You Don't Have to Stay Stuck

Summary

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The Ramsey Show | “You Don't Have to Stay Stuck”

Date: July 6, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruze, George Kamel
Special Guest: Blake Thompson (Retiring after 30 years)
Theme: Building Wealth, Overcoming Financial Mistakes, and the Power of Persistence

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show marks a sentimental occasion—celebrating the 30-year career and retirement of Blake Thompson, Dave Ramsey’s first producer and longtime leader of Ramsey Network. Alongside listener questions about budgeting, debt payoff, investing, and business ownership, the team reflects on lessons from thirty years of radio, the roots of their mission, and the consistent principles required to achieve financial freedom.

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Celebrating 30 Years: Blake Thompson’s Retirement

Origin Story & Early Days of the Show

• Dave Ramsey shares the humble origins, broadcasting on a bankrupt station for free:

  “If we’re really bad, you can cut our pay in half. And we were really bad.” (00:05)

• Transition from “The Money Game” to “The Dave Ramsey Show,” expansion from Nashville syndication (Oak Ridge, Russellville, Jackson), and the behind-the-scenes grind.
• Blake Thompson reminisces about feeling stuck at his old job and the pivotal call that changed his life:

  "On the worst day of my job, pager goes off… my professor calls me and says, ‘Blake, have you heard of Dave Ramsey?’" (04:35)

• Early team culture: grinding long hours, taking pay cuts (from $26,000 to $18,000) but investing in Dave’s vision.

Impact and Legacy

• Rachel Cruze:

  “Would not be this show where it is without Dave, but Blake Thompson and Lara Johnson. They were the three at the beginning years, grinding it out.” (08:04)

• Blake’s leadership in shepherding the Ramsey Network, digital, radio, and growing to 640 stations.
• Personal finance principle:

  “The reason I can go at 55... is because what he taught I started at 25.” - Blake Thompson (07:51)

• Family and legacy discussed, including personal growth and giving back (MLB to Nashville, humanitarian work).

Memorable Anecdotes & Humor

• Pranks and chemistry sustained over decades:

  “We played a prank on Blake... told him he racked up $10,000 in long-distance charges. His stomach went in his throat.” (16:17)

• Dave’s broadcast journey, including adapting his Southern accent:

  “I learned how to say Vegas instead of ‘Vay-gas.’” (14:56)

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Key Listener Calls & Insights

Housing and Budgeting

“Are We House Broke?” (Braxton, [21:22])

• Young couple with a high house payment—$4,600 out of $11,000 take-home pay.
• Dave:

  “At 35-40% of take-home, it’s not as bad as it sounds, but you’re squeezed. The reason we say 25% is it gives you room to save, invest, be generous.” (22:49)

• Rachel: Encourages strict budgeting:

  “You should have around $7,000 after the mortgage. Track it—don’t just move money by feel.” (25:03)

Debt Payoff Advice

“Which Debt to Pay First on Limited Income?” (Laurie, [25:34])

• Couple (61, 62), limited income, HELOC and car loan (~$19k each).
• Dave:

  “Pick the highest payment and get rid of it. Also, challenge your belief that debt is the only option. Next time, fix the chimney for cash.” (29:35)

• Guidance: Use $25,000 from a CD inheritance to clear the car loan, then attack HELOC.

Car Temptations & Contentment

“Should I Buy a New Car?” (Andrew, [33:08])

• Young server, wants to upgrade from a 2011 Acura but is close to debt freedom.
• Dave on developing discipline:

  “Wealthy people make decisions based on how it’ll feel in ten years. Poor people base decisions on today.” (35:34)

• Rachel:

  “Car’s about ego. Say no now and build that contentment muscle.” (38:22)

• Quote:

  “Big hat, no cattle.” (38:22)

College Savings for Older Kids

“Is It Too Late for a 529?” (C.J., [49:15])

• Kids in 5th and 7th grade: “No, plenty of time for growth. Take advantage of the tax benefits.”

  “Get it growing—the 529 just answers, ‘Is the growth taxed or not?’” - Dave (50:08)

Big Life Changes

“Should We Live on a Catamaran?” (Bob, [53:39])

• Debt-free millionaire couple (net worth $3M), plan to buy a $650k catamaran using a home sale.
• Dave: “Don’t borrow money for a boat—it’s a toy, not a home. Sell your house and pay cash.” (54:14)
• Rachel: “But keep in mind, at 65 you might want a home again.” (57:12)

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Rapid Fire: Short Calls & Questions

• Emergency Fund Replenishing (Mary, Chicago):
  Paused retirement briefly, but with $280k income, can replenish $20k in 4-5 months. “Cut lifestyle, not investments.” (61:00)

• Transitioning Businesses & Delegation (Austin, Cincinnati):

  “You must hire someone else—get off the treadmill. Narrowing focus helps, but time management and the right hire are key.” (66:37)

• Veterinary School Debt (Emma, Alabama):
  Don’t take on $250k loans—look for tech roles, scholarships, and incremental advancement. (76:07)

• Should We Set Up a Trust? (Cole, Asheville):
  For rental properties, use LLCs. Trusts are rarely needed under $100 million net worth. “Probate is not a big deal.” (81:44, 83:10)

• Skeptical Investment Advisors (Angela, Idaho Falls):

  “If your advisor can’t teach you, run away. Wealth building is about consistency with basic vehicles, not fancy jargon.” (86:54) “You don’t need double-back-flip synthetic limited partnerships. Most millionaires got there with just mutual funds and a paid-off house.” (91:27)

• Wedding Gifts and Family Fairness (Chrissy, West Virginia):
  Dave and Rachel discuss whether to equalize wedding contributions for their daughters, highlighting inflation, circumstance, and family dynamics. (106:30)

• Transparency in Marriage and Family Business (Gina, Phoenix):
  100% password sharing in marriage = healthy relationships. “Unless you have something to hide…” (117:33, 118:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dave Ramsey on Consistency and Success:

  “The chemistry that was created, the integrity of that consistency and the loyalty... I am sure that’s why this show is where it is today.” (19:00)

• Blake Thompson on Financial Discipline:

  “The reason I can go at 55 and go on to the next half of my life is because what he taught I started at 25.” (07:51)

• On Contentment and Wealth:

  “Contentment is probably the most powerful financial principle for wealth building there is.” (40:37)

• On Team Loyalty:

  “No other show in America had the same crew for nearly 40 years. That consistency is extremely unusual and is the secret sauce for our success.” (18:59)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:05 – Show origins; Blake’s 30-year journey
• 08:40 – Viewer calls begin: housing budgets, debt, and emergency funds
• 21:22 – “Are We House Broke?”
• 25:34 – HELOCs, car loans, low income, and debt snowball
• 33:08 – Car temptation and the discipline of contentment
• 49:15 – Starting a 529 and maximizing college savings
• 53:39 – “Should I borrow for a boat?” – Catamaran couple
• 61:00 – Emergency fund replenishing after major repair
• 66:01 – Small business growth and delegation woes
• 76:02 – Veterinary career path without massive debt
• 81:44 – Trusts vs. LLCs for family financial planning
• 86:05 – “Should I invest with someone whose pitch I don’t understand?”
• 106:30 – Family fairness on wedding contributions
• 117:31 – Password sharing and transparency in marriage & business

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Closing Insights

• Financial mistakes don’t define your future: You can course-correct with discipline, contentment, and solid principles—no matter your starting point.
• Consistency, transparency, and humility yield long-term success, whether in personal finance or building a professional legacy.
• Team and family matter: Loyalty and relational health within your team (and at home) drive extraordinary outcomes.

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Final Words (Dave Ramsey):

“There’s only one way to financial peace—and that’s to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.” (126:09)

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. So today we're gonna do a little walk down memory lane for those of you that have been with us for a long time. You'll recogn a lot of these things, and if not, you're about to learn some things you didn't know. I started this show on a radio station that was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and I agreed to work for free. It was called the Money Game. And I told the guy, if we're really bad, you can cut our pay in half. And we were really bad. It sounded like Darryl and his other brother Darrell doing a radio show. Dave Ramsey. And this is wwtn. It's about how it sounded.

[Caller/Listener]

And

[Dave Ramsey]

we started that in January or, I'm sorry, June 25th of 1994. So we're coming up. We'll be coming up on our 40 year here before we know it, or 1992. I'm sorry, 1992. We'll be coming up on our 40 year here in just a few years. And later on, a company called Gaylord that owned Opryland and still does own Opryland Hotels and a bunch of other things, they owned some radio stations at the time here in Nashville. And they bought the radio station out of bankruptcy and agreed to keep us on the air because we had good ratings. And we agreed to continue to work for free, but we owned the show and we would begin putting it on other radio stations called syndication. And I talked our first radio station into putting us on the air in addition to Nashville. We had really good ratings in Nashville, and it was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Small little AM radio over there. I think you could probably hear it maybe one block away from the radio station, but certainly in the parking lot of the radio station you could hear it. And then I picked up the phone and called Triveca Nazarene University, which is a local Naz University. And we had some team members come from there that were excellent and said, hey, do you know anybody in the communications department or broadcast department that's looking a young go getter that might be looking for a job? I'm getting ready to hire our first producer because the producers we'd had up to that point all worked for the radio station and I needed a new one because now we were officially syndicating and ended up hiring a young guy at 25 years old named Blake Thompson. Blake is celebrated yesterday, 30 years with Ramsey. Started as our very first producer and told me about a year and a half ago that he was going to retire at 55 years old on exactly his 30th anniversary. Here at Ramsey, we've got a thousand team members. We've had people retire here many times. We've never had anybody last 30 years.

[Rachel Cruze]

Blake, you're it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Blake's the first one to make it 30 years, and he's an integral part of the show being what it is from those early days. And so we're going to take a couple segments and go down memory lane with Blake. Congratulations on your retirement, my friend.

[Blake Thompson]

Thank you. It's been a wonderful last two weeks, the way you've honored me and celebrated and all the fun things. It didn't hit me officially until yesterday when I was coming off the elevator, about to head out to have lunch with our president, Dan Ramsey, and the whole team was on the floor clapping me out, and I just lost it. That's when it really hit and goes, this is it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. For real? Yeah, for real. Well, talk about the. Let's go back to that first day. The professor at the Nazarene University called you.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah. So I was in a. I graduated from Triveca in 1993 and proposed to my wife, Tanya, right when we. After we walked the stage, we both graduated. And then life hit. It was just like college was a blast. Dating Tonya, goofing off, did radio. I thought I'd just keep rolling right into that in life. But I was married and had a place to live and had to support her. So I got a job setting up these copy sites all over Nashville at these law firms, and I worked my way up. I started managing a bunch of them, but I hated the job. I couldn't stand it. It wasn't a job where I felt like I looked forward to going to. And I didn't feel like my work did anything that I could see did something for.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you're working with lawyers all day.

[Blake Thompson]

That's right. Oh, my gosh. But anyway, I had a group of guys around me that prayed, and one of the guys that led that thing was my professor at Triveca's husband, who took guys like me and said, hey, let's support each other and find the right thing for each other and support and pray for each other. And on the worst day of my job by far. First of all, Tanya used to like Friday Blake, but knew on Sunday afternoon, Monday Blake was coming because he was not as fun. He dreaded it. No, he was not as fun. But on the worst day of my job, I think it was a Monday, I get a pager goes off, and I finally get to the phone. Two of my people didn't show up. I've been running like crazy. And it's a Triveca number. And I called it and got a hold of my professor, Lena Haguy, who's still there. She celebrated 38 years this year. Said, blake, have you heard of Dave Ramsey? And I was like, I don't. I don't recall the name. She said, how about the money game? Because that's. What's the name of Dave show at the time. And I said, yes, I've seen that advertisement above the urinal. My favorite sports bar I go to. And she goes, listen to me. This is what you've been wanting. This is perfect for you. It's ground floor. His stuff that he teaches me and my husband Steve, the guy who's been praying for you. It's changed our life. We're debt free. It's crazy. So you can go in there, work with him if he hires you, and you'll see what your work actually does.

[Rachel Cruze]

And this is like 1996.

