John (3:46)

Is that real?

Dave Ramsey (3:47)

That's real math. And here's the thing I love when math can be.

John (3:51)

If 24 year old me put 150 bucks away every month, that's it, 150 bucks.

Dave Ramsey (3:57)

That's like door dash money. That's like all of your subscriptions combined for a month money. It's really not that much. The problem is human behavior. We don't have the consistency, the discipline to just put away that money and not go spend it elsewhere. And we got, well, that's a problem for future John to deal with 35 year old John when he's an adult and he's got like a family and stuff. He'll figure it out. Except we know that that's not how life works.

John (4:23)

I want to go back and just give a whooping to 24 year old me.

Dave Ramsey (4:28)

I know, I feel the same way. So don't get discouraged. Let's move on to 45. Or you know what, let's actually do 15%. Let's, let's look at that 35 year old who actually invests 15%. Average household income is $80,000 in America. 15% of that is a thousand bucks a month. All right, so let's look at what happens when you invest a thousand bucks a month instead of 375. 2.8 million. So for those of you going, well, John, a million bucks isn't going to be anything when I. Okay, how about 2.8 million? Can we concede? That's a lot of money no matter where you came from. Good. And that's if you never get a raise.35 to 65. 2.8 million if you invest a thousand bucks a month. Let's move on to the 45 year olds. A lot of people listening who went, man, I wish I could go back to when I was 35 and do this stuff. Let's say you're 45. You have not a dime saved in retirement. Now the truth is, the math is going to differ here. You need to invest more to still achieve a million bucks. So we're going to pipe it up to twelve hundred dollars a month from 45 to 65, which again is still about a six figure household income. Investing 15%. And you can see you can still retire a millionaire at 65 years old with a million bucks in that account, even if you start from nothing at 45 years old.

John (5:38)

I know, George, but here's the big thing. You're leaving out my feelings.

Dave Ramsey (5:43)

Oh, I'm sorry. Let's hear it. How do you feel about this?

John (5:46)

It feels unfair. I don't know, I was trying to say something.

Dave Ramsey (5:49)

And now here's the other thing, John. People go, well, must be nice. Who's got 1200 bucks to invest? And I go, hey, how much is your student loan? Well, it's 400 bucks a month. Hey, what's your car payment? Well, that's 600 bucks a month. Hey, what are your credit card minimums? That's 200 bucks a month. I think I found 1200 bucks. If we got out of that debt, that's how much money would free up to then invest. Therein lies the power and simplicity of the Ramsey plan. When you don't owe people money, you have money left over. When you have money left over and you're willing to make sacrifices for future you, you will invest said money. So that's the big secret is live on less than you make. Don't owe other people money. Invest the surplus investors and you will be unbelievably wealthy.

John (6:30)

And that means in the short term, not to minimize it. You've got to be very intentional about driving the car. You need to survive, about not going out and figuring out ways to have people over to go out to the park. Is any of that cool? No, it's awful. And postponing in these days, postponing buying a house for maybe 10 years longer than it took me to buy my first house. Right? Like, that's the reality. Those are expensive. But it is changing the way TV and Instagram says you should be living and saying, okay, based on this set of realities, we're going to live this way. And so we're going to figure out how to have a great, wonderful life in. In this, in this little reality that we live in. And my promise is, if you can choose to live in that, you can choose to find joy and laughter. And it is what it is, man.

Dave Ramsey (7:25)

Well, it's crazy. Is to be truly wealthy, it has to be invisible to others. Nobody can see the balance of my 401k, but they can't see what's in my driveway. That's the problem, is we get way too excited about the thing going down in value in our driveway instead of the invisible number happening in an account somewhere in a 401k, because it doesn't feel real and it doesn't affect our life right now.

John (7:48)

But the idea is we're still using either one of those proxies as some sort of value statement on what we're worth. Instead of doing the harder work on our spiritual lives, our relational lives, our emotional and mental health, to say, no, I've got value just because. And I'm gonna go do the next right thing for me and my family, where we want to be when we're 65 years old. And I don't want to be like this other family. I don't want to have cut off my kids due to value differences and then have to go beg them to build us a wing in their new house. Right? Like, so we have to reverse engineer where we Want to be at 65 and just choose that reality?

Dave Ramsey (8:24)

Yeah. You want to be a financial burden to your family or do you want to leave an inheritance to your children's children? Right, you get to choose.

John (8:31)

But that choice, as far as that calculator goes, that Choice begins at 24. That choice begins at 35.

Dave Ramsey (8:37)

Yeah. Building wealth in 2035 starts in 2025.

John (8:40)

I think that's an important.

Dave Ramsey (8:42)

That's the hard part to grapple with because we live for today. Everything is just this ephemeral quick hit that we need as we scroll social media and the calculators. You know, only so many people get excited about a calculator. I love a good calculation, I love a good spreadsheet.

John (8:56)

One time you and I were at a punk rock show and you're like pulled out one of your earplugs and.

Dave Ramsey (9:00)

You'Re like, hey, hold on, check this out.

John (9:02)

And you're like doing facts and figures in the mosh pit.

Dave Ramsey (9:04)

It was pretty cool. That's true. I stay away from the mosh pit. As a guy who's short, it's just most people's elbows are right where my face is. So it's not ideal. Not ideal. But I hope that encourages you. And listen, if you're 50, you're 55. Even if you're 60, yes, it's going to be harder, but you have catch up contributions. Hopefully you're making more than you ever have made in your entire life. So there's still time to retire with dignity. And I can even show you, John, from 50 to age, let's say 67, you're gonna have to work a little bit longer. You start with nothing. You invest a thousand bucks a month. You can still have $600,000 if you start at 50 with $0. So let that be an encouragement to you. You don't need to have a $20 million net worth. But there's also no reason to retire broke and hope that social insecurity covers the bills. Because if you've listened to the show long enough, you know it doesn't. I don't want you to be that person. You can do better. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.