Fortune Favors Those Who Get Up and Go to Work
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Coming to you live, this is the Ramsey Show. Thrilled that you are with us. We're here to help you win in your life, win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. Phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. It's your show. We're here to help you. 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. I'll be steering the ship today. And my co-pilot,

Co-captain, I guess. We're on a ship. If you want to call it a captain, we'll do whatever. I'll be starboard. He is George Campbell. I don't think that works, but we're going to go with it. You got your bomber jacket on today? I think it's going to be a hot show, Ken. You think so? I don't want to speak it into existence, but it might be. So let's talk about what we're here to do. We kind of gave him the intro, but you're the money guru, and I'll call myself the work guru.

And they often go hand in hand.

uh maybe today's the day you dial dial us up and we'll coach you in that area if you're winning with work as davis said your income is your greatest wealth building tool and i'm the guy to help you make more money in this whole money show so that is who we are what we're here to do today uh i think you're ready to go it's a good synopsis so without further ado let's go to the big apple anthony is joining us there to get us started anthony how can we help are you with us hello anthony

Hello. There we go. All right. You're live, my friend. How can we help? Oh, wow. Thank you so much. So I'll make it very brief. So my wife and I, we are 27. We have a household income of $38,000. Why? Because she makes $38,000 and I'm unemployed. Oh, boy. Yeah. We have an eight-month-old son. I have a bachelor's in psychology as does she. I also have a master's in human-computer interaction. But in 2024, it just feels like this job market is impossible. I've been applying for jobs for months.

And I've had no luck. I, you know, I tweak my resume to cater to each job specifically and still nothing. So my question is, what can I do? Because we do have a lot of student loan debt, close to six figures in student loan debt. And we got to take care of that. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about the short term and then we'll answer that direct question. But while you are working to get the job in a specific field, I would be working something.

Anything. Two jobs. What would you say are your skills? Hold on, hold on, hold on. You're jumping ahead of me, George. I'm just confused by the human computer thing right through me. That's UX UI design. Okay. I got spooked. Yeah. So what I want you to be doing in this meantime, and I'm about ready to give you some advice on how we go get this job, but you need to be working while you're trying to get a job. Does that make sense?

Yes, and I'm trying to do that too. No, you're not.

You're not trying. You're telling me you can't go work. You can't work delivery driving. You can't work at a big box store. You can't just go get what we would call an hourly wage job that doesn't require any kind of experience or really, honestly, any skill. But could you be making $15, $18, $20, $22, $25 an hour? Anthony, you can do that while we're trying to get into our professional field. True or false?

Well, yes, but I've been trying to apply for those jobs as well, and they're rejecting me from them as well. Maybe they think I'm overqualified. Well, how could you be overqualified? You don't even have a job. You're straight out of school.

I have a master's and I was a teacher for three years and I was also a store manager at Walgreens for three years. Okay, so give me an example of an hourly job that you've tried to get and they're not giving it to you. Give me a couple examples. I applied for Domino's as a delivery driver, rejected the same day. I applied for a manager at McDonald's, rejected the same day. I applied for help at Walmart, rejected within a couple of days.

I have other jobs that I've applied to that'll say under consideration, but no luck. And same thing with, I've tried doing Uber as well, and there's a new law that passed in New York City where they gave a set wage, and because of this set wage, it's literally impossible to sign into the app. Okay. Like, I can't even log in. Are you, I hate to ask this question, but it feels like I have to.

Are you doing something weird or awkward or acting in some way where just a basic hourly job, which requires a pulse that you're not getting these jobs? What's going on in your mind? Or is this a mystery to you? I mean, I do have autism. Maybe that's part of it. Okay. How does the autism affect you in interacting? I don't feel like it affects me, but maybe others think I'm weird. Have these all been in-person interviews? Because you're saying I submit a resume and they reject me.

I mean, I have had impression interviews before, but they just never go. Like, I've had interviews within the last month or two, and I just never got the job. Okay. Throughout your history. Yeah. Well, let me, I want to dive in on the autism thing. Throughout your work history, because you have been employed before.

I mean, how does it affect you? What do people say about it? Does it cause issues or is it minor? Because you present as it's a very minor thing, but I don't want to assume that. So what's really going on there? I couldn't tell you. You're telling me no one's ever told you, hey, you come across this way. If they know you're autistic, they don't tell you how it presents?

My wife does because she's also, you know, she's a therapist. Okay, then how does it present? How does it present? I guess I honestly don't even know, honestly. Okay, Anthony, listen to me. Anthony, listen. You just got done telling me that your wife tells you how it comes across, and so when I ask you to tell me what she says, you tell me you don't know.

She'll just say that, well, her sister's actually autistic as well. So she says that on a scale of one, she doesn't give me specific answers, but she'll say on a scale of one to 10, apparently I'm a nine. That's what she says specifically. I don't know what that means, but. There's our problem. Okay. In all honesty. Okay. I'm going to move forward here, but in all honesty, you need to sit down with your wife and say, what does a nine mean? And specifically, what are my,

social challenges, you have to know how you're presenting because you can overcome that. And so let's move forward here. What, what, what, if I could snap my fingers, if George and I could just give you something today, what is that field? What is the job, the career path? Is it the, uh, the technology and the design in that realm? Is that what you would love to have?

Well, I mean, I would like to be a UX researcher for now, but I'm also three years away from finishing my PhD in artificial intelligence. So I don't know if I would transition into that later on. Okay, so that's what we want to go tech, correct? Right. All right. And so we've got the bachelor's and we've got the master's. Here's the thing. You have got to stop playing the resume lottery where you're just filling out resumes.

I'm going to give you a book. It's a bestselling book, number one bestselling book I wrote called The Proximity Principle. Anthony, this is huge. This is all about personal connection. And so you've got to know how your autism is presenting to people. And if in fact it throws them off, and if it does, how do we overcome that? How do we

plan for that. How do we take the elephant out of the room and go, Hey, I'm a high functioning autistic person because you are George. Doesn't he present that way to you? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So Anthony, this is all about personal connections. We've got to talk with people who are in the industry. We've got to meet with people that are in the industry. We got to repeat that and repeat that and repeat that because you've got the qualifications certainly for entry level.

But I'm going to tell you, I think this starts with your wife, who's a therapist, helping you see maybe what challenges that you are having to overcome in all these interviews. Self-awareness is the prescription that I'm writing for you here, Anthony. Hang on the line. We'll get you the proximity principle. Keep your chin up. But listen...

You are differently abled. You're going to have to start to own that, step into that, and you can provide so much because you are really, really talented. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. We're thrilled to have you with us. We're here to help you win in your life. George Campbell is my co-host. I'm Ken Coleman. George will take lead on the money questions, and I'll be helping you out on any kind of work-related questions. We want to help you make more money. We want you to have meaning and purpose in your work.

888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. All right, George, we've got a lot of new people coming into the program all the time. And winning with your money,

It can't happen without the budgeting element. That's why we believe so much in every dollar. Tell people what it is and why they need it. Well, with any goal, you kind of have this lofty thing out there. I want to get out of debt. I want to build wealth. I want to save for the vacation. But the daily habit you need to do to get there is the budget.

Just like with working out, you're going to have to actually work out regularly. I can't just say I want to lose weight. And the budget helps you accomplish that. And we created a great tool called EveryDollar. It's totally free. You can go to the App Store or Google Play and download it. And what it does, it just gives you a game plan for your money. Instead of wondering where it all went, you go, I know exactly where it's going because I pre-decided.

ahead of time yeah and so every before the month begins you got to make your every dollar budget to plan your spending track the expenses and save for what matters most and keeping a pulse on it that's what allows you to actually focus and win so go download every dollar for free in the app store or google play today all right good stuff let's uh get back to the phones we're going to go to canada calgary is where we are gerald is there gerald how can we help today

Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? I've been listening to the show for about a year, and I just had a question regarding a large financial purchase that I made about a year ago. A little bit of background, my wife and I were going through a really difficult time in our marriage at the time, which kind of, I guess, culminated in me having a, I guess, a near mental breakdown. There was some

Just some, I guess, some emotional untaffedness from years ago that kind of came to light. And I was in a pretty bad place. We've been married for about 22 years. And went out and bought a $300,000 boat. So I'm just... Wow. Yeah, we're in a better...

we've gone through and been in therapy and our marriage is healing and we're doing good there. But now that I'm kind of a little more in my right mind, I'm just wondering if I should continue on with that. It is something that my family and I enjoy together and just wondering kind of. I'm assuming, Gerald, that you financed it. No, I paid cash for it. Oh, you paid cash. Wow. What's your household income?