[Blake Thompson]

1996, yeah. And now our hiring process, you know, you go through different tiers, board and all that, because we want to hire thoroughbreds and not, you know, donkeys. Back then, it was Dave. And so I met one on one Dave in his office twice, and he sold me on the vision. He told me, though, he said, hey, I'm not going to be able to pay you what you're getting now because we do everything debt free. But this thing is taken off and I need someone to come in here, not a bored op that's smoking and getting $10 an hour every break and could care less who's on the phone. I need someone to work with me and make this money show Main street, because money show is Wall Street. And, you know, you're scared to listen because you're embarrassed. You don't know the answers to the questions. But Dave was already teaching the way FPU at that level where people got it. He just wanted to now know. He knew that Nashville wasn't the only place the phones were blowing up. This is a problem all over the nation.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So Blake took a pay cut from 26,000. I offered him 18,000. So he got paid $18,000 a year in 1996. Worked out, though. Oh, gosh.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Blake Thompson]

And you sold me. Yeah. I'm retiring at 55.

[Dave Ramsey]

At 55.

[Blake Thompson]

But yeah, you sold me on the vision. And it was exactly what I was looking for at the time of being on the ground floor working with you and doing that. But yeah, I don't want you to miss. I started listening naturally, not having a ton of debt, but all the calls I would screen and run the board. And I was like going home and telling Tanya this. I think this is a real thing. We should do this.

[Rachel Cruze]

We should actually.

[Blake Thompson]

Nowadays we only hire crusaders and people like that.

[Rachel Cruze]

But then it was like Dave was

[Blake Thompson]

just getting people who were willing to do the work and come in here and bust it with them. But it got on me quick and Tonya quick, and she was naturally that way anyway.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Blake Thompson]

And I'll tell you the reason I can go at 55 and go on to the next half of my life to do some other stuff is because what he taught I started at 25.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, it works. It really works.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

And for those of you, you know, we, we said this to our team, I guess it was last Monday was the staff meeting. But it is true, when you look back, those of you listening and watching right now, like, it would not be this show where it is without obviously Dave, but Blake Thompson and Lara Johnson. I'll throw. I'll throw you in. They were the three at the beginning years grinding it out and you two knowing each other so well and the relationship you had of how to build something like this. And it continues to go because of you, Blake. So I'm excited. We'll keep chatting because there's still some fun memories of the early days.

[Blake Thompson]

Thanks for having me.

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[Dave Ramsey]

So we're taking a couple of segments to honor Blake Thompson, our senior producer here at Ramsey. He was my first producer. We hired him in 1996. He was 25 years old. He's retired yesterday from Ramsey after 30 years here. And we have gotten to hang out together, looking across the glass at each other, doing a three hour show for, gosh, 15, 20 years.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah, doing that.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so, and then later on in, I guess it was in 2013 or something like that, we brought James in as a producer. And that was a shock to my system because I'd worked with only one guy on the air. And James has done a great job stepping. And then Blake has become one of our top leaders and he runs all of Ramsey network. So all of the, anything that goes out of here on digital anything, or on radio anything has been under his purview for many years. Any shows, all the shows, the Rachel Cruz show, the Smart Money Happy Hour show, the John Deloney Show, Ken Coleman had a show over here next door for a while. George, George Camel's YouTube stuff, all the YouTube and all the podcast stuff is all under Blake's heading until yesterday. And now he's unemployed, but now he's retired officially. But back to what Rachel was saying when you came on board, we had that one station in Nashville and a week later we plugged in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and that began the process.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Fast forward to today. While Blake has been sitting across the glass over those years, we grew the show and Laura was screening phones and was the associate producer. We grew the show from that to 640 radio stations. We're the second largest talk radio show in America today. Have been for many years. We're in two radio hall of fames, one on Marconi, one all of this. And of course, we changed the name from the Money Game to the Dave Ramsey Show. We were probably about 40 stations or 30 stations, and one of the bigger stations called us and said, you guys are dumb. I mean, Rush Limbaugh doesn't have the political game. Dr. Lara doesn't have the marriage game. You need to call it the Dave Ramsey show because that's what it is. And then people understood and it really helped our branding at the time.

[Rachel Cruze]

Sure. But I think one of the funniest stories that you told last Monday was about when you guys had to call the Stations that you were on, but it had to be long distance. Landlines.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah. Nowadays we're on the satellite. The radio part of this, you know, YouTube and podcasts has grown so big for our brand, but radio's still so important to us. We're on the satellite 24 7. It's just going. So you can just plug in and

[Dave Ramsey]

listen the radio stations.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah, radio stations. Back then we had to little Comrax boxes and put them in the closet at that WTN studio that we would drive 40 miles round trip, me and him, every day for like three years. So we paid cash for our own studio. But when we syndicated, put that thing in and it was like dialing a phone and I had to remember to dial Oak Ridge and hang up the Oak Ridge at the end of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Jackson, Tennessee, still with us. Jackson, Tennessee, they're the oldest currently on the network. They were the third station. Russellville, Kentucky was the second.

[Rachel Cruze]

But as. Yeah, as y' all start chipping away back then, which is just so funny to think about. And I remember Blake, you. I mean I was eight years old.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

When you started.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah. My first interview, or actually the official when Dave offered me the job was two face to face. And then me and Tanya went to dinner with Dave and Sharon. And in the booth behind me during my interview was a 8 year old Rachel Cruz and a 4 year old Daniel Ramsey, who's our president. And your sister Denise was probably 10 and she runs the whole foundation. Yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

And we were there.

[Blake Thompson]

That's what makes me feel old. That's when it hits me weird.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's wild.

[Rachel Cruze]

But that's the wonderful part, I feel like of when you run so closely in business, business and family overlap so much. Your family, Tanya, even your mom Martha was part of Martha's place back in the old building. If you listen to that, that started everything that you see today. If you come to Ramsey Solutions headquarters. That all birthed out of Martha's the cookies.

[Blake Thompson]

That's right. And she still gets recognized on the street. That's mar. Martha. She's a rock star.

[Rachel Cruze]

But it is. It's been such a beautiful legacy, Blake, that you've left not only from this show and all the work that you've put in, all the years, all the Dave rants, all the who knows what when lines, I'm sure were hung up on accident. Dave's, you know, I can't imagine the story.

[Blake Thompson]

It's a country accent. He went through that so we could get.

[Dave Ramsey]

He went and he went. He hired a voice coach From a

[Blake Thompson]

broadcast because we couldn't get above Kentucky. And when he did it, he was willing to do it. Guess what? We end up in New York.

[Dave Ramsey]

I learned how to say Vegas instead of ice. I had to learn how to say going instead of going. And, yeah, I had to learn to talk like, what?

[Blake Thompson]

These guys?

[Rachel Cruze]

What are they?

[Dave Ramsey]

What double wide are these guys broadcasting from?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. No, but really, the legacy that you've left, Blake here.

[Blake Thompson]

Thank you.

[Rachel Cruze]

And your family and all. And those of you that know Blake or don't, he's one of the funniest people you will ever make.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah. And the cool thing is Dave gave me a book even back when I was 25, besides his own book, Financial peace Halftime by Bob Ruford, about, hey, if you do this right, you don't have to just 75. I go fish now in golf. Sit around. You can actually go to a second half.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. What are you doing?

[Blake Thompson]

I went through a career of 30 years, and now the second half, I'm doing a bunch of things. I'm helping bring major league baseball, the Nashville stars to Nashville. That's just for fun. But I'm still going to Pakistan freeing slaves. And I'm working with a buddy who sold his business for a lot of money. And he saw the work I've done, even through Dave, because he gives us time off, paid to go do that kind of thing of work. Hey, you've been to Africa, you've been to Haiti, all this. We want to give more internationally. We have a lot of money to give. Can I hire you now that you're retired to go give my money away? I leave in two weeks for Africa. So I'm going right into it. So I'm not sitting around. I have to be doing something which

[Rachel Cruze]

continues on who you are.

[Blake Thompson]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But it almost. It almost never happened because of those Comrex boxes.

[Blake Thompson]

Oh, that's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So we played a prank on Blake because he's so easy to mess with. And he came in Monday morning, and John was running the radio. He worked for Blake. Worked for him technically, in those days. And John called him into the office, and he goes. And I'm sitting there, too, and he says, blake, we got a real problem. You forgot to hang up the phone on Friday on those four Comrex boxes. And those are all long distance lines. And so by the time we found it, the long distance charges are $10,000. Well, we didn't have $10,000. He knew that would put us out of business.

[Blake Thompson]

What'd I say? First, I Said, oh, please don't let me go. I will sell your book door to door till it's paid off. And then Dave couldn't keep a straight face. He was gone laughing.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm not very good at. I can't play poker and I can't hold a straight face in a practical joke. So I started cracking up because I felt sorry for him. But for a minute there, his stomach went in his throat.

[Blake Thompson]

It was great.

[Dave Ramsey]

He did hang him up, but we messed with him anyway. Yeah, actually, you didn't. Somebody else found him and hung him up. And that's why. That's what gave us the reason. Gave us the reason to do it. But. So the other thing I want to make sure we don't drive by is what Rachel was saying before we went into that last break, and that is during the time that we've been on the air, there's been a lot of talk radio. People come and go and they were going to be the next big star, and they flame out in two years. They were going to do this and they weren't. They say something stupid on the air and lose their career, whatever. And their character just, you know, they're hard to work with behind the scenes. They go out. Very few people hang around broadcast or of this type for this many years. It's very unusual. And what's even more unusual is that I had the same, the three of us in the booth, the two of them in the booth and me across the glass for almost 20 years before we changed a thing. And the chemistry that was created by that consistency, the integrity of that consistency and the loyalty. I could look across the glass and look at Blake and he knew what I was thinking. I knew what he was thinking. Like, I'm talking to a caller and I look at him and he goes, okay, we got to get rid of this and this is going sideways. We could just know what the other one was doing. And the quality of Laura pulling the right calls in, Blake training her, and the comedy bits you used to build out were hilarious. And some of them just about got us in serious trouble, but they were pretty funny. And that chemistry, I'm almost positive this is correct when I say it, that no other show in America during that 40 year period of time had the same crew the whole time, much less the same host.

[Caller/Listener]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I mean, the same crew and that consistency, I am sure, because I know a lot about business and I know a lot about branding and marketing, I am sure that consistency is why this show is where it is today. It's because of you. So I love you, brother. Thanks.

[Blake Thompson]

The partnership. Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm proud of you. Proud of you, proud of you.

[Blake Thompson]

I'll be the number one fan of this for the rest of my life. Thank you.

[Rachel Cruze]

We love you.

[Blake Thompson]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

We love you so much.

[Blake Thompson]

Thanks for the opportunity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Blake Thompson celebrating 30 years. Y' all give him a round of applause out there.

[George Camel]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Braxton is in Huntsville. Hey, Braxton. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Caller/Listener]

Good afternoon. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller/Listener]

Me and my wife are both 26. We just recently started following the baby steps. Kind of had a few things out of order to begin with, but I wanted to call and get your guidance and opinion on. I mean, I think or house broke, but we're not struggling and I want to get your opinion on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How much is Your house payment?

[Caller/Listener]

4600.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's your take home pay?

[Caller/Listener]

Take home pay between me and my wife is 11,000. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And is that as 401k coming out before you get to that number or health insurance coming out or just taxes?

[Caller/Listener]

The health insurance is coming out through my Life and then 401k is coming out for both of us, you know, through our employer.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that gets you to 11,000?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you would add those back to do our calculation because our calculation is after tax take home pay only, not your investments and not your insurance. Okay. And so probably taking home in that case at least 13,000. Right. I mean, if we looked at just after taxes, does that make sense?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. I'm guessing, but it could be a little off. And so for that purposes then your payment is what, 40, 35% of your take home pay. So it's not as bad as it sounded initially, but it's still high. The thing, the reason we tell people to be at 25% Braxton of their take home pay is it gives you room to save and invest and be generous when you've got a high house payment as a percentage of your take home pay. Economists call that house poor. You called it broke, but it's house poor is the phrase. You're not broke, you're doing great, you make a lot of money. Congratulations.

[Caller/Listener]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

And the trick is to just make sure, super sure that as your income goes up, that you guys don't slip into car payments and you don't slip into borrowing money for a trip and you don't. An emergency comes up and you don't borrow money for a new heat and air system. So you've got a good emergency fund in place, you stay on budget, but you just, you've squeezed yourself with a higher house payment is what this means. It's not, in your case, it's not so bad. I would say sell the house, but you've got to be careful.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do you guys have a lot of consumer debt, did you say? Or you guys are debt free?

