i need help? i've applied to one of their programs i didn't hear back from that one i'm sorry about that but i would show up call them again prove to them that you aren't a deadbeat which you're not and that you're taking care of let them know who you are you applied to a program with a church? yes yeah usually there's some type of that and they didn't call back i mean they have something where you have to call on at six in the morning and you you have to go through an application for them to take one family let's go you're in a desperate situation let's let's get up at five a.m for that i have applied to increase my va disability i'm hoping that that will you completely sidestepped the suggestion yes you need to go do what ken's telling you to do and then when you get ready to sell these two cars i would ask that you get your brother or your dad or one of the gentlemen from a local church to go with you in the sale and in the repurchase help you select something in the repurchase not that you're not able to but you want another set of eyes looking at the mechanical ability so you don't buy another problem okay yes and you might even get it inspected before you buy it so if you could find a ten thousand dollar car from a you from a grandmother that is selling it on a garage sale and um you probably could get a very good car for that kind of money right now and you probably can put that money together from these two vehicles you may have to go through that church program that at five o'clock in the morning that ken's talking about get that time and belt changed and cause all this to happen but what you're doing has to change because what you're doing is not working would you agree with that yes it's impossible to save and keep exactly and you're getting tired and you're by yourself and you're getting the crud beat out of you by this situation i can feel the fatigue in your voice i'm sorry thank you but you're tough you are a tough lady you're a warrior princess and you can fight through this but you're gonna have to start making some big moves to get these these cars need to be gone a spare because both of them suck is not a plan yeah i've been trying to follow what you said about buying in cash and i bought the van in june for six hundred and seventy five dollars and i knew it needed some repairs but it just it keeps needing repairs well we've never told anybody to buy a six hundred seventy five dollar van i have but i didn't tell her that but yeah if you're real we want to i guess i hope she is in that range yeah no listen keep your head up listen get your head up here's what i need you to know that there are people who are willing to help you and you've got to swallow i'm not saying you're prideful at all but we all have it i think you've got to help show up and say will you help me yeah i'm pretty sure that we've got some pretty good connections there i agree i'm not gonna name their names on the air but um we'll make some calls for you there and see if we can help you get tied into a good local church and see if they can walk you through some help okay because you need some help and i'm gonna ask you to ask your dad it sounds like that's not a comfortable relationship but to ask him to help you select the next thing and get rid of these two so that you can get into a decent car and maybe maybe i'm wrong if you bought it for six seventy five you might not have eight thousand dollars worth of vehicles i'm probably wrong on my math but um but yeah you the thing is we've got to get the two of these put together with a little money and some wisdom and get you into something where cars are not consuming your life anymore hun so you hang on christian's gonna pick up and he'll get you with our church guys our we have a department that works with churches and christian you can put her with josh and he'll help her find somebody that's got a car program there in dallas there's a bunch of them that do i'm sure i don't want to name any of them i know a bunch of them but i don't want to name them on the air put them on the spot but we'll take care of her make sure she's okay it's one of the best times of the year but it's also the time of year when people let their money get totally out of control everywhere you look it's just buy buy buy so you start swiping the credit card and suddenly it's january and you got a mess on your hands don't let that happen tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went with our budgeting app every dollar every dollar not only helps you stay on budget and in control of your spending this holiday season it also helps you find extra margin in your budget thousands of dollars of it and every day will coach you to build better money habits and attack your goals faster than ever so while most people will be starting in january with the taste of regret in their mouth you'll already be winning start every dollar for free by downloading the app today so taylor is with us in houston texas merry christmas taylor how are you well maybe if i push the button taylor would be there hi taylor how are you hey dav i'm doing great how are you sir better than i deserve i see on my screen you're a baby steps millionaire congratulations thank you very much so uh how much is your net worth sir 1.1 million very cool how old are you 32 oh wow young one good for you and what's the breakdown of your 1.1 million how's it invested well it's pretty simple dav i've got 570 000 in my 401k i've got 125 thousand in my ross ira 170 000 in taxable uh my home's worth about 250 000 and i've got about 20 000 in cash good for you well done well done and what do you do for a living