Household income on a power engineer, I make about $200,000, and then we have about $40,000 to $45,000 a year in lease land revenue. You're a big saver, I guess, huh?

Yeah, we put most of our retirement money into farmland. We've kind of sold the cows and rented out all the land now. Right, but my point is you saved for a long time to be able to buy a boat in the tune of $300,000 cash. So you're just a disciplined person by nature, yes? Yes. So the savings was intentional, the purchase was impulsive? Yes.

Yeah. You weren't planning to just blow $300,000 on a boat. What's the boat worth right now if you were to sell it? Probably about $330,000, talking to the dealer where it came from. It appreciated? I could probably get around $320,000 to $330,000. I put about $15,000 into it. Oh, so you put some improvements in it that allowed it to appreciate. Yeah. Wow. Do you guys have any debt? We don't. No mortgage, nothing? No.

No. So which way were you leaning? You called us for our advice. Which way were you leaning? What are you wrestling with on this? Well, I go back and forth. You know, I guess the biggest thing for me is I feel guilty having a toy worth $300,000. From a financial perspective, I don't.

We've got about $150,000 in cash right now, and our land is worth about $2.5 million. Wow. What's your total retirement cash that you've got? Well, that would be the $150,000 that I've got in ETFs, and then we've got a $20,000 emergency fund. So you're worth how much total? About $2.8 on the conservative side. What's your house worth?

It's a rural piece of property. It's 160 acres. It's probably worth about $600,000. Okay. $500,000, yeah, somewhere there. And that's paid for as well? Yes. Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, let's just...

I don't know, George, that he should be feeling guilt over this. I mean, you've done very well. You're right that this toy is a gigantic part of your world. And as far as our parameters go, you know, we say that everything with wheels, motors should add up to no more than half of your annual income. So you are way above and outside of that parameter. And for that reason, it might be a good idea to sell. But you've done well. You've paid cash. You don't have debt. This is not on fire. Right.

But I feel like the fact you're calling in tells me you're like, we should probably downgrade and boat. Yeah. Could you do that? Could you sell it and buy a more reasonable boat? For the purpose, I mean, it is a big boat. It's for ocean fishing. So my two daughters and my wife and I can stay on there for three, four days at a time quite easily. So yeah.

It would be tough to get a boat that would serve that same purpose for less. But could you do that once a year and rent it and then downgrade to your normal kind of day-to-day boat? Oh, and that's kind of the thing I'm thinking of. Like we can sure go on a, you know, a charter is about $2,000 a day. You know, you can go on a lot of charters. Yeah, that's what I would do. You could do five charters a year for the next 30 years. So what are you wrestling with? Because it feels like we gave you the answer you were looking for and now you're arguing with yourself. Yeah.

Am I right? Yeah, you're right. The thing I'm wrestling with is I've always been very, very driven. Like, I'm very...

uh, if I'm not producing, I'm, I feel like I'm, I'm failing. So, and I think it goes back to even, you know, just my childhood work, work and hard work was the, was kind of the measure of success. And I want to, I guess I want to be different with my, with my girls. I want to, I've got two grown kids and I, I see that and I'm already the drivenness. And, uh, how does this tie into the boat? How does this tie into the boat? Well,

Well, with this boat, I'm going to take two weeks off work, and we've got to head to the coast for two weeks and shut her down and just relax. So you're thinking if you keep the boat, it forces you to not be so driven. This is your counter-argument to yourself. Yeah. Okay. I'm going back to George. George said you could rent. You could charter and do the same relaxation. It still forces you to relax, right? Yeah.

You're not making a very compelling case against yourself. If I'm sitting here as the judge, and he's the lawyer against himself. Yeah, it is not a wise financial decision because you could sell for $300,000 and you could charter five times a year for 30 years doing that. That's what I would do. So that's what I'm telling you right now. Why'd invest a big chunk of that? George, what if he does two years worth? If you sold for $300,000, you bought a $50,000 boat. Instead, that gives you $250,000 profit, right? Yeah.

Yeah, but if you invested that, it would double every seven years if you got a 10% rate of return. So what I'm saying is, hey, 14 years from now, we could have a million dollars on our hands, or we could own a boat that's now worth $75,000. Well, that's exactly the thing that's killing me. I figured that out, too. This boat isn't a $300,000 boat. It's a million-plus dollar boat in three years. Right, exactly, an opportunity cost. Gerald, listen, just charter it. You're so good at saving. Mm-hmm.

Like sell this thing, take just a teeny bit of that cash, George, and plan out your next couple charters and just prove to yourself that you can have just as much fun with the family but have a whole lot more cash. This is a no-brainer. George and I are telling you to sell it. And you guys have a flat tire on the investing side. I love that you have this land that's amazing, but I think it's wise to be diversified.

and you have done nothing as far as retirement planning, you're great savers, but if you channel that into investing, your money's going to have compound growth working for you instead of an asset that's going down in value. Since we sold the farm, look, we do put $3,500 a month. I guess last year and a half, we do budget with every dollar. We're putting $3,500 a month into retirement. Amazing. Good. But here's the deal. We're telling you to pour some gas on the fire by selling this big old boat.

You've got a false narrative that if I sell the boat, I can't continue to have all these great experiences and memories with the family, and George proved that wrong. Captain George. The old saying, Ken, the best two days of a boater's life, the day they buy the boat and the day they sell the boat. Oh, so you're saying the best day of Gerald's life is hopefully right around the corner. It's right around the corner, $300,000 payday. I'll take it. Oh, that's great. I'll teach George some maritime terms on the break, and we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

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The Ramsey Show continues to help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. I'm Kenton Coleman. George Campbell joins me. And we're here for you. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. I want to point out, George, on this lovely Friday, we have a fantastic group of audience members out in the area.

Visiting from all over the country. Yeah, handsome folks out there and smiling. And from all around the country, they're waving at us. I want to point out, we love when people come by and watch the show.

People don't know. I run into people and they go, oh my gosh. I go, well, right down the street, come see us. Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. We're live 1 to 4 p.m. Central Time. Come see the show. And let us know you're coming. Go to RamseySolutions.com and somewhere on there you can tell us you're coming. But by the way, we give you free coffee. Free baked goods. Beverages of all sorts. You get a mug, a Ramsey Show mug to commemorate for free. You get a free mug? One per family. You're kidding me.

I hate to be the one to break it to you. I got to get myself my own free mug. I use mine all the time. Aren't I qualified for that? I would say so. All right. I'll make sure you get one after the show. All right. I need to get a free mug. It's a good pit stop as well for those on long road trips. Stretch the legs. Yeah. And we come out and say hi, take pictures, sign books, the whole nine yards. And George does stupid human tricks every once in a while. I occasionally do balloon animals. Okay, good. Currently working on a water buffalo. The kids love that. Not as easy as it looks. I'll bet. Those horns have got to be tricky.