[Caller/Listener]

We are almost debt free. We've done a few things out of order. My wife had some student loans, around 19,000 and we had a small, I had a small credit card from when we went to purchase our house. I didn't have enough credit, so I had it to get me started. So I've got I think around 3,000 on it and it's going to be paid off next paycheck.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller/Listener]

And then we paid her student loans off. We paid cash out of it. I paid my truck off, we bought her car in cash.

Good.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you'll be free at that point. And now the trick is again to be doing your every dollar budget. And the two of you be very intentional and careful with the margin that you do have because you're squeezed. And when people are squeezed, they end up going, well, when the car broke and I had to buy a car and you know, and I wanted to go on this trip, I really wanted to go on this trip. And these are the people that call us later and they got a mess on their hands. You know what I'm saying?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes, I.

[Rachel Cruze]

But, Braxton, from your numbers, you guys should have around 7,000 after the mortgage is paid. Is that right?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. Okay.

[Caller/Listener]

Which up until now, recently, when we, you know, buckled down and started doing y' all steps in order, we wasn't kind of really tracking that. I was just kind of moving money to the savings here and there, as I felt. But now we're actually keeping up with it, and that's a lot. That's real accurate, what you just said.

[Rachel Cruze]

Good. Okay. That's great.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And that should be. He's on track plenty.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, absolutely. For sure. For sure. And your income will continue to go up.

[Dave Ramsey]

Laurie is in St. Louis. Hey, Laurie.

[Caller/Listener]

How are you doing?

Well, thank you so much for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

I am 61. My husband's 62. We both work. My direct question would be we had to take out a HELOC within this last year. The amount that we could charge or whatever to that is 30. We did not want to do that. We just wanted to do the necessary things, which equals right now about 16,000. We pay, obviously, on the interest. It's 7.25. And I always pay some extra. Beside the HELOC, we have a car loan. Approximately 19,000 left. We bought the car used a year ago. That is at 6%. Since those two amounts are fairly close. I have just discovered you and your show. About a month ago, I have already paid off our small amount of credit card debt that we did have. I told my husband, let's take our cards out of our wallet. We're not going to use them anymore. Good for you. I got the Every Dollar app last week. I put in all the numbers. I even wrote it on paper just to make sure I got everything in there correct. And we do. We live very simple. We have a small, very small 900 square foot home, and it's just him and I. And is the house paid for? No, he just bought the house 10 years ago, right before we got married. It's my second marriage.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller/Listener]

We make. We bring home about 3,600amonth. That is both of us working. We did make a little bit more, but a few years ago, I was diagnosed with lupus and fibromyalgia, and so it really limits what I can do. However, I do clean for a living now. And so I have some businesses and a couple houses that I take care of. And he helps me. He works full time at a music store, and he Also plays to make extra money.

[Dave Ramsey]

So to answer your question, they're both 19,000. Which debt goes first? It doesn't matter. They both need to go away. And so just pick one of them and attack it. Whichever one I want to get rid of the highest interest rate or I want to get rid of the highest payment. I'd probably want to get rid of the highest payment first, because then that frees up that payment to attack the other one with. And I'm going to sit down and go, okay, how much extra work can we both do to add to this? 3,600. Because that 3,600 number is low. That's scary.

[Caller/Listener]

Sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

And we got to get that number up. And because we got $38,000, we got to clear here. And if you only do $1,000 a month, that's 38 months.

[Caller/Listener]

Sure.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, that'd be hard to live on. 26,000 or 2600. Laura, do you guys have retirement?

[Caller/Listener]

No. No. Look, if I. If I would have discovered your show and been a lot smarter earlier in life, I got taken by my ex husband quite a bit. It was a h marriage, and he didn't put me down. We had our own business, and so he really messed me up for even Social Security.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so that's exactly what we would do then. We would tell you to attack those two debts. Pick one, attack it with a vengeance. Increase your income any way you can. That's reasonable. And then I'm going to add one more thing. Okay. You're new to all of this, all right, sure. But the language that you used around the car purchase and the heloc, you need to go revisit that place in your heart. You made it sound like there was no other option except doing those two things. And I don't even know what you used the HELOC for unless it was to save someone's life. You over dramatized it when you presented it to us.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, well, the chimney was crumbling. It was falling apart.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're broke. You don't need a $19,000 debt. You figure it out next time. No more debt.

[Caller/Listener]

Yep. No more debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

You gotta stop. You can't have a big enough reason ever again to buy a car or fix a Kremlin chimney ever again. It's got to be with cash.

[Caller/Listener]

I agree. That's the other part to this. My brother, my only brother, had died about four months ago. He did have life insurance, thank goodness. I took care of him and what needed to be done. And then out of that 25,000, I put in a CD.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is that before?

[Caller/Listener]

25,000. Should I pull that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, you ought to pull that out and pay off one of those. Which of the 19 are we going to pay off?

[Caller/Listener]

The HELOC is 16 and a half and the car is 19.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, which one? What's the payments?

[Caller/Listener]

The HELOC is 7.25 and I only pay on interest, but I also pay more. Which Pay the car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pay the car off. Pay the car off.

[Caller/Listener]

Pay the car off rather than okay,

[Dave Ramsey]

and then attack the HELOC and do that today. Yeah, but the big thing, Laurie, is you have to rewrite your money script. Like when you said pull the cards out of the wallet. That was awesome. That's a rewriting your money script. I don't have to live credit card cards. I don't have to use debt to fix a crumbling chimney next time either. So we got to fix that cuz otherwise you'll go right back in. Let me tell you something I see happen way too often. People fall behind on their bills and they wait. They hope it will work itself out. It won't. That's why I recommend Guardian Litigation Group. Here's the deal. If you've missed payments, collectors are calling, or if you're getting letters threatening legal action, that's not something to ignore. That's the moment to deal with it. Because when you do nothing, it escalates. They can take you to court, and if you don't respond, they can win by default. And that gets expensive fast. Guardian Litigation isn't a call center. They're an actual law firm. From day one, you're assigned an attorney to represent you. So if things do escalate, you're not scrambling and you're not hit with surprise legal fees. Guardian Litigation only gets paid when the debt is negotiated and you accept the settlement offer. This isn't about shortcuts. It's about dealing with the problem before it gets worse. Go to guardianlit.com Ramsey today. That's guardianlit.com Ramsey today.

[Caller/Listener]

Attorney Advertising results may vary and no

[Dave Ramsey]

specific outcome is guaranteed. One of our favorite things is when someone sends us a note sharing how every dollar is working. Lady says, love this app. It makes it super easy to budget. With my husband, we've been. We've implemented this practice since our wedding day and we've had zero money fights. Oh, that's impressive because there's full transparency and we're on the same page. Hey, guys, that's amazing. If the number one thing we fight about is money and we can solve that with the EveryDollar app. Boom, boom. One less thing. As Forrest Gump said, go, go download the EveryDollar Budget app for free in the App Store or Google Play. Andrew is with us in Nashville. Hi, Andrew, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Hey, Dave, how's it going?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

Hey, so my question for you is, I have this urge to go get, go buy a new car. I've listened to your show a lot. I know it'd be very dumb to go, you know, really finance anything, especially something like $30,000 or whatever. When I'm driving a car that works, it gets me from A to B. I've been paying some personal loan debts off payments between family and one from the bank. The one from the bank was to clear my credit card debt to get rid of those. And I'm real close. About 4 into paying those off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Caller/Listener]

And my catch is, my catch is I could just go sell my car for about five, get rid of those payments and then, you know, pay like, you know, three, four hundred bucks for a new car. But then that's extra debt tacked on and it's just something I've been struggling with.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. How old are you?

[Caller/Listener]

I just turned 30.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And are you single?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you driving now?

[Caller/Listener]

Now I Drive a 2011 Acura, the TSX. It was my parents old car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay. The hand me down car.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

What do you make a year, Andrew?

[Caller/Listener]

So I'm a server. I. It's hard for me to say like this is my salary because I just get paid every day, but I have my budget and I'm able to at least pay all my bills and my debts.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like, I mean, what do you, what do you typically take in in a month?

[Caller/Listener]

About 3,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, cool. All right, well, I think your question is a little bit philosophical as much as it is actual you know, what to do type of a question. It's like, you know, I'm really tempted to buy a new car because I'm driving the hand me down car. I'm a server. I'm tired of driving a hand me down car and I'm about to clear my debt. So I feel like I'm knocking it out here. I feel like I'm, you know, I could knock that out by selling my old car and get out of debt faster in a sense, but then turn around and go back in 20 times more debt. So a couple things come to mind when I'm dealing with any kind of thing and I'm trying to learn Discipline that I don't already have. Discipline is a thing that you practice. You have to have some little wins and you practice it and if you do it a long time, it becomes a habit and then you don't have to think about it anymore. It's autopilot then, okay? And so one of the ways I changed because I had the same tendency when I was your age that you have, was I had to start one of the disciplines I said was, okay. One of the things I learned from wealthy people is wealthy people make decisions based on how it's going to feel ten years from now. Poor people make decisions on how it's going to feel today. And so poor people go, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday. And rich people involve themselves in a career or a business where they're thinking long term. So the way that would translate into your situation is you say, all right, I'm going to ask the 10 year from now version of myself if this is a good idea. And he's going to cuss me out and say it's not. Right. The 10 year old, 10 year old, you said you're 26 or what did say?

[Rachel Cruze]

You say 30.

[Dave Ramsey]

30.

[Blake Thompson]

You're 30.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're going to ask the 40 year old Andrew, is buying a $30,000 car when you make $3,000 a month as a server a good idea? And the 40 year old Andrew is going to cuss you out, isn't he? Isn't he? I mean, you know, it's stupid, but I just ask myself, in other words, is this a good long term play? And if I gauge it, most money things that are smart hurt in the short term and are awesome in the long term. And most money things that are dumb feel good in the moment but are dumb in the long term, which is buying this car. It feel good right now to have a better car and be rid of the debt all in one fell swoop. But you got a bigger debt and it feel good right now, but long term it's dumb. And you know that. You said that. Okay? You're just asking how to process it in your brain.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And the car's always an interesting place for people, especially because it almost becomes our identity. Like the thing that you drive makes you feel a certain way, makes other people think about you in a certain way. And so there's a deep level of humility, more Andrew and wisdom to say, I'm going to drive the paid off 2011 Acura hand me down, hand me down versus getting my ego boost a little bit in a nice car, pulling into the parking lot and feeling good. But you would be the classic example of, you know, you look like you're doing great, but then you actually open up the finances. You're like, oh, you make in a year what that car costs, what it costs, and you can't. And you couldn't afford it. You know, you own it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's what they call in Texas, big hat, no cattle.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. So there's a, there's a part of that contentment piece, Andrew, that's so big with winning, with money, long term. And I guarantee you, if you say to yourself, you know what, everything in me wants this. And it makes sense why I totally get it, but I can't afford, I don't, I can't afford it, that I don't make that kind of money to go and buy that kind of car right now. So I'm gonna say no to myself now. I'm gonna make it a goal to buy something in the next five, six years. And then I would have a career conversation with yourself too, Andrew, to think, okay, the 40 year old me, what do I want to. What do I want to be? What do I want to do? Ken Coleman's book, find the work you're wired to do is amazing. And actually, if you hold line, Andrew Christian will pick up and we'll get you a copy of that because there's an assessment in the back of that book that really helps direct people from a career aspect. And that's what I would want for you, Andrew. I'd want you to be 40, killing it, paying yourself that car payment right now to save up cash for a car so that you can be doing other things with your money instead, giving your money away. Car payments and an asset that's, or, you know, an asset that's going down in value and paying interest on it. All the above.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, it kind of goes with a study that I read a long, long time ago when I first got on the air. And I've seen new versions of the research, but not in detail. But in the study, they asked people. What it felt like to delay pleasure. And what they found was this high correlation between people that were able to build wealth and those that are able to delay pleasure. And scripture says godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment causes great gain. Now that could be great gain in your soul and peace. It actually could be in your wallet that being content keeps you out of debt. Being content keeps you in the position to save Being content allows you to be generous. These are all things that are precursors to building wealth. So contentment is actually probably the most powerful financial principle for wealth building that there is.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Because there will always be a newer, shinier, bigger, better thing out there, 100%. And if you keep chasing it and keep chasing it, the finish line moves. And that's where, that's where the money and identity piece is always fascinating when you kind of start to pull that string. How much of our identity is wrapped up in what we, what we, our income, what we have, what we spent. Like, there's so much in it. And when you eliminate all that and you just like press pause, it makes you actually deal with yourself.