uh i'm a union electrician ah very good good for you what's your wife do uh i'm single i'm not married ah okay and you did all this by 32 did you inherit anything no sir not a penny zero inheritance so you're an electrician at 32 years old and you've got a 1.1 million dollar net worth i think that kind of rests our case on the trades doesn't it uh yes sir how old were you when you started 20 okay so 12 years yes sir you paid off the house and stacked the 401k yes sir i paid off my house about three months ago actually wow good for you how does that feel man did you ever think we you know started as an electrician at 20 years old that you were going to be a millionaire at 32 no i definitely didn't think that that it was going to be possible it was uh always a dream but i started listening to you about 10 years ago and set myself the goal to to achieve you know becoming a millionaire and being able to be on your radio show and here we are now look at that man congratulations thank you so you have a uh what did you do an apprenticeship or did you get some kind of a certification degree or what uh so um i actually got a scholarship out of high school from a uh a local plant that i really wanted to work at and uh they put me through a two-year associates degree program um and after i finished that i was lucky to get hired on there and um i did go through a three-year apprenticeship program with them and then uh so and ever ever since then it's just been uh just staying steady and being consistent so what was your starting income when you started all that uh my first year i've been very blessed my first year was 95000 okay and what do you make now um about 200 to 10 okay as an electrician oh i love this call this makes me so happy incredible incredible how's it feel to be at this point at 32 years old does it ever look at that and go wow well i do it um uh it doesn't really feel any different as far as how i've always felt but um it is it is a nice milestone to reach and uh i just look forward to just continuing to save and invest and see what other goals i can reach you think it can still be done if somebody's listening right now and they're 20 and they started a an apprenticeship program an associates degree and move out in electrician you think that can still be done in america absolutely 100 what'd you pay for your house uh 242 okay in houston texas yes sir i'm i'm about an hour outside of houston i'm in more of a rural area but uh what's the area yes sir bay city okay yeah i know bay city all right do you have any and so does 242 buy a pretty decent house in bay city texas right now uh yes sir i would say so it's a three bed two bath 2 000 square feet and a nice nice neighborhood quiet established neighborhood so i think that's i think that addresses the affordability concerns we hear yes sir yeah definitely question do you have plans or have you allowed yourself to wonder about owning your own business as an electrician uh or what do you think about professionally now that you've been in this field for let's call it 10 12 years i have i have thought about it i've thought about what other opportunities i could get into as far as uh additional income streams um what have you i what have you identified not saying you're going to do it but what have you identified because i want our audience to hear what these options might be well one of them is i've i've kind of always been interested in owning maybe an rv park we're kind of in a big industrial area where i'm at there's a lot of plants and a lot of industry around and it seems like the rv parks are always full just constant constant you know visitors and contractors workers coming through so that was always something that i've been interested in and that cash position and no debt sets you up to be able to do that all right i have another question for parents that are listening right now and they've got a kid who is either said something about it or maybe they wonder if their kid is a college kid and maybe they're feeling cultural pressure about that if their kid's handy a little bit leans towards some of the skill sets that could work in a trade but they're worried about the perception of that not going to a four-year school what would you say to those parents i would say there's some excellent opportunities in the trades it's uh it's a very respected career in the area um you have a skill set that you can keep for life i mean you can you can take the skills you learn in the trades and you can take them anywhere and we need a lot of trades people in this country and um there's just some great opportunities for earning and for stability in those careers yep well tater we're proud of you man congratulations i'm so happy for you excellent excellent work man baby steps millionaires listening to us at 20 years old goes becomes electrician 1.1 million dollar net worth 250 000 paid for home that's 2000 square feet three bedrooms in the houston texas area and 625 000 in retirement account stave at 32 yeah that's just going to turn into millions it's going to be you know he's going to have 40 or 50 million dollars if you don't watch what he's doing yeah it's that it's going to get out of control it's pretty wild that's just bizarre at 32 freaking years old starting out making 95 and for apprenticeship and moves into 200 000 a year yeah so there's your answer and you know what they didn't have 350 000 in student loan debt and a parent plus loan that's what he didn't have and uh so oh they they gave the the place he went to work gave the scholarship for him to get an associates for free exactly right let's just let's just track this