All right, let's get back to the phones. Garrett's joining us in Salt Lake City, Utah. Garrett, how can we help? Hey, thanks for taking my call today. Sure. I have a question regarding speaking to my current employer regarding being paid or not for participating in a business development program for the business. You broke up. You're participating in a business what?

business development program for a family business, an opportunity at hand. And I'll expand on that a little bit. I recently graduated from my university in entrepreneurship and business management, fully funded by my parents. So I have no debt there. I got married a month after I graduated. She has one year left of school, fully paid for as well. We both have our own cars, fully paid off. So we have no debts outside of

Um, we just have our normal expenses such as rent and all. And we've definitely seen God's hand in both marriage and school and now work where a month before I graduated, I made the right call to the right person at the right time. A distant family member who has his own company specializing in low voltage wiring. And he is, he's run it for 27 years and is looking for an exit. And that's where I come in where, um,

I'm actually in the line for succession to take over for him in about a year, year and a half from now. And in that he's run the company for about 27 years, but hasn't done too much to develop it. He's not so much of a businessman, but it's more skilled in the technical area and it's just done what he can to run it. And there's definitely a lot of opportunity in developing the business. And that's where with my schooling, there's a program, uh,

It's a master's program that is a business accelerator with professionals in the area. And we've been blessed by being accepted into this program. However, upon discussion with it, about it with the owner of the company, he is happy.

opted he's open to funding the program and sees the value of it however during this time that i would be in the program i would likely would not be paid to be doing this development for the business and this is three full days a week and with the money i'd make on mondays and fridays doing

work in the field for the company, over the nine months of being in the program, it wouldn't quite be enough to cover our basic expenses. Okay, so you've called us for what reason then, now that we've got the background? Yeah, to figure out how I should approach the owner of the company in discussing possible pay-for- Who's your uncle?

So he is, he's not my uncle. He's a more distant family member. Oh, okay. He's the owner of the company. Yeah, but he's a family member. Yeah, he's a family member. He's agreed to fund the program, but not pay me while being in the program. No, I get it. I get it. Are you hourly or salary?

hourly right now okay well that's part of the context right there and that's part of the natural rub is is first of all he's old school as you said he's not really thinking this from a um a traditional kind of ceo mindset he's just he's the owner operator right and he's going great i'll pay for you to go get this additional training but i'm not going to pay you when you're in school i'm paying for the school i think that's a pretty fair deal don't you

Yeah, and I absolutely see it that way. What's interesting about the— Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on. Hold on. Because I don't want to get too much into a rabbit trail here. The bottom line is you called us saying, George, I want you to weigh in here, but you're asking us, how can I convince my distant family member, who's the owner of this company, to pay me my hourly wage while I'm in a class that he's paying for?

Right. And so the question I have is when you brought it up to him, how'd the conversation go? Was there an actual conversation? Did you have any potential counterpoints or was it just, hey, would you do this? And he said, no, that's what I want to know today. What what happened in the conversation when you brought this idea up? Yeah. So I brought up the discussion about the program, given it's a business accelerator. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not the program. Have you brought up to him?

The way you're saying this is that you brought up that you want him to pay you your hourly rate while you're taking the classes. Did that conversation actually happen? We had a discussion recently where he shared his opinion on it, and that's where he discussed it with me, is what he saw regarding it. And he said? And he said that he would rather that I sacrifice being paid at,

He would rather that I sacrifice not being paid during that time that I am developing those aspects of the business rather than because it's not directly increasing profits to companies for those direct actions. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. I just wanted to know his true state of mind, how open he was to this. George? So this is not going to be a possibility. What is your other option here? Is you paying for the class on your own while getting paid your hourly wage?

The other possibility would be to likely not take the program. How much is the program? It's $15,000 for a full year of it. And I like where your head's at, George, because let me tell you where I'm at. George, I think...

that, we're going to talk about you, Garrett, for just a second, instead of talk to you. In front of your back, not behind you. That's right. Here's what I think he should do. He's supposed to be taking over within a year or so, or around a year. I think he holds off on this course. He becomes CEO.

then he builds it into a natural expense of the organization, and he can therefore at that time make that decision. The company that becomes a viable expense for the company saves him money. He loses no income, and we're only talking about 12 months. I just don't think this tradeoff makes any sense. There's no urgency here. There's no urgency. By the way, it's not feasible. Financially, it's not feasible for Garrett. What would you do, Garrett, to cover your expenses with no income? Have you thought about that?

Yeah. And that's where the point of conflict was where it's, he's open to paying for the program, but obviously if I were to do it, despite it being direct actions to, since the program is directly to build the,

No, no, Garrett, Garrett, we're back on the same soundtrack. Garrett, Garrett, listen, we're on the same soundtrack. George is asking you point blank. We've got 45 seconds. Yes or no answer. Have you thought through how you would make the money that you are losing by doing the three days a week in classes? We know the distant family members paying for the course. Have you thought about how you could make the money outside of the classes? Have you thought about it? Yeah, no, sir.

I likely wouldn't be able to if I took the course. There you go. That gives my answer. This is not a feasible option. Let's wait. Let's wait. By the way, you're still going to get the knowledge, and the company's going to pay for it. Oh, by the way,

If you're the CEO, it becomes a line item expense in the old every dollar company budget. Right, George? Yeah. I like this plan. All right, Garrett. Thanks for the call. We told you what to do. Will he do it, George? That's the question. We don't know. Only Garrett can answer. There you go. Don't move. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

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That's what Zander is all about. Go to Zander.com to learn more or call 800-356-4282. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Thrilled that you are with us, America. We are here for you. We want you to win with your money, winning your work, and winning your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. The phone number to jump in is 888-

825-5225, 888-825-5225. You know what time it is, don't you, George? It's question of the day time. It's time for question of the day. It comes from Brady in, do you say Nevada or Nevada? I've heard it's Nevada. That's what I hear. That's what I'm going with. That's the correct answer. All right, tell us what Brady's asking, George. I'm planning to apply to dental school this year, and I'm nervous about the total tuition of $500,000. I would be too.

My parents said they will pay my way through school but will likely have to sell some commercial investments to do so. Is it worth it to spend a lot of money on schooling if my parents are pushing me? Uh-oh. That's a left field turn there with the parents pushing. Right there in the last part of the question. I was all aboard until the parents are pushing. Yeah, what's your gut, George? I love the parents. If the parents are saying, hey, we can do this, we need to sell some commercial investments, it sounds like they're doing pretty well.

So as long as they're not taking on debt and they're liquidating assets they already own, it's not going to derail their nest egg and financial plan. I think this is amazing that the parents are willing and able to pay for the tuition. I would also go, can we find it cheaper? Can we go to a more affordable dental school that also fits the bill? But the part that worries me is the

My parents are pushing me. Is it worth it to spend a lot of money on schooling if my parents are... Yeah. It's a red flag to me. Pushing is... I'm guessing this is not a typo. If it's not...

I want to know what would he do? Does he actually want to be a dentist? That's where I'm going. If they were willing to put $500,000 into something else, is there anything and what is above dentistry? I just don't want a guy drilling into my teeth because mommy wanted him to. Wow. You know what I mean? That's for sure. So that's a big part of this, the pushing part. But is it worth it to spend a lot of money on schooling? Well, if you're paying cash and it's what you want to do with your career,

and you're able to do it, that's fine. We're not mad at famous big-name schools if you're paying cash and you're doing it for the right reasons. I've got to imagine if you don't have passion for fixing people's teeth, it's got to be the worst thing on the planet to do. I mean, that's pretty rough. I'm going, if you don't want to pick up trash, but that's your job, you can hold your nose on that one, literally. But sticking your hand in people's mouths...

Talking to him, a lot of intensity there. That's a tough business to wake up every day and go, I don't want to do this. You know? There's some gnarly looking teeth out there. Here's what will likely happen if he's not actually passionate about this. He gets halfway through, burns out, drops out. Parents are still on the hook for the half million. And now there's resentment. It ruins the relationship. I'm saying run.

So that's the part we don't know. You know what he should do? He should take the Get Clear Career Assessment. It would pretty quickly, in about 20 minutes, give him a great report that says yay or nay on that job. So there you go. But I can't give it to him because he emailed it. Call us up, Brady, if you get the chance. All right, back to the phones we go. We're going to stay here in Nashville, and I'm told Jelly is on the line. Jelly? Hey, Ken. Hey, George. How's it going today? Oh, we're having a blast. What's going on? Can I just ask, is this a given name? I'm very curious.