[Dave Ramsey]

Breathe.

[Rachel Cruze]

It makes you deal with yourself more than anything. And I think that's a healthy place to be. Because unhealthy people that build a lot of wealth.

[Dave Ramsey]

I saw your post the other day and I loved it. Was that if I buy this and no one ever sees it but me, do I still buy?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so in other words, who is it we're buying this for? And so I used to buy a lot of stuff for other people to see because I was a shallow little twerp. And I was all worried about the way you looked at the car I drove or the suit I wore or the watch I had on or whatever. And I have this fabulous benefit of having gone completely bankrupt and broke and it burned with a hot fire, a refining fire, all of that out of me to the point that I really just don't care at all what you think now. And that's actually a precursor to building wealth.

[Caller/Listener]

If you've worked hard to keep your

[Dave Ramsey]

car running, the last thing you want is stress when you're running the kids

[Caller/Listener]

all over to summer activities or loading up the family for a well earned vacation.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's why I trust Christian Brothers Automotive.

[Caller/Listener]

Listen, most people don't worry about their car just because it's older.

[Rachel Cruze]

They worry because they don't feel confident

[Caller/Listener]

about what's happening under the hood or,

[Dave Ramsey]

or who's working on it.

[Caller/Listener]

And that kind of uncertainty can turn a simple trip into a stressful one real fast. But Christian Brothers is different.

[Dave Ramsey]

They use digital vehicle inspections so you can see what your technician sees, know what needs attention now and what can wait, and make decisions without the pressure.

[Caller/Listener]

That's how you protect your time, your money, and your travel plans. And Christian Brothers stands behind their work

[Dave Ramsey]

with the nice difference warranty.

[Caller/Listener]

Three years or 36,000 miles, whichever benefits you more.

[Dave Ramsey]

So before your next trip, take care of the car that's taking care of you. Go to cbac.comramsey to schedule your service

[Rachel Cruze]

and get 10% off your visit.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's cbac.comramsey 10% off up to a $250 value. See stores for details. Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the Fairwinds Credit un Studio. Bill is with us in Birmingham. Hey, Bill, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

I need some advice on, on, on taxes as far as getting advice from a tax expert or a tax person. Seems like my tax boot keeps going up and my income is, is staying the same. And so I didn't know if I needed a tax pro or, or just a financial advisor.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I guess it depends on where your money's coming from. What is your income coming from investments or from working?

[Caller/Listener]

It's. Well, I'm retired and I draw about 26,000 a year. And then my wife is, draws a pension, but she also works part time. And what does she make? She makes, let's see, she makes about 60 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you've got a $86,000 household income

[Caller/Listener]

and pension of about 20. So our total is, is about 110,000. Okay. All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't think in the last few years on that income that your taxes should have increased. They should have decreased. The changes in the income tax system under President Trump have been favorable to people in your situation. You should have been paying less taxes.

[Caller/Listener]

Well, that's kind of what I thought. I have used the just a mom and pop tax service for almost 15 or 20 years now, and they have just retired. So. So I'm going to look if you

[Dave Ramsey]

want to know who we recommend, that's very easy. We've got endorsed local providers in the tax world, people that we have vetted and we know that they're good and they have the heart of a teacher. And when you sit down with them, I don't want you to just ask them to do your taxes. I want you to ask them to teach you what it is. Why is it that my taxes went up? I don't think they should have. Would you all look at that with me? You may be able to go back and file some amended returns in the past and get some of your money back.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. What was the increase increase bill for you?

[Caller/Listener]

Right now we're paying annually about $11,000 a year in taxes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Doesn't sound that far off. And so if it increased, it didn't increase a lot then. I mean, it may have increased 1,000 or 1,500 bucks or something? Is that what you're saying?

[Caller/Listener]

In. It's gone. Well, I know I had, I had to write off some tax stock loss, but even still, it's, it's gone up at least five to $7,000 or no, I'm sorry, about $4,000 over the last.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, I think you probably could get into your exact income and where your income's coming from and what write offs you had. And there might have been some changes in your income sources that caused that. It could be that your tax people were off, were a little bit lazy and weren't watching. So having some new people look at it is not a bad thing. But as you're doing that, I want you to be learning. So when you sit down with your, When I sit down with my tax pro and I have one and I'm filling out the stuff, I'm, you know, we're getting ready to turn in returns. I'm always asking, okay, how did we get this? Where'd this come from? Why is this doing that? And I want to understand. I'm not going to be a tax pro. I don't want to learn it that much. I hate, I hate this stuff. It pisses me off every time I do it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Winston does that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Gets mad.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, gets into all the detail.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, he likes it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes, Thrives.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

But yeah, you need to understand it enough to know why this happened. And you go, oh, well, we didn't have this tax write off on the stock loss. Or we did have that year and we didn't this year. And so you need to know what's going on and why you've got that situation. And it may just define why you're mad, but at least you'll know what's really going on. And you know, it's not. The unknown is what kills you. So go to ramseysolutions.com click on tax professionals and we've got a, you know, a list of professionals that will sit down with you with the heart of a teacher. And they're gonna do stuff consistent with what you hear hear on the air and interview them like you're hiring someone. Cause you are. And make sure you are actually that they don't sound like Charlie Brown's teacher to you. You know, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It needs to make sense. When you meet with them, you need to know something that you didn't know before you met with, with them. That's called mean they have, that means they have the heart of a teacher. C.J. is in Tampa. Hi C.J. how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Hey Dave. Rachel, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

So we are projected to finish step

two in September, step three and probably November. But my question is about step five. We have a fifth grader and a seventh grader and I'm curious if it's too late to start a traditional five to nine for them or should we just start putting money into like a high yield savings or how should we handle that?

[Rachel Cruze]

No, I mean the, the seventh grader will have still probably six years. Right. That the money could be in the market for growth. So I would definitely say no, it is not too late. Yeah, 529 is still a, a great option at that point because of just the tax advantage, everything that comes with with it for college. And so there's still plenty of years for growth in it.

[Dave Ramsey]

The 529. The only benefit to it is that it grows tax free. The growth is tax free. So I mean if it grows $10,000 and you get that tax free instead of paying $3,000 in taxes on that $10,000 growth, then you know, that's what it made you. It made you three grand. And that's probably what we're talking about about. It's not like it's going to save you $30,000, but it does grow tax free. And if you're going to use it for college, then you're there. And no, I would not use a high yield savings account. I would use. Even if you're not going to put it in a 529, I would use something like just an S&P 500 index fund in that case. Or get a brokerage account with a Smartvestor pro and just start dumping some money in some good mutual funds and let's get that thing growing. The big thing is get it growing. And then the 529 only answers the question is, is the growth taxed or not? That's the only benefit.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, but in six years, obviously we can't predict the market this year is not doing as great. But the last couple of years, I mean if you get any great years of 20something% returns, you're going to see that money grow. It's crazy.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's not a normal year, but we've had several of them in a row. So if you had not been in the market for the last five years and instead been in high yield savings, the difference would be huge.

[Rachel Cruze]

Didn't we add it up a few? Wasn't it like 100%.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was 100% growth in the last five years. Yeah, your money would have doubled in the last five years if you were in the market versus in an HSA you would have made 4% or HS high yield savings account. So yeah, I, yes, I would use a 529 but main thing is get it in some good mutual funds to get it growing. That's the main thing.

[George Camel]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Bob is in Houston. Hey Bob, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Better than I deserve. Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

So great to talk to both of you. Quick question. Newly married, we are baby step millionaires. We are debt free and we're getting ready to change our lifestyle. We want to buy a catamaran sailboat and move on to it and live on that. I was wondering if your house principals with 25% of your take home and a 15 year mortgage or less. We're hoping to pay it off in five years if that still applies to. Even though a boat's a depreciating asset.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, boat's a toy and no I would pay cash for it. You got the money to buy.

[Rachel Cruze]

So fun. Bob, where are you all going to keep the catamaran or where would you.

[Caller/Listener]

We're going to use the east coast as our thermostat and be in Florida and the Bahamas November through March and then start as it starts getting hot, start moving north and then when it Gets hotter, we'll move further north.

[Rachel Cruze]

Such a good life.

[Dave Ramsey]

That is so cool.

[Rachel Cruze]

My stalk you and just.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what is your. What is your net worth? Hey Bob, what's your network?

[Caller/Listener]

Right about 3 million. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's the catamaran cost?

[Caller/Listener]

650. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what are you going to do with your present residence?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, what I've learned with the marine mortgage industry is they will not give you more than 100,000 if you don't own a home because it's very difficult to.

[Dave Ramsey]

That wasn't what I asked. I asked what you're going to do with your house.

[Caller/Listener]

We are going to keep it for like six months so we can get the loan and then we are going to liquid. Once the mortgage company satisfied that we don't have a house anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why don't you just sell it and pay cash for the catamaran?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, because the timing and you know, we want to get the boat this November and we're gonna, we have a kid in school until next June and so we were gonna have the boat and the house at the same time for about six months.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you?

[Caller/Listener]

52.

[Dave Ramsey]

52.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh wow. Well, could you just.

[Caller/Listener]

I'm going to continue to keep working.

[Rachel Cruze]

Could you just pump the brakes for six months, get the kid out of school, sell the house and then. Yeah, I think the Bahamas is. I think the Bahamas is great in July, Bob.

[Caller/Listener]

Well, no, then it's hurricane season. We got to be further north than that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, okay. Sorry. I don't know my meaning.

[Caller/Listener]

It's about a six month refit when you buy the boat to get to to be a home where you got to put solar panels on it and the water maker and so that's going to take some time. That's why we can live in our house while we're working on the, the boat.

[Dave Ramsey]

You could live in a. Anything when you're working on the boat and it won't. And it won't take six months either. I, I'm. Listen, you called Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz. You knew we weren't going to tell you to borrow money on a boat. So I'm just trying to figure out a way to help you live this. The dream is cool. I want you to live the dream. I just want you to pay for it.

[Rachel Cruze]

He had a legit reason though, thinking this is going to be their primary home.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not.

[Rachel Cruze]

So, so I know, but that was.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know, but it's not. It's a boat. Okay. Now I mean it's a catamaran. And it's good. I'm glad you're doing it, and I want you to go do it, but I just want you to sell your house and I want you to pay for it. You don't have liquid assets enough to pay for it other than their house, though. Is that right?

[Caller/Listener]

We have about 250,000 saved up, so we're going to put quite a bit down.

[Dave Ramsey]

That was not what I asked. You avoided my question. I said liquid assets that are not in retirement. Can you liquidate some stock or some stuff that you're trying to hold on to and just pay cash, IRA, and

[Caller/Listener]

it's all an IRA and 401k.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you can't get to it enough to pay for the boat unless you sell the house. Is that right?

[Caller/Listener]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Because you're not 59 and a half. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Hey. And I will just throw out this, Bob, not to be a Debbie Downer on any of this, but because you guys are. I mean, you're 52, and maybe the catamaran. Life is the life for you, and that will forever be. But there is a good chance at, like, 65, you know, you're like, oh, wow, we may want to. To be home and have a home and all the things. So, like, just be thinking of home ownership in the back of your mind at some point in your life, that. That probably will be a reality.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, no, we are fully planning on that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, cool.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Okay.

[Caller/Listener]

And we're gonna be stocking cash away.

[Rachel Cruze]

Beautiful.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you. Are you retiring? Are you going to continue to work from the catamaran?

[Caller/Listener]

No, I'm going to continue to work. My wife can work.

Right. Remote.

And I. I'm an airline pilot, so I'll be flying off the boat twice a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller/Listener]

600,000. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very good.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well done, Bob. And you know, we say not to be jealous of people.

[Dave Ramsey]

Bob, Rachel's ready to sign up. Rachel wants to sign up for your life right now. I love it. Adventure Rachel.

[Rachel Cruze]

That sounds so fun. What an adventure.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go. I'm proud of you. I ought to do this, but I'm not going to tell you to borrow. Borrow money to do it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Sell the house and live in an apartment for six months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

I mean, just so you can cash flow at all.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not worry about Airbnb or whatever. You've got the money. You make $600,000 a year. I think you can figure this out. But, yeah, part of the adventure is the relocation before you move on to the boat. You're selling the house and you're going to relocate for six months in the same area and, you know, have an adventure. Go rent the penthouse at the Four Seasons. I don't care. I'd rather do that than borrow money. And so, you know, let's just pay cash for it. And then, yes, I would go do this deal. Thanks for the call. One thing about the Ramsey show, we're consistent. Mary is in Chicago. Hey, Mary, what's up?