a minute okay and um this is a different way of thinking about things again we're not against higher education but we are both very excited that the trades are exploding in america and made in america starting to be a thing again and uh that's a good thing there's a bazillion of these things we need to clip this call and send it to our friend mike row he'll love this call i almost said if we fund it to to three-way call mike in here and uh he would be so excited he would have been cheering uh taylor on here here's something by the way out of the news in the next 15 to 20 years the federal government is predicting that they will have to hire as many as 600 000 electricians the federal government with federal government to do what government contracts you know like of defense electric chairs for the irs i mean what what do you got i'm just telling you 600 over over oh in contracts a subcontract not just federal employees federal employees to do work on federal buildings federal and i'm just i'm just pointing it out that the need is that big and whether or not they're going to do that or not is not the issue i don't want you to get lost in the massive number there but the idea here is that i'm going to get massive lost the massive government spending is what i'm going to i know but the point is is and again i'm not trying to drive people to federal federal work but i'm saying that the need for the tradesmen and mike's been saying this you've been saying i've been saying there is there's going to be a massive amount of of tradesmen who are retiring and the need is massive which means that the pay scale is going to be very very good and this young man taylor not doing bad sample not doing 200 000 he's doing better than most lawyers yeah and no no law school loans yeah there's so many jokes there so many jokes lawyer jokes my favorite yeah so do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not uncle sam's then listen up there are tax deductions and credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a ramsey trusted tax pro they know the tax code inside and out so you don't have to and they can help you file when tax season rolls around get a trusted tax pro by going to ramsey solutions dot com slash tax pro ramsey solutions dot com slash tax pro our scripts for the day proverbs 21 and five the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance i'm going to say that again the plans of the diligent by the way diligence is excellence in the ordinary over time the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty ronald reagan said the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things he is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things rudy is in sacramento california hey rudy what's up in your world life is good and that verse is amazing i'm going to give you an example of it for my wife and i uh we recently moved to the sacramental area to be near our children and our grandchildren and and so i took a job with a public agency and we we currently have in our retirement account the million eighty thousand dollars wow and our equity in our home is about maybe six hundred thousand good for you about 300 000 so we've we've i've been i've been doing your principles for 25 years okay good for you and so now you're talking about your retirement accounts from before in your other job right that you've rolled my other jobs combined i've rolled them over and i have a lot of IRAs i have an fp500 index account good so i i max everything out we're actually closer to 20 percent of our investment wow of our income so no debt just our mortgage i take cash for cars i i only buy used cars xo how old are you 56 way to go man you did good we've been working our butts off and it's you know your wife how to make it by the way on a side note your wife should make a recipe book on beans and rice and rice and beans there's some good stuff out there except that we never really ate it it's just a metaphor but i know i know so listen uh the public agency that i got a job with they have a retirement plan i put in three percent goes into a 457 b pre-tax they match it with a three percent uh match that goes into a 401 a with a vesting period of 10 years i'm not going to be here in two years and then it gets worse the money goes into a variable annuity i'm wondering if i had just to do what i've been doing and forget their retirement plan what do you think well you're not you're not going to get the match because you're not going to be there i'm not going to be there so the only thing you've got is just a 457 which is just a third comp that's all it's um you know you're avoiding taxation for a short period of time is all you're doing um yeah hmm i mean there's five hundred and forty eight dollars a month whatever it is each of us i'm maxing out the ira at 23 500 and then i have a bunch of money going into the s and t 500 index money that i have them i can't you can't put money anywhere else you know what that's exactly what i would do is what you're doing i'm with you i would avoid this thing because you're you've laid out what you've laid out is excellent work on what you're already doing and of course the 600 that you already you said 600 in retirement now right no i have a million eighty thousand oh i missed i'm sorry i got it wrong million eighty i have about maybe six hundred thousand in equity yeah that's what it was okay so so that million you're 56 when you're 63 will be two million yeah we've been planning for 63 for 28 years it's two million and then when you're 70 it'll be four million and that's if you add nothing to it all and and the house i mean you'll