Uh, my name is Joseph actually, but everybody calls me Joey. Okay. That helps me out. I kind of, well, now I got to ask, how did you come about getting the name Jelly if you're Joseph? Is it radio appropriate? Family friendly? Oh, I mean, that's just what my mom and dad decided they want to call me. So that's what it is. Oh, so it's a youngster around the house instead of yelling Joseph or Joe, they just called you Jelly.

Yep, that's it. Wow, love it. I'm going to avoid the obvious retort here and just get right to the question. Okay, how can we help? How can we help? So I have a question regarding Baby Step 4. I have a Roth 401k at work that has about $215,000 in it. My company matches a half a percent up to 6%. So I'm contributing 15% now.

I was wondering, do I need to back that down to the 6% just to max out my match and open up a Roth IRA outside of work, or do I just need to keep doing what I'm doing since I already have that amount of money in there and that's just going to keep compounding instead of going out and opening up something starting from zero?

Well, the starting from zero part doesn't matter. Mathematically, you're going to have the same. If you had the same rates of return, the money is going to increase at the same levels, no matter what the account is. If it started from zero, if you add a thousand to something that had zero or a thousand to something that had 215, that thousand is going to appreciate at the same rate. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So you said this is a Roth 401k? Yes, sir. Okay. So you're contributing all 15% to the Roth side. And what is your household income?

Or what's your gross income? Roughly $140,000. That's amazing. So you likely are going to max out that Roth? No, you'll get close. This year's $23,000 is the limit. You'll get to $21,000 by doing the...

you know, at 140,000 income. So if I'm in your shoes, and I'll tell you, Jelly, this is something I've done at Ramsey myself. I put all 15% into that Roth 401k. The reason we tell people to invest up to the match and then go to a Roth IRA and then come back is if it's a traditional 401k.

And the key you're looking for is tax advantages. So match beats Roth beats traditional. The match is free money. That's 100% rate of return. Take that. Next up, we have all of our Roth options. That would be the Roth IRA. Then we go to traditional. But because you have a Roth option with your 401k, you can just keep it simple and do all 15% there. If you go up, let's say your income goes up and you haven't hit 15% and you've maxed out the 401k, you can look into what's known as a backdoor Roth IRA.

which is when you fund a traditional IRA with non-deductible money, and then you convert it to a Roth. And that is a very legal loophole. Yes, sir. Does that help?

That helps. We helped at least one person today, Ken. There you go. Well, that's your jam. Let the record show. That's your jam to help the jellies of the world. Gosh, you're good. You see, I couldn't resist it. I've been thinking the entire call, what was I going to say? Couldn't work in peanut butter. What I wanted to ask was, was your last name Roll? Oh, well played. Jelly Roll. Very famous Nashville country artist. By the way, one of the greatest little Debbie snacks of all time. I believe they were Jelly Rolls. Fantastic. That's just what we poor people packed in our lunch.

Wow. That's a throwback. Oh, yeah. A little Debbie. I believe it's a little Debbie snack. People can fact check me later. Let's go to Bozeman, Montana. Michael is joining us. Michael, how can we help? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. You bet. What's up? I'm...

I'm new to the Ramsey system and then kind of dove in headfirst. I appreciate a system that's simple enough that, you know, it's still idiot proof after 30 years of the world. We're glad to have you aboard. Yeah. Um, so I'm reaching the stage where I'm looking, um, at investing and I've heard Dave speak before about avoiding bank related, uh, brokerages. Um,

And based off of what I've heard from Clark Howard and other figures, it seems like good advice in the long term. But there is...

There's not a smart investor pro within 150 miles of me because there's like two in the state of Montana. So my question is, is it okay to stay with U.S. Bank for the brokerage simply because I really appreciate having somewhere I can literally walk into an office and have that face-to-face? Because I grew up in a town where there was a U.S. Bank. That's an interesting question. That's a good question. George, what do you think? Or if I could go to...

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I would, here's the thing, when you look into these other, the big three, you know, Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, what you'll find is they're going to have lower fees than probably a bank brokerage does. And the other thing about bank brokerages, they're going to try to sell you all kinds of debt products.

That's how they're going to be making their money. And so that's the one thing to watch out for. Watch out for expense ratios. Watch out for the products they're trying to put you into, especially when it comes to insurance products. And so I would just tread with caution. There's nothing evil about it. But you've got to be paying attention and you have to be making the decisions. Don't just let them put it on cruise control and say, we got it, Michael. Don't worry about it.

So if you look into all of that and everything checks out, they're putting you in Ramsey-approved investments and assets and the expense ratios are low. They're not trying to mess with you and market crappy products to you. Then go for it. Quick follow-up on that, George, on his behalf and for others. This is the first time I've ever heard that particular question where there aren't a bunch of smart investor pros in a close vicinity. Yeah, he's in a rural area.

Couldn't he still, though? They still do remote. That's what I'm saying. You don't need to meet in person. I wouldn't let that limit you. I get the comfort factor of driving in, but it can be done. You can work with somebody. I do Zoom calls with my SmartVestor Pro, and he's local. I'm just too lazy to leave the house. All right. Very good. Good answer, George, as always. All right. That's going to do it for the first hour. We'll be back before you know it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Just search Ramsey Network in the App Store today. This is the Ramsey Show. America thrilled to have you with us. This is where we help you win in your life. What does that mean? That means winning in your money, winning in your work, winning in your relationships. All three of those areas really are intertwined, and we want to help you get that stuff untangled so that you are living the life that you dream of.

The American Dream is alive and well, despite what you may hear or see on the various platforms. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel is with me, one of my good, good friends, who we just happened to get to do this amazing show together. So fun. You know, I don't want to take that for granted, buddy. You and I have got a very similar path. We've known each other for a long time. Over a decade. Before we were in this role. Yeah. And now we sit here. Would you have guessed 10, 12 years ago we'd be sitting here today? I would have been flabbergasted.

I know. And by the way, can I just say on air, happy 10th Ramsiversary. We got to celebrate you in a recent staff meeting with the whole Ramsey team, but that was fun to see you get honored up there. Thank you. Ten years goes fast when you're having fun. A decade here at Ramsey. There you go. There you go. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. George and I fashion ourselves as the really fun group, the fun tandem. So we're going to have some fun and give you some practical advice. We'll see how that first part goes. And Ken loves fashion.

What's that? And Ken loves fashion. Yeah, I do. As do you, Mr. Bomber Jacket. It's an easy go-to. How many of those do you have, by the way? Too many and not enough. There you go. All right, let's go to Greg in St. Louis, Missouri. Greg, how can we help?

Yes, sir. Hey, it's a pleasure talking to you, Ken and George. I've listened to you guys for several years and appreciate getting a chance to hear some wisdom and opinions from you. All right. George will give you the wisdom. I'll give you the opinion. You both got both. All right. I've got some property I'm wanting to

set up in a trust for my children and grandchildren. And I'm kind of new at everything. I have seen a lawyer and got another appointment to see one. And, uh, basically, uh, I want to set it up in a trust and, um, uh, well, uh,

I just want to set it up in a trust and protect it, I guess you could say, so that I'm sure that they'll get this inheritance. But I wanted to do that. I got about 120 acres, and I want to put it in the will and trust to be when it was sold to be dispersed that way. And prior to that, I'm hoping to maybe sell part of it.

And invest that in some, I don't know what. I was going to get your guys' opinion, CDs. And also I wanted to purchase a home in Florida with some of the balance. So what I'm looking at is about 60 acres at $10,000. And then I'm going to keep 60 acres and my home there.

and not sure what I'll do with it from there. So I got a question here for George Ways In. Why are you considering the trust as opposed to just in your will or whatever the situation there? Why the trust idea? Well, I really don't know, Ken, all the different nuances about everything. I just know that I have nothing set up right now. And I got to say, my marriage is, you know, I don't want to say not that great. And

And I'm not sure where that's all going to go, so I'm kind of just trying to get some stuff lined out to keep things in check. Did you have all of this acreage before the marriage? Yes, sir, I did. Actually, about five years prior to that. Okay, and she knows about it.