[Caller/Listener]

Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. Thank you so much for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Caller/Listener]

So my husband and I just had to replace our entire H VAC system on the house we just bought in the fall, and that wiped out a little bit more than half of our emergency fund.

[Dave Ramsey]

Did you get a home inspection in the fall when you bought that house?

[Caller/Listener]

We did. We did expect to have to replace it. We knew they were old.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why didn't you save.

[Caller/Listener]

You know, we thought we could get a couple more years out of it. Everything seemed to be working fine, but it could not keep up with the Chicago heat wave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. Just curious.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. So you used your emergency fund for. To replace the heat and air. That's great. That we knew was on its last leg when we bought the house last fall. Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

But that's the. That's why the emergency fund is there.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's why it's there.

[Rachel Cruze]

You cash flowed it. It's great.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and then what?

[Caller/Listener]

So now we're wondering if we should pause our retirement investing or part of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is the emergency? How much did you deplete the emergency fund? How much money did you pull out?

[Caller/Listener]

About $20,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's your household income?

[Caller/Listener]

Our household income is about 280,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you could put that back pretty quick without stopping your retirement, couldn't you?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, we run a really nitty gritty budget, and we're.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you don't. You make $250,000 a year. You can find 20. You can find $20,000?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, I can find about 4,000amonth right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so in five months, you've replenished.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

You'll be fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I would do that, but I think. I think. I still think you can do more. I think you can do it faster. This is an emergency.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay, well, that's our question.

Like, is it.

Right now we're maxing the 401k and doing somewhat of a mega backdoor as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. No, we tell women is your home. Your home's not paid for.

[Caller/Listener]

No, but we're trying to get to the 15% of our household income.

Yeah.

So the question was, do we just maybe pause?

[Dave Ramsey]

If you. If you want to, that's fine, but I would rather you just cut some of your stupid lifestyle and just put the emergency fund back rather than miss

[Rachel Cruze]

out on what do you guys bring? You guys bring home what, probably 12,000amonth, Mary. Take home after taxes.

[Caller/Listener]

Take home after taxes is 18. Takes home after investment and medical and everything is 13.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's 13. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I mean, five. $5,000 mortgage, $5,000 a month puts us back in four months. 4,000 puts it back in five months. I would do that for. I stopped the investments in this situation. And in the future, when you get a home inspection and they say that the heating and air system is old and is likely to live long, go ahead and start planning for that because that's not really an emergency. That's really a lack of planning. And so, you know, if you buy a house, you got to hold heat and air unit on it. You got to get ready for that. You know that's coming. You accepted that when you accepted the house. And so in the future, when you see something like that, build a sinking fund, get ready for it so it doesn't sneak up on you because it really shouldn't.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, they probably thought they still had a couple years is what she said.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's what she said.

[George Camel]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's how I would.

[Dave Ramsey]

But they saved nothing towards it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, they're doing their emergency fund and retirement and they got stuff moving and shaking. You know, Mary, you're.

[Dave Ramsey]

Either way, put the emergency fund back as quick as you can, kiddo. Going for another call. Health insurance is confusing on purpose. You call one company, get transferred three times, sit on hold for 45 minutes, and end up more confused than when you started. That's why I recommend Health Trust Trust Financial, their health insurance advisors who actually get to know your situation and help you find the right coverage for your life and your budget. Health care needs change as your life changes. Maybe it's a job change, the birth of a child, a new diagnosis, or you're just trying to have more margin at the end of the month. No matter your situation. Health Trust Financial shops multiple times top rated insurance carriers and helps you understand what you're actually buying. I've trusted Health Trust financial for over 20 years because they help Ramsay fans make smart health care decisions. Go to HealthTrustFinancial.com today and talk to a real person without pressure or confusion. That's healthtrustfinancial.com. Well, we wish we could get to every single call and question here on the show, and we can't. If you've got a money question or a question and you want an answer to your situation, head over to our website and use Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that is built and trained only on Ramsey content. All the data in it that it's searching through to answer your question is all this show, the books we've written, the articles we've written, it's all Ramsey. There's no Reddit mixed in there to screw up the Internet answer. You'll get an answer the same way we'd answer it right here on the show. Ask your question for free at ramseysolutions.com at Ask Ramsey or click the link in the description if you're listening on Podcast or YouTube. Austin is with us. Austin's in Cincinnati. Hey, Austin. How are you? Austin? Did I push the button? Now I push the button. I missed it.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's up? Going better than we deserve. How can we help? Good.

[Caller/Listener]

I. I just finished your book build a business you love yesterday, and I'm three years into a home repair and light remodeling business I started, and I think I'm chronically stuck in the treadmill operator face.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller/Listener]

I seem to have a hard time. If I can keep up with everything in the field, the business side falls back. And then if I keep up with the business side, I can't keep up with everything that's field. So my question is, do you think it'd be a good idea for me to specialize more in one specific targeted area and then what proper steps would be to move towards that?

[Dave Ramsey]

If so, man, you are in great shape. Congratulations. What a wonderful career field. You're making money, aren't you? You're working your butt off, but you're making money, aren't you?

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, there's. There's a lot of business.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, there's a lot of business. Good for you. Proud. Proud of you. Good stuff.

[Caller/Listener]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, as you read, there's five stages to business. And the first stage is the treadmill operator stage. We all start there. Unless you start with venture capital or something. But most people start at the treadmill stage, and that's where you do everything. You're the CEO, the chief everything officer. You do everything. I mean, you drive the nails and you write the invoices and you do the estimates and you fix the flats and you move the chairs. Everything. You do everything because you're the whole thing. And at that point, there's no shame in that. It's kind of invigorating, actually, because you're really important. Because if you don't work, nothing happens. And so it's all up to me and I can get it done. And you're knocking it out and you're stacking some cash and life's good. The problem is that if you don't work because you're hurt or on vacation, you're unemployed because you're the only producer of revenue and the only producer of the service that produces the revenue. And so in a very real sense, you just own your own job. And by the way, you're working your butt off too, right. And you're exhausted. It's not sustainable.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. How many hours are you working now, Austin?

[Caller/Listener]

I try to keep it a fairly. We've got an eight month old baby, so I try to keep a good work life balance. So, like, I could be doing a lot more work, but I'm trying to keep the right things in the right order.

[Dave Ramsey]

Order. But I mean, you're still working 60, aren't you?

[Caller/Listener]

I have a lot of time on the phone and estimates and. Yeah, yeah, you're like, you're never fully off.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're putting in the time. That's the nature of the beast. And so I remember when we were at that stage, I would come home and collapse on the couch and Sharon say, what'd you do today? And I said, I have no idea, but I did a lot of it. And Right. It's.

[Caller/Listener]

Whoa.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, man. All right, so the answer to the equation is what do you do to level up? Up to go to the next stage of business? The main thing, there's two areas. One is controlling your time. You're already been working on that because you described it three different times while I was talking to you. So you're already ahead of the game on that. So managing your time and putting blocks of time, buckets of time, where I do paperwork here, I do phone calls and estimates here, I do the actual work here. And you bucket your time and you get very, very precise on, you know, on Friday mornings, I'm not doing anything. That's when I'm doing invoices, you know, or whatever the number, whatever, whatever the date is. Okay. The second thing is you have to make the most difficult hire that you're ever gonna make in business. And that's the first one. Yeah, it's very emotional to hire the first person because you feel very responsible for them. It's kind of like that Eight month old. Like, I have to. I'm responsible now. I have to take care of this person. I promise.

[Caller/Listener]

Check.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I have to do what it takes so they get their check. There's a lot of extra pressure on them when you do that. And it's very. It's an emotional hire. The first one you hire. And the second reason is, is it's hard to find good people, and you're not good at interviewing yet and getting the wrong. And you may hire the wrong person, and there's pressure on that. So it's very difficult, but you got to do it anyway. And then when you get them, if you get the right person, and I'm more concerned about the quality of the person's character than I am their actual skill. I'd like for them to have both. But if I have to choose, I'm gonna choose character over skills. I can teach skills. I can't teach honesty. I can't teach customer enthusiasm. I can't teach caring. Showing up for work on time, having a work ethic. Their daddy should have taught them that, but maybe didn't. Okay, so I ain't got time for all that. But if they know how to do those things, I can teach them how to fix the dishwasher. You know, I teach them how to build a deck.

[Caller/Listener]

Do you think it'd be smart to hone in on kind of one specific service? That way I can, because estimates are a nightmare for me because every single job is different. There's no, like.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I think if you'll do a little bit of accounting analysis, you'll probably find that 80% of your income is coming from about 20% of the categories.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do you know that off the top of your head, Austin, if you were to get. Guess what your gut says on that?

[Caller/Listener]

It seems pretty. Right now, I'm doing a lot of exterior painting.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is it profitable? You got good margin?

[Caller/Listener]

It's decent, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Do you want more of it? In other words, are you excited about doing more of it?

[Caller/Listener]

Not that specifically, no.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, then. Then don't do it. All right? I mean, this is your business. Hello. Don't. Don't build something you hate, man. That's the job you left that you hated. Okay, so let's keep. Let's build something you like.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Is the other side of it exciting?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And so I want to make a lot of money, and I want to enjoy doing what I'm doing, and that's the one of those categories. And if that shaves off something else, shave off something else. That's fine, but that's not your problem. Your problem is you've got to put somebody else out there in the field and you begin to train them to where they finish your sentence. Sentences. This is how we do the paint job. This is how we do the customer interaction. This is how we clean up on the job before we go home every single night so that the customer doesn't walk into a mess. This is how whatever it is that you do that has set you apart, that's caused you to already be successful, you've got to teach them how to do that. That is not micromanaging. That's training. And I had people in the early days go, you're just a micromanager. I'm like, no, you just still suck at that. This right. I've got to teach you how to do it. When you quit sucking, I'll quit micromanaging you. You know, you got to be good at it. You got to be freaking excellent. I'm going to put my name on it. You got to bring it, man. That's what we're doing here. It's got my name on it. What do you mean? And the next time I come back, I want the customer to be going, yay, we're here. Not, oh, God, here they are again. You know, and so you got to teach that, and you have to all the do it. The things you're doing almost second nature that you learned from someone, maybe your dad, maybe your first employer. But you, I could tell by talking to you, you know how to do the stuff I'm talking about. And so. But you got to train that into somebody to where then there's work happening when you're not there and the work is actually happening. And it's happening in a way that

[Rachel Cruze]

you're proud of and the person's ROIing,

[Dave Ramsey]

and then they're going to ROI. You're going to get a return on investment because they're doing the work and you've built their cost into the estimate. Estimate. And now you've freed up some time. Now you've got something that's scalable. Until then, you just own your job. And so if you just narrow the categories, you're just going to own a different job. Narrowing the categories does not get you off the treadmill. It'll slow you down. It'll get your hours back in balance. Maybe, maybe you're doing some stuff you don't want to do anymore. That's fine. Just cut that out. Just say, we don't offer that service anymore. But that doesn't get you off the treadmill operator stage and move you and level up to the next stage of business, which you got to do the time management and you've got to do the hiring and the training and the firing and the hiring and the training and the firing and the hiring and the training and the firing to get the right people in the seats. Get the right, as my friend Jim Collins says, get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people on the right seats on the bus.

[Caller/Listener]

Sam.

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite. NetSuite is the number one AI, Cloud, ERP and more than 43,000 business run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in. And it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data, all in one place. Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues, close your books faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.comramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.comramsey. Emma is in Montgomery, Alabama. Hi, Emma, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

I'm doing good. How are y'?

[Rachel Cruze]

All?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

So I am 22. I've been married for two years, and my husband and I bought a house about two years ago, so that's the only debt we have. I am currently a veterinary assistant, but I want to further my career and go to vet school, but it would require me taking out pretty much everything for it, which is about 250 to 300,000 for all eight years. And I just want to know if that's something that I should do or if I should continue with where I'm comfortable.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, comfortable is not necessarily the issue. The issue is the $250,000 in debt. I'm a huge fan of the veterinary world. We've got a lot of veterinarians that are, that we coach in our entree leadership coaching program. We've got about 10,000 small businesses that we help and we've got work with a lot of vets and they do really, really well, most of them, but they're like anyone else. Things come up in their lives. And so I was speaking to a lady the other day that's a medical doctor, and she's making $300,000 a year, and she's got $400,000 in med school debt. And so she was working her way through that, and then they had their first child and special needs. And she wants to stay home and stay with a special needs child.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

But she can't.