have it paid off in short order i would be chunking it on the house and in that index fund now here's the comparison on the index fund because you're a baby step seven you've maxed out any reasonably good retirement you're avoiding this bad retirement thing and so that brings up a whole another discussion you're not a baby step seven you've got that you've got that mortgage left okay i'm going to change it i'm going to throw it on the mortgage all extra goes on the mortgage company and i asked them if i send them $5200 a month when what i have my house paid off and they said december 12 2032 i i don't care what they said i'm throwing it on the mortgage i want that mortgage gone the sooner it is gone the faster this whole thing explodes and the more it's already on a great trajectory and it's going to increase the trajectory now okay having said that and that's really what i would do if i were you let's stop and explain why i said i like the index fund in your situation because here's the thing if you've maxed out all retirement and we're going to set aside the bad one is not even not even there okay but if you're maxing out all roth IRAs and everything it's available to you and you're throwing money at the mortgage if you put money in a in an annuity a variable annuity not the one you're talking about but just did that it's going to grow but it's going to be taxed at ordinary income when you take it out what you put in the in an index fund it's almost it's a low turnover fund so there's almost no turnover so there's almost no taxation on it until you pull it out and if you leave it alone one year longer you qualify for capital gains so you're only going to be taxed at 15 percent rather than at 37 percent yeah that's what i've been nice cpa told me that too yeah so it's a great you got a good cpa so it's a great um you know the s and p is a great place to park money because it's a low turnover ratio fund but i want that house paid off what you say you're making household income uh i'm i'm not 120 my wife is at 60 so 180 180 okay yeah 5200 60 000 a year yeah we're trying to get aggressive we're going back to the beans and rice wouldn't go that far back there's no reason to go crazy you're you're not intense you're just intentional and i'm just saying okay what am i i'm going to have a life and then beyond that do i put money in additional investments or do i put it on the house i put it on the house that's all i'm saying your baby steps four five and six that's right where you are four and six because your kids are grown but yeah so well done rudy congratulations another millionaire we talked to yeah that became a millionaire because of doing the stuff we teach yeah twice and again good good income not insane income you know just really consistent for a long period of time it's what the scripture let off to and exactly and he said i model that and he did that's exactly right diligent prosper joes and Toledo hey joe what's up hey what's going on uh dav how's it going great man how can we help hey man just got a question um so my wife and i so we we're avid followers of your program we just actually uh diligently paid off about 58k in debt we sold our house uh we could do that we rent now and boy let me tell you that was a lot but we could finally breathe right now but so my wife has a good job she's a nurse practitioner she knows she works nine to five at home with the boys i got four part-time jobs and i'm only making around 30k what's your career field what are you trying to build a career in well i i'm passionate about like audio production and stuff like that but i don't care what you're passionate about i ask what you were trying to build a career in i don't know yet that's what i'm trying to figure out it okay i'm trying to figure that out you have four sucky part-time jobs okay okay yes all right ken yeah you know when i when i meet somebody like you we have very limited time so we got to cut right through here so i want you to give me the the heart answer not think about this what what would you try if you knew you couldn't fail and and you knew you could do something else but you could make a hundred thousand yeah just what what's at the top of the heart there what is it oh man say it songwriter that's it okay now so here's what we know it's very very hard to make it as a songwriter i've got several friends that are some of the best songwriters in nashville they're amazing so we got to then step back and okay that's what we would try if we couldn't fail but i love music there's a theme between the audio engineering the songwriter yeah there's a theme there okay so again today's point we got to work our way to this ultimate job but right now four jobs equaling thirty thousand dollars a year it's not going to cut it so i'm going to give you my book the proximity principle that's my gift to you but you've got to figure out what can i'm finding the work your work to do that's right we'll give you the assessment as well but the proximity principle first is all right who do i know in this field just the music field that i can sit with and see what a clear path might look like this is just for the long term but in the short term you've got to stop working four jobs and find a job a job maybe two that now we're making sixty let's make more money in the short term while we figure out what our plan is for the long term that's the that's the progression here so hang on the line take the assessment from finding the work your wire to do i think it's going to help you out a lot that puts us out of the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the principle peace rise jesus