Knows about what? The acreage? Yes, the land. Wow. We lived here on it for about the last 40-something years. Okay, that makes the difference because you guys own property and live on the property, and so this might be considered a marital asset.

Well, hold on, George. The only thing is we've lived separate for about the last since 08. Oh, yikes. Other than some back and forth between the two residences.

Uh, it's just been a big mess. Never anticipated my family or myself would be in such a messed up, uh, dysfunctional deal, but I am. So you guys are not, you guys are only married by actual law. You guys have not been married for some time. Well, I will say she did a file for divorce about three years ago and that got, uh, I did not agree to it. Wanted to reconcile. We reconciled partly and, uh,

You know, I've been hearing and feeling some of the bad stuff coming back from then. You reconciled to the point that you still live separately since 2008? Well, the divorce was just three years ago. Wow.

Greg, what are you hanging on to at this point? You guys haven't lived together in 16 years. I don't know. I guess because we've been married for 40 years. You haven't been. No, we haven't been. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore slept in separate beds. You guys are in different houses. I mean, this is not normal. No, sir. It's not. I'd say she classified it as a modern, I don't know, modern marriage. But it's not anything I've really been for. None of it. So...

This is where I'm at and short of a divorce and a complete whatever happens. I don't know, but I did want to try to structure something to protect. So it sounds like, so it sounds like I'm going to read between the lines here a little bit. Sounds like.

You're not sure if you're going to do the divorce or not. In my opinion, you guys are divorced emotionally. This is an absolute train wreck. And I don't know what the state of Missouri and the judges will decide is marital assets when you haven't lived together for 16 years. But it feels like you're trying to keep this land from going to her. That's what it feels like. Well, that is true because that's been seeming like one of her main driving factors. You know, she

She's not on the title, and I don't know exactly until I find some more out about it. But, you know, she's stated in the past she wasn't really worried about the kids. She's wanting to do some different things with the money. And like you say, I don't believe she's really too interested in being married.

I'll tell you this, Greg. Newsflash, your instincts are right. Yes. And a divorce is going to turn a marriage into a business transaction. And so your best bet now is trying to do this all as amicably as possible and try to protect your assets. I think you're doing the right thing to protect your legacy and your financial world. And again, I'm not the qualified person to talk to for this. I'd be working with an estate planning attorney, a lawyer who is specifically in trusts,

to figure all of this out and decide what is the right thing based on your state laws and your situation. To that end, Greg, I think you need to get two or three opinions. I'd meet with a minimum of two lawyers. I think three feels better.

because you're going to get some differing opinions. You want to come away from the three meetings with where are all three lawyers on the same page. That's where you get the knowledge base to go, what is it that I want to do? You don't want them telling you what to do. George, you agree with that? Absolutely. I think that's just a bare minimum approach.

Let's get three, maybe four opinions on what your options are. You need to assemble a team at this point, Greg. One, you need a financial advisor, and you can get connected with a smart investor pro at RamseySolutions.com. You need a good estate attorney. You need a good trust lawyer and probably a good insurance broker as well. And that's going to help you navigate whatever's next. But I would – please, I'm begging you, just take the next step. You're living in limbo for decades with a pseudo relationship. Yes, sir. We both kind of acknowledge that, even though –

I don't know. We've got five kids. It's just a big messed up deal for sure. I don't know what to conclude out of it. I'm pretty, well, 66, so it's not like I'm really looking forward to any of it, but I guess I need to. Well, you've got to move on to the next chapter. You've got a lot of life to live, Greg, and this ain't it. I've been slogging through the mud for a long time because we don't want to deal with the inevitables.

So now's the time. You're not getting any younger. Make a clear decision about what we're going to do going forward and live with it. Thanks for the call. I feel so bad for you, but there's some clarity on the other side of all this. This is The Ramsey Show.

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How you doing out there, America? Are you winning with your money? Are you winning in your work? Are you winning in your relationships? If not, this is the place for you, safe place. We're going to help you out. We're going to give you some hope with some practical advice. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins you this hour.

in his bomber jacket. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. I just want to point out that those are great, but when they go out, you're in trouble. I'm fine. You're going to have a whole closet you're going to have to get rid of. Here's the thing. I'm always being told Gen Z decided skinny jeans are out and no-show socks are out. And frankly, I'm sick of it. Oh, okay. Why are we taking advice from them about fashion? This is a thing? It's a thing. That the no-show socks? No-show socks are out.

You see your kids probably wear the tall white socks. Oh, I've seen tall white Nike socks. Apparently you have to flip them inside out. Oh, I'm tired of it. Can to be, I'm getting, I don't like that at all. I don't like her. I'll tell you what I'd go for. Since I'm a child of the eighties, I'd go for the tube socks with the stripes. If those come back, I'm in, I'll rock those mid, mid shin. My hope is eventually whatever I'm wearing comes back in style at some point. Well,

I'm too lazy to switch out a wardrobe every year because some 18-year-old decided it wasn't cool. Well, good for you, George. Bomber jackets will be in forever. I'm rising above the trends. Okay. Tony is on the line in Washington, D.C. Tony, how can we help today?

Hi. So my question is, I finally decided to follow the baby steps the right way and decided to sell my rental property. So I put it on the market and I got no offers except an investor, like a really low offer. And then no one even viewed the home. So my question is, do I take...

It's not really a loss because I owe $91,000 on the home and it's worth like $314 now. So how much do I lower the price? I lowered it $15,000 and still no hits. And the offer that I got that was from an investor, it was like $100,000 below. When you say you lowered it, are you working with a pro real estate agent on this?

Yes. Okay. And what is their take on why this hasn't sold and the strategy around lowering the price? So she said that because of the market, the interest rates, she said that right when I listed it, the Federal Reserve or something went up again on the rate, so buyers are...

nervous. And then my home is, it's not rural, but it's growing. So it's a demand area off and on. Okay. But what about the pricing? Did she think your pricing was correct? Yes. She said it was correct. And it was- And how long has it been on the market? About 30 days. Oh, for heaven's sakes. You got to be patient. Yeah. We're seeing things that depending on your area, it could be 60 to 90 days. Yeah.

Sit tight. I don't know that I fully trust this real estate agent. If I'm in your shoes, I'm going to connect with a Ramsey trusted real estate agent. You can do that at ramseysolutions.com slash agent. And I'll get a second opinion and see what they think about all of this and go, hey, here's how we staged it. Here's how we listed it. Here was the strategy. What do you think?

Yeah. And part of it, they may look at it and go, yeah, you got to be patient. The days on market for your zip code is X, Y, Z. And so, but I wouldn't just sit on this and keep lowering the price. Okay. Yeah. So at any point, so if I, without any views, without any offers, at what point do you, like how much of a, it's not a loss because of how much equity I have, but should I lower it to get rid of it?

to pay my debt or... No, we just told you. Listen, sit tight on this. I wouldn't even start wringing my hands about price if you do what George says. I think you need to go to ramsaysolutions.com slash agent.

And I think you need to interview two or three and see what they would do if it were their listing. Okay? They're trying to win your business. I don't have the cash flow to continue to have it sit for long periods of time. Ah, so you've got some desperation. Because you're burning through, you're paying the mortgage, the property taxes, the homeowner's insurance. Did you have this rented at some point? Yes, it's been rented for about seven years. And what happened? How long has it been vacant?

About two months now. How long can you float this thing? I can do about one more month because I paid the mortgage for about three now. All right. And did you say you dropped the price already on it? Yes. You dropped it $15,000? I dropped it by $15,000, yes. Yeah. Here's the challenge, Tony. George, I don't know what you think, and we're not the actual real estate pros, but we got them. But Tony, you...