[Caller/Listener]

And. Right. And that's part of the reason I want to try and grow in my career, because together our bond income is like right at less than 50,000. And I'd like to be able to have a family, but I'm a little scared to do that. And I know you're never fully.

[Dave Ramsey]

You kind of missed the point. The point was she can't be a doctor anymore, and so she can't pay off the $400,000 in debt because life happened to her plane.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I'm not going to tell you to go $250,000 in debt. Even though I'm a big fan of you becoming a veterinarian, let's figure out another way to do it. There's a lot of corporate veterinarian out there today, and I wonder if some of them have scholarship programs. I wonder if some of the drug companies that you guys buy from all the time and that you sell to your resell to your customers all the time, if any of them have a scholarship. I wonder if any of the medical machinery that you guys use, X rays and so forth, if any of them have scholarships. Because you're not a high schooler just starting this. You're a married woman with a mortgage.

[Caller/Listener]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I'm going to find a way to get into this. Is there any kind of a fellowship program, any kind of anyway that we can work our way into this and try to scratch this itch. I'm not against you becoming a veterinarian. I would never tell someone to go 250,000 doll in debt.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay. There definitely would be some. I work for a corporate company now, and they've offered to pay for a technician degree. So basically start there to get in a license. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Start with that. Let's go get that first.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, and you said 250 over eight years. That's 30 grand a year. So I'm just curious what that plan could be if there were some scholarships and things in place. Is there ever a world where you cash flow some of this, too? I know you guys are only making 50 as a combined couple, so that math probably wouldn't work. Right now, today, but with everything combined. Because you don't have to have the 250 right up front. Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the technician's degree, that's a certificate program. And how long does it take to get that?

[Caller/Listener]

So typically it takes about two years. It's all self paced and I do internships and externships with the company I already work for, which eventually would be great.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why don't we self pace?

[Caller/Listener]

That's exactly my goal is I'd like to get it done in a year.

[Rachel Cruze]

How would that up your income?

[Caller/Listener]

It would probably take us to usually probably add another 15,000 to the year. So around 60 to 65.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm going to continue growing in your career and your career is taking care of animals and the technician's a good first step. And then that may lead you to the next step that we don't see sitting here today. And that may lead you to the next step. Step. And it might be that you go through this cert program and the company recognizes your talent and your enthusiasm and they say, well, you know what, we're going to go ahead and let her do the self paced thing for the first two years of vet school and get that there may be a way to do this, but that's how I'm going to figure it out. Because I don't borrow money and I'm not going to tell someone to go $250,000 in debt for anything. Especially student loans. Loans.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Even though this is a valid form of study.

[Rachel Cruze]

Sure, totally.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it's a form of study.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's a lot of risk. A lot of risk. Because life happens too in the middle of it. And when you don't have that on your shoulders, there's a lot more freedom in your life to make decisions.

[Dave Ramsey]

You get to decide. I'm sure glad I don't have that hanging over my head. You'll say that someday.

[Rachel Cruze]

And when you get through all of it, it's going to take some work to and finagling. Right. Your, your own budget and also what money you can bring in from other places. All the things. But at the end of the day, if you go through with this, Emma, and you end up getting a degree, you're going to be making a great income with no payments like it's. That's, that's the amazing part.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cole is in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi Cole. How are you?

[Caller/Listener]

I'm well, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

I'm wondering at what point should my family and I Consider establishing a trust.

[Dave Ramsey]

Probably never.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why would you want to trust?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, my. We have one rental property. We have our primary, and we're about to have our fourth kid.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so you mean you and your wife, that family?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes.

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay. So you're thinking about risk.

[Caller/Listener]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would use LLCs. That's what I do. So I would drop. I would drop your rentals into an llc. Llc. And I don't own anything. I don't own a single thing. I don't even own my cars there. In an llc, you don't need to go to that extreme right now. But I got a target on my butt because I'm Dave Ramsey. Right. But for rental property purposes, I drop those into an LLC tomorrow. And then you operate the rental completely standalone, and you've got the corporate veil. It's called. Called for risk. If somebody falls off the porch of your rental and decides to sue you, they have to sue the owner of the property, which is an llc. And the only thing it owns is that property. It can't take. They can't take anything else you got.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay, so as my net worth increases, you know, will it make it harder for my kids with probate and a will as opposed to a trust?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, a will is unless you've got a net worth in excess of $100 million, you're probably not going to have any needs for trust. The will will suffice and take care of it.

[Rachel Cruze]

So why are you.

[Caller/Listener]

Why.

[Rachel Cruze]

Why would you say that? I'm just curious.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, because a trust doesn't do anything.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, you can avoid probate, like what he was saying, you know, you can. There's some ease to it. It takes a lot of work to put to move everything into the trust.

[Dave Ramsey]

But, yeah, you move everything into the trust, then you have to operate your life out of the trust, which is a pain in the butt to the point that you'll wish you had never heard of this on the Internet, which is where you heard of it. But it's just. It's horrendous. So no one does it in the real world. The only people that talk about it are lawyers trying to sell trusts. But everybody out here in the real world, all of my friends that have twenty and thirty and fifty million dollars net worths do not use. They do not operate their lives, a house trust. They have LLCs and they have some S Corps, and they bifurcate the risks that way. But they don't put everything into a trust.

[Rachel Cruze]

I don't lie. I didn't know this you, like, really don't like them.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're useless. There's not anything for it. There's a time for a trust. I mean, we've got the Ramsey Children's Trust that owns some stuff, but that's an estate planning tool with our level of net worth. And there is some places for stuff like that. But the idea that.

[Rachel Cruze]

But a living trust, if you got

[Dave Ramsey]

a $10 million net worth and a handful of real estate, you don't need a living trust. You just need to operate out of an llc. Much, much stronger, much stronger. And you've got the exact same risk protections and the probate. Avoiding probate is not that big a deal. Probate takes 10 minutes. If you have a will and a properly structured series of LLCs, it's not a big deal. And most states, the probate taxes are not that high.

[Rachel Cruze]

I was going to say the taxes,

[Dave Ramsey]

they're not that much. They're not that much. They don't cost as much as it costs to set up the truck trust. Most cases for most people. So it becomes this thing that people just talk about all the time like it's some kind of a sophisticated instrument. It's just a method of holding property. That's all it is. And so you can hold the property there, and a beneficiary, and it goes straight outside of probate, goes straight to the beneficiary. The problem, though, is you have to operate all your rental operations, your rental income, all your fixing of the heat and air, you're paying the yard care and all that crap out of the trust.

[Rachel Cruze]

But that's harder than the llc.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. Because you have. The trustee has to sign off on everything. And you're not the trustee, you're the beneficiary. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Angela is in Idaho Falls. Hi, Angela. How are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Hi, Dave. Thank you, Rachel, you both for taking my call. I'm excited to talk to you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You, too. How can we help?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, I. My husband and I are about 10 years out from retiring and we are unhappy with the growth of our investments with the person we're working with. And so we're shopping around and we started talking to a company that my brother recommended. He says that he's been making 19% earnings on his investments over the last few years with them. So my husband and I had a call with them yesterday, and I just don't understand what they're talking about when they say things like synthetic ownership of the S&P 500 with long dated LEAP contracts, and they're doing hedge fund options as well. And run away. Okay,

[Dave Ramsey]

I understand what they're talking about. Run away. Now, here's the other reason you run away, okay? The financial world and investing at a level where you can make millions and millions of dollars is not that complicated. It's really not rocket science. And so your financial advisor, their job is not to impress you with their vocabulary. Vocabulary to the point that you have no idea what they said. I think they're speaking German. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher, right? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. What did he just say? I have no idea. Darling, let's get off the phone. Yeah, and so that means you run away, too, because your financial person needs to have the heart of a teacher. The way that people lose money. Money faster than anything I've ever seen in the 35 years I've been doing this is they put money in something they don't understand because some goober with a big vocabulary and a nice suit told them to do it. And that's when they lose their butt, okay? So their job is to teach you. This person is not interested in doing that. This person was interested in showing you how smart they. They are. Run from this arrogance. Okay.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's all over the financial world. That's why I'm so pissed off about it, okay? Because it's. Because I've spent my whole life putting these concepts, putting the cookies on a shelf where everybody can reach them. And they're good cookies. You know, it's. Hey, they taste great, but you got to be able to reach them, you know?

[Blake Thompson]

I can't.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if you do this to people, what the guy did to it makes it feel like I'm not smart enough to be investing money. And you are smart enough to be investing money. You just hadn't found the right person to teach you yet.

[Rachel Cruze]

And to your point, it's really. I mean, you really could, Angela, if you wanted to. I wouldn't. I'd probably go to a financial advisor. But you could go on Vanguard, Charles, Swap anything and open up a brokerage account, go get an s and P500 index fund, and you'd be making those returns just doing that over the last couple of years or more. Just the s and P500. So, you know, you can. You can do very simple, simple investing. That's not that complicated.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Let's try out our theory right here, right now. Do you know what the s and P500 is?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes, I do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Tell me what it is.

[Caller/Listener]

Well, it's a bunch of companies that have stocks. I guess it's the largest companies, but it's 500 companies that have stocks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. And the index is, that is the most accurate measure. It's called the bellwether. It's the baseline of what the stock market, the New York Stock Exchange. Okay. So basically what the S and P has done is what the stock market did because it's the largest 500 companies on there. And what they do is basically what the market's doing.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is just a handful of companies, so it's not nearly as accurate a measure of what the actual stock market's doing. Okay? Now if you know that and then you know that in 2023 the S&P went up 26%. In 2024 it went up 25%. In 2025 it went up 18%. And so far in 2026, it' then you know where you could have gotten those rates of return by, like Rachel said, just falling off a log into an s and P500 without a broker. You could have just. They call that passive investing. It's not technically, but that's what they call it. And so you're not even bothering with anything. You just go buy the simplest type of mutual fund on the planet with no commissions. And you could have made those returns in the last few years. So your brother in law or whoever gave you the recommendation hasn't done anything super fancy to get those returns, is Rachel's point.

[Rachel Cruze]

Or he did something super complicated with these people and didn't need to. And didn't need to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, one of the two. So I would not do business with them for two reasons. One is I don't like what they're suggesting. And two is they couldn't explain it to you, so they lost the business. Go to ramseysolutions.com and hit smartvestor. And the people that we vet in that world, they cannot be a smartvestor pro. They cannot be on our recommended list unless they have the heart of a teacher and unless they understand what we teach here, which is that basic investing is how most people get rich. You don't have to do super sophisticated,

[Rachel Cruze]

all the synthetic, double zip back flip

[Dave Ramsey]

family, limited partnership, synthetic bull crap. Okay? You don't have to do that to get rich. You really don't. Most people just put money and good mutual funds in their 401 and they pay off their house. And that's how they get their first $5 million in net worth? What's your all's net worth, Angela?

[Caller/Listener]

2 million.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good way to go. And let me guess, let me guess. That you got there without doing anything that had synthetic in the name, correct?

[Caller/Listener]

15 years ago.

[Blake Thompson]

Yeah.

[Caller/Listener]

And you helped me then.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you probably have more money than the guy on the other end of that call.

[Caller/Listener]

Oh, well, that's a happy thought.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep, it is.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, Angela, and stay on the line. Christian will pick up. We'll get you a code to log in for investing essentials that you're doing with George here in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, that's a great event just to watch at home. Just to kind of get some basics too. But you, yeah, you're doing great, Angela.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't discount your own intuition, insight, intelligence. In the process, you are actually the secret sauce in your plan. You have freaking $2 million. Hello?

[Caller/Listener]

Hello?

Amazing.

[Dave Ramsey]

There we go. I mean, that's it. And you know what's interesting, right, Rachel? Is that when we did the study of millionaires, 10,000 millionaires, 89% of them are first generation rich, meaning they did not become millionaires because of inheritance. So 10,167 of them. So they didn't inherit their money. Where'd they get their money? On average, the typical one had invested in their 401k and had a paid off house. That was the two big things that showed up every time. Okay. And here's what's interesting. They weren't really good at picking mutual funds. The mutual fund portfolio that the typical millionaire has is okay. It's average. They weren't that great at it. What they were great at was always putting money in it. Consistency all the time. Every time the check came, the 401k had been deducted there a long time. They just constant steady time and consistency. Time and consistency. They put money in their mutual funds. That's what they were good at. And that's what made them rich more than the return they got on the mutual fund because they had the perfect double backflip synthetic. Jeez, man. What a bunch of.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, and the beauty of just compound interest, I mean, when you see that play out over time, the amount of money you actually end up having, that is all interest and barely. And not as much principal. Like it's. It's wild mathematically when you start early. And that's what she said 15 years ago, they started. So well done, Angela.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're well done.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're on the right track and just trust yourself. Yes, yes, you're good.

[Dave Ramsey]

The fourth of July is all about freedom. But being broke and stressed out about money all the time, that's not freedom. Look, you can change that right now. During our 4th of July sale, select heart covers are $13 each or mix and match three for 33. If you're stressed out and living paycheck to paycheck, these books will help. Because real freedom begins when debt stops. Calling the shots don't wait. The sale only lasts four days. Go to ramseysolutions.com store today. Jason's in Spokane, Washington. Hi, Jason, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

I'm doing good. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller/Listener]

So I graduated or I didn't graduate. I've got some student debt and my wife just graduated here in summer, tragically last August. A year ago last August, my wife's mom died at 54 from an asthma 2. And it sent, you know, the whole family into a spiral. She had been paying. Yeah, it was, it was horrible. She had been paying my wife's student loans. And after she passed, her dad got a huge life insurance settlement from it

and

said he would continue paying them. Well, when my wife graduated, she graduated with $22,000 left over on her student loans. And he is a drunk and has backed out of that. So now we have 22,000 extra dollars of debt we were not expecting to pay and we were planning on.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why did he decide not to pay it after he promised to pay it?

[Caller/Listener]

He has no reason whatsoever. Can't come up with a reason.

[Rachel Cruze]

And he told her, I'm not paying for your student loans.

[Caller/Listener]

Yep.

[Rachel Cruze]

Man.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah. Yeah, we were, we got married and yeah, it's real sad. We got married in November and we're planning on taking our honeymoon this November when we were, when we had the money set aside for it. We've got most of it set aside, but now with 22,000 extra dollars of that, we're questioning whether that's a good decision or not.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what, what does your wife, what was her degree in?

[Caller/Listener]

Marketing. She got a marketing degree.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's she making? What's her income?

[Caller/Listener]

She's working a part time gig. That's like 400 bucks a week. And then she just started another job. That's about $4,000 a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the marketing gig.

[Caller/Listener]

No, the marketing gigs are side job. The marketing gig is only 10 hours a week doing social media for an interior designer.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so why is she not landed a position in marketing?

[Caller/Listener]

You know, she's applied to. I don't remember the exact count now. Somewhere close to 100 and just applying

[Dave Ramsey]

for jobs does not get jobs in America today. You have to actually know somebody that works there that gets you an interview. Because people apply for 5,000 jobs and they get zero responses. We had 15,000 applications come into Ramsey last year. There's no possible way we'll even talk about interviewing all those people, much less hiring them. So applying doesn't get you there. You've got to work a system to get hired in something. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, the Proximity Principle, to get her some help getting into a position where she actually makes some money. What you make?

[Caller/Listener]

I am in insurance. I just started a new gig helping stand up an agency again. It's a $25,000 a year salary plus commission. It's partly owned by mortgage companies, so they're going to be sending their leads, but as of now, they haven't started. So hopefully 7,000 is what we were talking about a month, but, you know, I can't plan on that yet.

[Rachel Cruze]

When did you start?

[Caller/Listener]

Just crossed my first month.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what kind of insurance is this property casualty business? You're not gonna be making 7,000amonth anytime soon, honey. You know the business.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, no, I've been in insurance. This is my third year in insurance. I own. I currently own an insurance agency that I'm selling.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why are you sure?

[Caller/Listener]

To be independent. Independent side, I was. The captive company I work for is shareholder owned and they don't treat their employees well, so I moved over to the independent side.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. That's a good move. I like that. Well, you know, that you're. You know, PNC is as earned and it's. It takes a while to build a book of business that brings in seven grand.

[Caller/Listener]

Right, right. It's an established book of business that I'm stepping into. It's just a. I thought you said

[Dave Ramsey]

you just stood up the agency.

[Caller/Listener]

No, we're standing it up. Again. Sorry.

[Dave Ramsey]

Again. So there's a book of business laying there that you're going to walk into?

[Caller/Listener]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay. That's different. Okay, I understand. All right. Fun. Okay. So all of that to say that you guys have incomes, and it's fair to say that in one year your income will have come way up and she will have landed a marketing position and her income will have come way up. And it's very sad that in the middle of all this tragedy with her, her mother, that her father has lost his integrity. But what that means is that we're going to be very careful with him for the rest of our lives. We can love him, but it will not involve anything of any kind of a business transaction ever. Because 100% of the time this guy cannot be trusted. You can still love him. And that's just dad. He's not a good dude and his integrity. But otherwise. And that's just sad. It's heartbreaking. But you can't make him do it. He should follow through on his word. Obviously it's trashy, but yeah, I'm with you. You just pay it and be done with it and put it in the rearview mirror as fast as you possibly can. How much have you guys gotten savings?

[Caller/Listener]

We got a thousand dollar buffer every month. Thousand dollar emergency fund and then currently about 5000 bucks in savings for your honeymoon. Yeah, initially not as big of a buffer. Now with the debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, now, now it's going to go to the debt. Because this is the only debt the two of you have.

[Caller/Listener]

No, I have, Yeah. I have 40,000 in student loans and she has 20,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have or had?

[Caller/Listener]

Have. Have.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, yeah, So I got 62,000 now to be working with.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So no, there's not going to be a big trip or no big honeymoon. We're going to be putting the $5,000 on the smallest debt, which is hers, and list your debts, smallest to largest. And work like crazy people and don't go out to eat and don't go on vacations. And this is a vacation.

[Rachel Cruze]

Sadly, she needs to find three more of those accounts to help social on the side too. Right. Buff that up to a thousand bucks

[Dave Ramsey]

a month while she's waiting to land the better job. And again, Christian will pick up and send you a copy of that book and hopefully that'll help her actually land something.

[Caller/Listener]

So

[Dave Ramsey]

Ken Coleman, that was with us for many years, wrote that book and the Proximity principle. What we have discovered is in the digital world that people sit at their computer looking for a job and they fill out applications and they consider that job hunting. It's not because it does not work. Okay. Because again, we hired. Last year at Ramsey, we hired about 150 people and we had 15,000 applications because people sit at their computer and fill out applications. And so we basically have to put an AI tool on them and go through them and throw 98% of them in the trash without even looking at them. And so how would you get hired at a place like Ramsey if you were in marketing? We hired a bunch of marketers last year. Her type of position. Well, the way it normally will happen is that, you know, Someone that knows someone that works here and they at least get your application out of the pile in front of someone to look at. There's no guarantee after that. The application may suck, you may not be qualified, we might not even call you, but at least you can get it looked at. And even better, would you at least talk to my friend's friend or this person that was a financial Peace university coordinator for 20 years in Kansas City, calls and says, hey, so and so. That's a friend of mine just made app. Would you all look at that.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's who you know.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, it is who you know.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's everywhere. For most places it is who you know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not in a toxic sense like you get a job because you knew somebody. That's not it. No, you get interview and then you get the job on your merit. And that's how it really happens in the real world today. If you just throw stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of applications out there and call that job hunting, you're wasting your time. Don't bother, because you're not going to get a job. No one gets a job that way in today's world. So folks, I mean, I put in 500 applications and no one called me. Well, of course they didn't. That's what I was just talking about. Of course they didn't call you. So do something to set yourself apart in some way to at least get someone to at least laugh at you. If nothing else, but at least notice that you're breathing. You know something, do something like that. And don't, don't do that stuff. Don't get laughed at. But I mean, but you know, but the idea being that get a per.

[Rachel Cruze]

Get connected to a person, not just a system.

[Dave Ramsey]

Filling out applications on the Internet is not job hunting. It's a waste of time. The proximity principle will help you with that.

[George Camel]

Hey, George Camel here. We often talk about how being normal sucks when it comes to. To your money. But guess what? Normal isn't so great when it comes to your job either. Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays, and working for people you don't even like. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can break free from normal because Ramsey Solutions is hiring and we refuse to settle for the ordinary. In fact, we are anything but normal and we are proud of it. And right now we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing and creative roles. So head over to ramseysolutions.com careers and apply today.

[Dave Ramsey]

If your private student loans are in default. When you've fallen behind so far. The loan is considered unpaid. Well, why Refi may be able to help you. They help borrowers in tough situations figure out low fixed rate refinancing options that actually fits your budget. Go to yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r f y.com Ramsey may not be in all states.

[Rachel Cruze]

Today's question comes from Chrissy in West Virginia. My husband and I have four daughters. When our oldest daughter got married eight years ago, we were able to contribute a modest amount towards her wedding. Because of our financial situation, our second daughter is now engaged and we are in much stronger financial position. Position than we were back then. Is it fair to contribute more toward her wedding than we did for our oldest daughter, or should we give all of our daughters the same amount of money to keep things equal? I'm more on the equal side, but I would say eight years ago, there's a cost difference of what it cost eight years ago than today. So I think you could probably factor in some level of inflation and all the things in 2018 that was a different world. So I would kind of price out and just see what a similar value would be. So I'd be okay if it was a little bit more, just because it's a different time, but I would not. I don't know if I would significantly. Oh, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

You and your sister didn't spend the same.

[Rachel Cruze]

We didn't?

[Caller/Listener]

Nope.

[Rachel Cruze]

Did she have more?

[Dave Ramsey]

You were raised in a household where we told our children that fair is where the tilt of work.

[George Camel]

No.

[Rachel Cruze]

Sharon Ramsey is a communist, basically, when

[Dave Ramsey]

it comes to Christmas, she makes sure she wants everything to be even. That's true.

[Rachel Cruze]

Wait, what?

[Dave Ramsey]

That's true.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Y' all didn't have the same budget because of inflation?

[Dave Ramsey]

No. You shouldn't have the same budget. Neither did your brother. None of the three of you did. It was situational. It's not. It's not a matter. It's not. It's not a matter which one kid we love more, anything like that. It's just a matter of that's what the situation was and this is what we did, and that was the amount

[Rachel Cruze]

of money we got married, like 18 months. Eight, two years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Did your life change that drastically for two?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it wasn't because of that. It was. She has a reason. I didn't have a reason. I just said this is what we're doing.

[Rachel Cruze]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Counseling on the air, people, right here. Ramsey family. Ramsey family secrets coming out.

[Rachel Cruze]

Confession. It's confession. I'm not confessing you just love Denise more and you just got.

[Dave Ramsey]

I didn't say she got more. I just said it was different.

[Rachel Cruze]

What is it? Because our venues were different.

[Dave Ramsey]

I said you didn't get the same amount. That's all I said. I didn't say who got more.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, well then you answer. Answer, Chrissy, answer. Chrissy. I would say I would be more inclined to be more.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're more like your mother. We want it to be more even.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, Yeah, I probably would.

[Caller/Listener]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's where I lean. But I don't have kids. Like I'm married or have been married, but apparently you have had three children and I.

[Dave Ramsey]

You just don't think you guys had the same amount in your mutual funds when you graduated from college either. But I didn't, you know, that would

[Rachel Cruze]

be fair, you know, so just because of growth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well. And different and different investments and different amounts going in at different times.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, so, so, so you would tell Chrissy, you give however your heart leads.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't think. I don't think it is an indication that you love your children differently if the amount that goes to their wedding is different.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, you're backpedaling a little bit. I get it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I didn't say I love someone differently. I just said the money was different.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is so funny.

[Rachel Cruze]

I didn't know. I didn't know. I thought we were all pretty in the same ballpark, but apparently.

[Dave Ramsey]

I didn't say you weren't in the same ballpark. I just said it wasn't the same. That's all I said.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. Because I'm not worried about that. That's not what's the right thing to do for this kid, given our situation. Yeah. And if you want, if you feel like it's, you know, okay, you give one 50,000 and the other one got 20,000. And you want us to give. You want to help the one, the first one that you gave 20,000. Because it's substantially different. Less than half. Right. You want to give them a 10 or $15,000 gift or something. That's fine. That's fine. But I'm not going to sit and try to figure out to the nth degree what the stupid shrimp cost at the dadgum reception. And we've got to make everything even.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm not saying you have to like nickel and dime every single thing, but an eight year chance.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your mother might. She might.