Your first response to us going to talk to our pros, I can't sit on this for long. Go talk to some pros that we're telling you to talk to and see if you tell them I am extremely motivated and you tell them why, they understand, and they're going to give you the best strategy. So you still need to go talk to them, and that's not going to take you very long. We're not talking like burning sunlight on that deal. But back to this again, I don't know if these pros are going to agree with me on this, but my gut says that lowering the price –

by 15 more doesn't necessarily move the timeline up when you've got the situation we have in America today. People are just taking longer. Yeah, you need more info about why this property is undesirable and why it's been sitting and if this is normal in your area and what can be done to

to remedy this? Is it curb appeal? Do we need to make a renovation? Do we need to take it off the market for a while? I don't know, but we need more info. All right, George, I want to get George's opinion, Tony, on something else. George, I'm going to go back into the call. All right. So, Tony, you said that you had an investor offer you a low offer. What is the listing price as it sits today? It's $300,000 right now. And this investor offered you $200,000 for it.

I don't remember, but I know it was like $85,000 less than what I originally... How long ago was that? About three weeks ago. Did you count her? No. Okay. George, if she gets desperate...

I'm just, I want to know what you think here. And I know you don't know what the real estate pros are going to say, but I'm bringing this to you. If she's in, she's in tough situation and she does have equity. I wonder if she doesn't go back. I'm asking you on her behalf. Does she go back to that investor and go, okay, you offered me this 85 less. I'll tell you what, I'll do a deal if you come up to this and maybe she. My guess is they offer probably around 230 then.

And maybe you say, hey, I would do it. My lowest I'll go is 270.

something like that and work with your agent on this don't do this all solo and come up with a strategy to where you still win you're not leaving at a huge loss and you do need to have some patience so you like that i would at least counter off i would at least negotiate with the investor yeah my guess is they go no thanks i'm trying to get a crazy bargain you know basement bargain deal here and that's okay but you never know unless you try but she's got to know her limit you got to know the limit what do you think is her limit knowing her debt

What do you think, if you were her, that's what I'm trying to do is give her, because I don't want her to be desperate. What did you pay for it? I paid $125 in 2014. Okay. So this is appreciated. You've done well. You're not really losing here.

You're not really selling at a loss. You've already gained equity. The house is appreciated. That's what I'm wondering. What's your bottom dollar if you're here? Oh, boy. If I'm her, she listed at 314. That's the going rate. I probably wouldn't personally take less than 290. Okay.

But she's struggling. She's going to have to go make some more money. Or you get a new renter in there for another six-month lease. There you go. And see what the market does. You with us, Tony, on this? I mean, these are your options. Here's the deal, though. I know you're feeling the pressure. And the reason I brought George into these what-ifs is I think it helps to have all these options on the table so that you realize you're not without option. The moment you start feeling like you're in a corner is when you do something dumb.

And that's where the agent, if you get with one of these Ramsey Trusted Pros, they're going to be pulling comps in the area. They're going to be pulling all the data because I like to make a data-driven decision, not just emotion, not because I'm sick of it because it's been sitting. I want to know all the facts. And that's what I'm asking you to go do. Yeah. Thanks for the call, Tony.

Yeah, George, that's, again, so here's the crux of this situation is that she's in so much debt and the cash flow in the situation, and this is what we see happen all the time. You give advice on this all the time. People think, oh, I'm going to get into real estate. They get starry-eyed over some, you know, roided-up, limp-biscuit-looking dude on Instagram who told them everyone should buy real estate. I know.

And then we're in a bind and we're losing money on these deals. We're stressed out. It's not the rosy picture that was painted for us on social. And that's why we teach the baby steps. Go slow. Pay cash for investment property. I don't care if it takes you five or ten years instead of one. It's the right way. Because this is a great point, George. She actually has equity and still stressed out of her mind. Can't get rid of it fast enough. Not worth the stress. Oh my goodness.

All right, folks. We're going to get the lint roller out on George's bomber jacket and get ready for the next segment. You don't want to miss it. Callers are still lined up. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, where we help people win in their life, win with their money, win in their work, and win with their relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-7000.

5-2-2-5. 888-825-5225. George, have you vacated this year? I just came back, you know, for the fourth. Went to Florida to see my wife's family. All right. So that was the full panhandle. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It was a trip. Can I just be honest? It was a trip. It wasn't a vacation. I could use a vacation. Oh, okay. Why was it just a trip? Well, when you bring a baby and you got out of the pack and play and through airports and chaos, it just wasn't as relaxing as I would have liked. All right.

So I could use some relaxation. Do you like cruises, George? To be honest, have not been one. Never been on a cruise? Not in my adult life. Well, I think you should join us on the Live Like No One Else cruise, because I'm told you're there. Is this an invite? I'm told you're already on it, just like I am. Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Delaney, Jade Warshaw, all the personalities, plus a special guest. It's back. It was a thing.

And then COVID hit. And we had to cancel it. Poor timing to launch the first ever Ramsey Cruise. First ever Ramsey Cruise. Right before pandemic hit. And so now it's back March 22 through 29 of 2025. Ramseysolutions.com slash cruise for all the details.

But George, you know what? Listen, I'm not a big cruise guy. All right? I like my feet on the land. I like having options. But I'm told this thing is unbelievable. We sat in a meeting. I'm actually looking forward to it. Oh, yeah. I got some family coming with me. Are you bringing the wife and child? I'm going to try.

I don't want to leave my wife on babysitting duty while I'm enjoying the cruise. While you're playing shuffleboard with me. Exactly. So we've got to figure the logistics out, but I am actually super pumped about this. Tell people about the locations, because I'm going to tell you something. When you get down to the Caribbean, by the way, I was just in Barbados. You were. I asked the locals, James, do you say Caribbean or Caribbean? Caribbean.

And the locals say Caribbean, so therefore, that's where I'm going. That's all that matters. You can say whatever you want, tomato, tomato. I'm going Caribbean, not Caribbean. But tell people about these destinations. We're going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. Yeah.

Incredible stops. There's going to be fun excursions, of course, plenty of entertainment on the cruise ship. On top of all the personalities, bring the content. We're going to be speaking. Special guests. We've got Manit Chauhan from Food Network, and we have musicians, Stephen Curtis Chapman is going to join us. Saddle up your horses on the cruise ship. I don't know how that's going to work. We've got magicians, songwriters. It's going to be a good time. Let me tell you who this is for.

This is for those who have followed the baby steps, they've become debt-free, and they're looking for a way to celebrate with other Ramsey fans and the Ramsey team. So it's the ultimate debt-free celebration. I think we're going to bust through the world record for largest debt-free scream, which will be a good time. Oh, that's right. So quick review. What are the dates? March 22 through 29, 2025. Okay.

We don't have a ton of spots left. It's already moving towards a quick sellout. So all you've got to do is put a $600 deposit down. Lock in your spot. That will lock in your spot. You do it at ramseysolutions.com slash cruise, ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. Here's what's exciting. George has never cruised before, and he has a propensity for wearing the bomber jackets. No bomber jackets allowed on that.

But I'm picking out some really tasteful, preppy. Some matching trunks? Boat attire. Oh, I see. You see what I mean? Yeah. I got to get a base tan first. I'm getting you some Sperry's, you know, getting you the right kind of shirts, collar up maybe. I feel like you can pull that off. All right. I'll let Ken get the wardrobe, but you guys have to join us to see it for yourself. Yeah, it's going to be great fun.

All right, to the phones we go. 888-825-5225. Spencer joins us now in Raleigh, North Carolina. Spencer, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. What's going on?

Hey, I'm at a kind of crazy time of life. I had a, what I was hoping was going to be a lifelong career. I loved it. I was one of the people that got up at 8am to go to work and was grateful. My wife would have to pry me away from the computer and was included in a pretty sizable company layoff in March of this year.