[Rachel Cruze]

Apparently she didn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, she didn't on that. She wasn't in control.

[Rachel Cruze]

Communism Only happens at Christmas time. We literally get a check.

[Dave Ramsey]

The Ramsey Communist Christmas.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's like $9.24.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. She.

[Rachel Cruze]

She will write to write us a dollar nine. We're fine.

[Caller/Listener]

You are good.

[Rachel Cruze]

You can just.

[Dave Ramsey]

You do get the exact stinking amount. That's right. And that probably comes from her upbringing, but. All right. Denise is in Seattle. Hi, Denise. How are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Better than I deserve, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. How can we help?

[Caller/Listener]

Well, where do I start? I've been in education for 20 years. My husband and I have been married for 18. And we have dreamed of having our own business for a long time. We've been saving. We have paid off almost all of our debt. We still owe on our home, but we paid off all of our cars, all of our student loans, and we. After taking your class about 10 years ago, we paid down all of our credit cards. So all that to say that we have very little debt and we have been saving for the business for a long time. So we already signed a lease on. On a building we want to open up a coffee shop, bakery. We have partners, and so we're half and half. We build out A loan. Not including any of the equipment or the capital we need for employees is going to cost us $183,000. That was almost all of what we had saved so far. And so in order to cover the equipment costs and use the capital that we need to open up, we decided to take out a HELOC on our home. It was only 95,000, but that's still not enough. And we were looking into other types of loans in order to. To open up. I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, man. You've made a. I knew you'd say that.

[Caller/Listener]

He said don't call him. He's gonna tell us not to do it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's too late.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're $300,000 in the hole.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my God. To how many cups of coffee is that before you actually make your money back in Seattle? Like nobody's had a coffee shop in Seattle before. This is new.

[Caller/Listener]

It's. It's very, very loved, though. They're.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's loved. You're not open.

[Caller/Listener]

It's. I mean, the. The business in general. It's something we know, and we.

[Dave Ramsey]

Apparently not. Apparently you don't know what it cost to operate it.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Denise, if y' all keep going down this road, you're going to be half a million. You're going to be half a million dollars into this business.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'll be bankrupt.

[Rachel Cruze]

And the restaurant business, what's the stat that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Of 80% are gone in five. Five years.

[Caller/Listener]

Right. I know. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you don't act like, you

[Rachel Cruze]

know, you don't feel stressed about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You borrowed $90,000 on your home and

[Rachel Cruze]

183,000 and another one savings.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, that was savings.

[Caller/Listener]

No, that was.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, you. Sorry. Oh, it's gone, though.

[Caller/Listener]

For this dream that we've had. That we have had.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you're turning your dream into a nightmare, kid.

[Caller/Listener]

I didn't mention the fact that we partnered up with on a restaurant about in 2022, and it did very well. We're only. We were a minority owner, so we have had some success in the field, and that is a stream of income.

[Dave Ramsey]

But it worked for me. And you told me it took 183,000 to build this out. And then you came back looking for another 90, and then you came back looking for another. Another batch. I'd fire you for incompetence. So you may know what you're doing, but I can't see it in this phone call. You didn't lay out your pro forma with a basic inventory list and a basic business pro forma of what it takes to get this thing opening and started cash flowing. Instead, you just keep spending money like you're in Congress and you're still not even open.

[Caller/Listener]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're scaring me to death. I mean, you guys are gonna do what you're gonna do. I don't know. I'm with your husband. I'm not sure why you called. I mean, you preface this was we went through all your classes, Dave. We got out of debt.

[Caller/Listener]

Why?

[Dave Ramsey]

So we could go back in debt and call it a dream. Oh, baby girl. Oh, you're killing me. I'm so sorry. No, I would not have done any of this. And no, I'm not gonna tell you to do any of it more. And I'm sorry that I hope you can figure out a way to scratch around and get it open and get some of your money back and you don't lose all of this.

[Caller/Listener]

Foreign.

[George Camel]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Our scripture of the day, Habakkuk 2, 3. Patience is not the same as indifference. Patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. What version of scripture is that? Interesting. Ronald Reagan says heroes may not be braver than anyone else, they're just braver five minutes longer. That's true. Buying or selling a home is a big deal. If you're thinking about doing that, you ought to have a high octane person in your corner that you trust that knows what they're doing in the real estate business. Not got their license three weeks ago and expects you to sell their house with your house with them. Don't do that. If you want to find out who we trust and you want to find a Ramsey trusted agent, you can do that free. Free Ramsey trusted agents are the best out there. Ramseysolutions.com agent or click the link in the podcast. Gina is in Phoenix. Hi, Gina, how are you?

[Caller/Listener]

Oh, I'm doing great.

Good.

I have a question of what would Dave and Sharon do? My husband and I started a construction company at the beginning of this year. We're learning a lot. We still have a whole lot more to learn. He builds the homes and I pay the bills. I am the bookkeeper, I request the draws. And my son, my oldest son, is helping us with the tech part. And he recently found out that I go through all my husband's emails to find contracts and bills that he's paid and approved. And he wants to put a stop to that. And he says that I should not have any access to his emails or his passwords, even though we're co owners.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your son is a nerd geek. He's not a relationship expert. That's ridiculous. Of course you should have access to your husband's stuff. Sharon Ramsey has 100% access to any of my technology. I have nothing in there that I'm ashamed of. Even your business emails, Anything she wants to see anywhere.

[Rachel Cruze]

And she leaves anytime.

[Dave Ramsey]

And occasionally she does.

[Rachel Cruze]

She would leave the laptop. This was probably 10, 15 years ago. She would leave her laptop with your email just on the counter as the fan. Like we could all just go look at Dixie email if we wanted to.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't have any secrets.

[Caller/Listener]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, I don't care. I don't have anything to hide. And here's another one. A few months ago, about a year ago, I, I put the Apple Find my iPhone thing. And so wherever my iPhone is, my wife can look at her iPhone and figure out where I am at any time.

[Rachel Cruze]

Location sharing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because I don't go anywhere that I'm ashamed of. And I put it on hers, too, because she loses her stinking iPhone about once a day, and I can find it that way. But I also know where she is because she forgets to tell me. She has a mahjong championship four doors down. And I get home and she's not there, and I'm like, the where's is Sharon? So now I know where she is. But 100% of the passwords are shared. 100% of the bank accounts are shared. 100% transparency. There's no reason to hide. Unless you have something to hide.

[Rachel Cruze]

Why? What? Did he do it. Was he saying it, like, from a tech. Yeah. A tech nerd perspective of security or. No, no, I'm at. You said tech.

[Dave Ramsey]

He said it's inappropriate.

[Caller/Listener]

He just said I should not be messing with his emails. I don't delete anything. I just go through them. He just said that he doesn't give his wife any passwords, and he should. His boss would never. Of course, but I'm like, this is a different relationship.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's your husband.

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hundred percent.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would imagine you can get into any of Winston's.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, I know Winston. He's got. Well, him. We're not probably the best secure people, but we have two passwords that we use basically for everything.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, we do, too. Yeah. Like, we.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you knew our password, you could get into any hotel safe.

[Rachel Cruze]

We were ever in Instagram. He can go through any dm. I mean, like. Yeah, that's. It's just. It is what it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Secrets.

[Rachel Cruze]

There's no. There's nothing I wouldn't show him. Wouldn't not want to show him. So I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. Anyways, that. That's. That's the answer.

[Dave Ramsey]

No. Yeah. The. The answer is your son is. Who's inappropriate.

[Caller/Listener]

All right.

[Rachel Cruze]

Thank you so much.

[Caller/Listener]

I win.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're good, Gina.

[Caller/Listener]

You win.

[Rachel Cruze]

Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, and by the way, my personal assistant can go through my emails to do what you do for your husband from a business perspective. She.

[Caller/Listener]

Love it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Jenny. Jenny can go through my emails because I don't have anything in there that's a secret. There's no big dark cloud. I mean, there's no. There's no. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain. There's no man behind the curtain. It just is. You Know, and so she can go

[Rachel Cruze]

through there and go, John Deloney would say your phones, that you have every right to check your. Your spouse's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I mean, but I don't. I don't go on porn sites. So she's not going to discover that when she goes on my phone. So it's not a problem, you know, and I'm not doing stuff or going places that I'm worried about or ashamed of or saying things. And I quit putting things in emails about three lawsuits ago. So nothing goes into an email anymore, you know, because it's discoverable. And then I get to answer for my mouth in the middle of a. In the middle of a. Dad gum.

[Rachel Cruze]

Dave has an attitude. No way.

[Blake Thompson]

No way.

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the judge saw.

[Caller/Listener]

There you go.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. The opposing counsel questioning me about this. Yeah. No, that's. Dave, do you, do you often say that? Yeah, I say that kind of crap all the time, but it just was in an email. Yeah. So. Oh, well, anyway, it's just that. That's the thing. So now 100% transparency. And. And this is where people get into problems in marriages and in relationships. And when you have things to hide or when you feel like you have the right to a secret life to the side. These are. My friend Steven Mansfield wrote a book, 11 signs that a leader is gonna crash, and one of them is extreme privacy. They're building a separate life to the side, somewhere that they don't want anyone to see. And that sets them up and allows them than to fantasize about going places they shouldn't go or doing things they shouldn't do. And then they do because it's all secret. And that's one of the reasons you see these leaders. Well, so. And so was discovered. And they did this and this. Yeah, well, that's what happened. That's why that pastor has a call.

[Rachel Cruze]

There's a spiritual lesson, too, of bringing things into the light when things are seen and exposed. Like it's there, it's there there. Right. But when things are hidden off to the side, you can't be. You can't have access to this thing or that thing. I'm going to keep it over here. Yep. Starts to. Starts to get weird.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It's the same thing as hiding your target bags under the bed, you know, so my husband doesn't know about my spending, you know.

[Rachel Cruze]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And my wife doesn't know about this gun. You know why? I mean, because you're ashamed you shouldn't done it. That's why. And there's A, you know, it's accountability in the relationship. Relationship. No, that's an interesting question. But I will say, Gina, the reason I was making fun of your son was because the people I find in the tech world would have more of a. Because of security. And they have this different view of privacy than I do, especially in relationships. And so that's where your son's. That's why I was picking on him about being a nerd. Cause he fits that. He fits the stereotype. I've got guys working here that would do the exact same thing. They'd say the exact same thing. And they'd be wrong too. But, you know, because they're just. They're techno and they're all worried about privacy and security and cybersecurity and you can't get your password out and you gotta change your password every 14 seconds and you're driving me crazy. I can't live my life for keeping up with all your freaking passwords and your multi factor logins. You're killing me. So, yeah, it's just. I can't get anything done for screwing around with this stuff. But it's the same bucket of things. And it also comes into this thing where we keep our money separate because we really have separate lives. Because we've never really completely put all in on the marriage.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. I mean, it's the same mindset of people that say, well, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna keep my money here and

[Dave Ramsey]

then I can do what I wanna do.

[Rachel Cruze]

And I'm gonna get to. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I'm not accountable to you and people that do. I'm married to you. I sleep with you, but I'm not accountable to you. She's dumb.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And it's not that every person that has a separate checking account is doing something and more. I'm not saying. But it's the. Again, it's the intentionality. It's the motivation of I get to do my own thing in this. And you just break down a marriage when that is your primary motivation now in the budget. Yes. Have your own line item. I have a Rachel line item. There's a Winston line item. You. You can go spend money on what you want, but it's agreed upon, it's talked about, and there's nothing shameful about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so it's transparency.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep. Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You know, you know you're old. You know you're old when you have Find my iPhone. Because she loses her iPhone.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, I lose. I lose mine all the time too.

[Dave Ramsey]

You might be old if. Thank you, Jeff Foxworthy.

[Blake Thompson]

Right?

[Caller/Listener]

Or

[Blake Thompson]

I love it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Or you're a little bit. Or you're doing 18 things at once.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, happy Fourth of July, America. 250 years, you big beautiful beast. We love you. We love you, America. Absolutely. Absolutely awesome. That puts this hour 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 prince of peace, Christ Jesus.

[Caller/Listener]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[George Camel]

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Blake Thompson]

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[George Camel]

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[Blake Thompson]

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