And we're pretty responsible with our money, but it's taken a whole lot longer to find another job than either of us thought it would. Just kind of the way it is right now. A lot of people are on LinkedIn talking about layoffs in the tech world, and we trust God's sovereignty, but ultimately we're going to have to find something. But in the meantime, I guess we're looking for wisdom now.

maybe out of the box creative solutions for how to stay afloat as long as possible in such a complicated time? Are there maybe strategies that haven't come to mind for us yet? Or are there resources available that we don't know about to kind of be able to keep our heads up while we wait? All right. Well, let's, let's do a couple of things. George is the master of,

at, you know, cutting expenses and getting creative that way. I want to bring him in, but let's get a couple of things first here. What was the income you were making? I was making $80,000 a year. Okay, and what were you doing specifically in tech? I'm a software developer. Okay, how long have you been doing it? Two, two and a half years. Okay. Are you doing anything right? Well, let me ask this. Did you have any kind of a severance at all? No.

Um, yeah, it was, uh, a month of income, I think. All right. And are you doing anything for work right now? I mean, I don't care if it's two part-time jobs, one part-time, are you doing anything to bring income in? Um, I'm trying to,

Build up my resume as much as possible through training and certifications. Yeah, but that doesn't get you paid. Yeah. Okay. Right. My wife has two home businesses that have been helping a ton, but they're not going to be a long-term solution. Okay. So what's the deficit right now? Do you have to make 80 to actually get by? Or what would allow you guys to actually get by? What's that number of income?

Yeah, 80 is above staying afloat, fortunately. So what are your monthly expenses? Like if you add up your food, utility, shelter, transportation, insurance, no luxuries, what is it going to take to get by for one month? Average month, probably $3,000.

Okay, so that becomes our baseline goal. If nothing else, we've got to come up with $3,000 to stay afloat. And let me jump in real quick, George, because I'm going to let you take over here on the cutting. But listen to me, Spencer. You have got to go work.

It doesn't have to be in your field right now. Okay. But if you can be a laborer on a construction crew and make 18 to $20 an hour, uh, that gets you pretty close to that. $36,000 is what we're saying. Like you go do one, two, three jobs so that you stay afloat. Like staying afloat is just as important as the next job.

And I understand the tech field is contracting a little bit, but the good news is you're an experienced programmer. And I'm going to give you the proximity principle. It's a bestselling book. I want you to read it. If you prefer the audio book, we'll get that to you. Christian will get it to you when we're done.

And you've got to really use the formula there of the right people and the right places. If I keep showing up, then I am going to get an opportunity. But George, let's walking through where he cuts. Let's get really extreme here. Yeah, it's 3000. Is that is that everything you absolutely need? Or is there some things like eating out that we could cut?

We currently, we don't eat out unless a day has just been really insane. We don't really have much of a living. Every day is insane when you're unemployed. So we've got to figure out a way to meal plan, have food ready in the fridge. Okay, so that one we can cut. What about subscriptions? Do you have any subscriptions that are excessive, anything that's not your basic internet? Um...

The $120 a year for Amazon Prime, I think, is the only quote subscription we have. That one can go right now because we don't have money to be spending and buying stuff on Amazon. So that can free up a little bit right there. And so you start to add these up. It may not sound like a lot at first. And like, here's another example, reshopping insurance. Have you reshopped your insurance in a while for home and auto?

I would jump on to ramseysolutions.com slash checkup. You can take that quiz. We'll connect you with some Ramsey trusted insurance pros. And a friend of mine just did this, saved 80 bucks a month with better coverage than they had. So that's something right there. You got to get creative, find out ways to make more and spend less. That's going to get you by. Yeah.

It's tough, but I mean, work is the number one thing we got to focus on here, not certifications. We get this call a lot, George, and it's just, you've got to go make some money. You don't just hustle in putting your resume out. You've got to hustle to bring some money in. I get the lawnmower out and just go down the neighborhood, knock on a door and say, 20 bucks, I got your lawn. All right, coming up next, George.

The very popular I gotta tell you segment where I usually fume, not foom, but fume. And I get a little frustrated at some money stuff. Well, today I'm fired up in a positive way. Oh, there's a way to fight inflation. I'll share it next in the I gotta tell you segment. This is the Ramsey Show.

Listen, tickets for the Live Like No One Else cruise are selling fast. This is the ultimate debt-free vacation, and I can't wait to celebrate with all the folks who've worked their butts off and changed their family trees. We will be sailing through the blue waters of the Caribbean with the Ramsey personalities.

and other special guests. A bunch of cabin options are already sold out, so hurry and reserve yours with a $600 deposit today at ramseysolutions.com slash events. Welcome back, America. You have joined the conversation about you, specifically your life, your money, your work, your relationships, here on The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me, and we're here for you this hour, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

825-5225. It wasn't that long ago, George, where we were in a programming meeting with James Childs, our fearless leader, the producer of The Ramsey Show, and we were talking about fun ways to talk about money stuff. And we came up with this idea, this segment, where I get a little irritated about things. Because I get irritated about things. I know that doesn't surprise you. You're largely always irritated by something. Yeah.

Yeah. To be fair. And so, you know, we decided to go with it because this is something where George and I, we actually sit next to each other at Ramsey Solutions, a little context for how this was born. Our little cubicle desks. A little cube desk. And so we sit there and sometimes I look at George and I go, I got to tell you. And in my head, I know what's about to come out of Ken's mouth is going to be entertaining. Yeah. So we've done a couple, I got to tell you segments. You can search it up on the YouTube page where I get a little irritated at things about money and

And things are going on. And, you know, I've got I got irritated about the no haggle. That was very popular. You said we had to bring back the haggle. We need to bring back the haggle, you know. And then we talked about tips and all kinds of things. But today, George, I got to tell you. What's got your knickers in a twist, Ken? Well, I'm not mad today. Oh, this is a good I've got to tell you. This is a good I got to tell you. All right. Because I, you know, look, I'm paying attention to inflation, too.

And I got three teenagers. You know my kids well. Two of them are boys. They're strapping young men. Very. And they eat a lot.

And I'm in that stage. You've got the little daughter. She's just eating goldfish and things like that. We're talking packs and packs of bacon. And so we go to Costco a lot. I know it's one of your favorite places on the planet. I love to buy in bulk. By the way, this is no endorsement or advertising for Costco. This is real life, I've got to tell you. We have no affiliation. Can I say I love all wholesale clubs equally? So do I.

So recently, George, I was with Stacy on a Saturday afternoon and we were stocking back up. And when I say stocking up, I mean stocking. Full cart, full hearts. Oh, yeah. Can lose. Yeah. So we're there in the line and you know the traditional Costco layout. You're there in the register line and you're checking everything out. And I really usually am just the guy who's, I'm the pack mule. Stacy loads the cart up. I got to push it out. And that's what I'm doing. I'm not paying attention. I'm using my phone.

For whatever reason, this particular Saturday, I noticed a very long line of people that were impeding my progress out. So I started to get irritated. As one does. And then I see that why is everybody in line? They're getting food. Now, I know the food's there, but I've never paid attention to it.

So today I want to do a demo and I want to bring in our lovely associate producer, Kelly. She has been going above and beyond the call of duty for us today. Look at her bringing in the samples. George, I want to prove that in today's inflation. The Vanna White of wholesale food courts. She really is. That's what they've called her. We've got ourselves a Costco hot dog. This is an actual dog from Costco. She drove down the road and got one. So nice of her. And a slice of pizza.

I can smell it. Now, here's the deal. I got my facts here. I'm looking at this, and I'm looking at these line of people, and I'm going, why is everybody in a line for a hot dog? And I'll tell you why. Because, you ready for this? We did our research. Kelly helped me out.

This famous hot dog and soda combo. Since 1985, you can get this quarter pound hot dog that I'm holding in my hands. With a 20 ounce drink. With a drink for just $1.50, George. That's incredible. That's the inflation buster. Yeah. And so Costco has decided this is a lifetime commitment to keep the hot dog at $1.50. And you know how many hot dogs they've sold, George? What would you take a guess? Millions. Somewhere in there. 200 million hot dogs. That's a lot of millions. And we're looking at 201. 201.

$200 million and one right here. Well, what's extra fun is that this food is a loss leader, meaning Costco, you know, the rotisserie chicken in the back of the store for five bucks. They're losing money on this stuff, but they are gaining it because Ken had to walk into Costco and spend $300...

Two eggs with a $1.50 hot dog. I'm going to tell you something. I've never had a Costco hot dog. For real? No. But I have had the pizza. It's a rite of passage. Get a whole pizza, slice of pizza. It's unbelievable. It's an inflation buster. And a slice of pizza we have here today is at $1.99. So it's only a 49 cent markup off of the hot dog. So here's my I got to tell you. My I got to tell you is Costco, they're doing the right thing. They're not marking up this cheap food.

They're trying to make it accessible to people. And by the way, this is a trend. Are you aware of this? What trend? Oh, not marking our prices. Well, we're beginning to see some companies kind of go, you know what? We're going to hold the line. And we're not going to just raise prices like everybody else. I saw the viral video. Are you talking about Arizona iced tea? I'm talking about Arizona. Tell everybody. You've seen this. So I drank these as a kid, as a young skateboarder. We'd go into the 7-Eleven, the gas station. We had no money. And we would buy the 20-ounce can of Arizona iced tea.

And Ken's now trying the Costco pizza pepperoni. What do you think? You keep talking. Okay. So the Arizona iced tea can on it, it says 99 cents. And what's amazing is that for decades, since 1992, that 22-ounce can has remained at 99 cents. And we actually have a viral clip from the Today Show where they interviewed the CEO about why the prices have remained that low. Can we play the clip? Why not increase the price and therefore increase the profit?

We're successful. We're debt free. We own everything. Why? Why have people who are having a hard time paying their rent have to pay more for our drink? Maybe it's my little way to give back. Would you definitively say that you'll never raise that 99 cent price? Not in the foreseeable future. We're going to fight as hard as we can for consumers.

I love that. I could use an Arizona iced tea right now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you're arched. That thing will... Oh, wait a second. Look at Kelly, the associate producer's back. Did you really get this? Oh my goodness. I had no idea. She's got the Arizona iced tea cans. Which one is that? I've got the Arnold Palmer and you've got the green tea with honey. Feels like we should switch. Well, you like green tea with honey. You're a fan. You feel like a green tea ginseng guy.

Which one do you want? How is that a type of guy? Look at you. I'm a ginseng guy? That's not a thing. I think with the bomber jacket, I'll drink the green tea. There we go. Again, not an endorsement of Arizona, but just to show you guys, you got options. And again, this is not a video about health. Just let Ken enjoy some trash food for a second. Now, listen. Big statement in that video. Did you catch it? He said we're debt-free.

We can do what we want. We own everything. That's a really big deal. And there's a guy who's going, you know what? We're not going to just stick it to the consumer. So good on Costco. By the way, other prices of Costco food court items. Did you know an ice cream sundae is $2.49? That's pretty impressive for you ice cream sundae people. How about a cinnamon churro?

$1.49. I don't like the churros. Not a fan? No. They're not a fan of you. Yeah. Well, there you go. And then a 20-ounce soda with all that sugar only. You ready for this? 69 cents. Now, let's just juxtapose that right there with the movie theater prices. Have you been to the movie theater? Oh, my goodness.

I don't darken the doors of a movie theater anymore. You've got to get a student loan for a bucket of popcorn now. It's insane. It's unbelievable. Not if you're George Camel. I went to a movie with George, and the dude opens up his jacket when we're sitting down, and there's a bag of popcorn, a kit to make an old-fashioned with ice and a strip of orange peel. He knows how to do it. That's the power of the bomber jacket, Ken. That's bootlegging. You can't do that. That's illegal. Well, I'm outed now.

Come find me, the 17-year-old who works at the theater. All right. Have you guys seen the news? We're starting to see a price war with fast food companies as well. Oh, that's right. The whole $5 meal thing with Burger King and McDonald's. So what do you think? You think that companies are starting to go, there's a chance to win market share by saving people money? I think people have made their choices when it comes to fast food, and you have your favorites. I'm about ready to make a bad choice. Now, I asked Kelly to bring these as props.

And I had to try the pizza. Not bad. Never eat the props, I always tell people. I haven't had a hot dog. You're going to try a Costco hot dog for the first time. I have never had a Costco hot dog. Can I tell you, that's a dog. That's about my body weight in hot dog. It's a quarter pounder. That's serious. All right. So you're probably going to have to take us to break, but. I will. Wow. This is pretty special getting to be part of this, Ken. Is it worth $1.50? Too big a bite.

A dollar fifty. There you go. So here's the lesson learned here. Yes, inflation's annoying. It's a pretty good dog. And yes, there's some great companies out there going, we're not going to take the bait and just increase prices because inflation said so. And when you're debt-free, you have options, especially if you're a business owner. That's why we preach business owners, run your business debt-free, go slow, and then you have options to be generous and to do what you want with that business.

So there we go. I just had a really unflattering view of myself in the video as I ate a hot dog. I'm glad that America can't smell this room right now. Here's to Arizona Tea, Costco, and other companies that are saying, you know what? We're going to drop prices or keep prices low for the American people. That's right. We love you. Not a bad hot dog, but I'd stick with the pizza. This is The Randall Show.

This is the Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is joining me this hour. He'll take the lead and help out on those money questions, and I'll take your income and work-related questions, because all that goes together. 888-825-5225.

225. We go up to Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia is where Vanessa is joining us. Vanessa, how can we help? Hey guys, thanks for taking my call today. I've been listening to your show now for a couple months and I'm super grateful to have found it. I love it. So thank you for that.

I'm a financial advisor and I've been doing that for about eight years now. So I help my clients with investments, but I also lend. So my question today is how do I make sure that I'm can still be successful in my career, but not make my clients feel like I'm selling them debt because I believe in the process and I love the baby steps. So yeah, I just want to make sure I'm morally keeping to myself and, and having strong integrity as well as pursuing my career. Yeah. Well,

Let's address the moral component to this because I think there's a pivot that's coming up, and I think that's fine. But from a moral standpoint, you aren't in any way selling a product that is immoral or that is illegal, right? Right. Yeah. So this is a mental thing where you're going to have – and by the way, we've had this call before. We've heard this many times. We totally get it. But you're going to have to cut yourself a break on this and go, okay, I am now misaligned.

with my values and my work. You know, my values and my work aren't matching up, but you're not doing anything wrong morally. Okay. And so now it is a real discovery process to actually answer the question that you asked us, which is, and I know George got some ideas. I got some ideas on how I can help people with their finances and help them win without selling them a product that puts them into debt.

And just off the top of your head, just free flow here. What are some things in the financial industry that you could get qualified for, you could pivot to, that you actually would be proud to sell to someone or to advise somebody within?

Yeah, well, I do have my investment license. So and I love investments way more than I do lending. So there's definitely something there. I kind of put a stop to extra learning because you need certain credentials to move forward just because I did recently have a baby. So I kind of put that on the back burner. But yeah, I mean, that's a good thought for sure. Maybe I should just look into an investment side of things because I know that can truly help people.

Where are you working right now? Is it a bank or is it an actual investment firm? It's a credit union. Okay. That was my next question because you could just work for an investment brokerage that just focuses on investments that don't also sell debt products. Right. And that's something I would encourage you to look into because I understand at a bank, one of the big ways they make money is selling debt products, but that's not the entirety of the investment industry. Right.

Of course, yeah. That's an easy option to stay in your field of work, remove this piece that really bothers you because the bank is going, hey, Vanessa, you got to hit the quota. We got to sell these debt products. Let's move these. And you're going, no, I don't want to do that. So at some point, there's going to be a rub while you continue to work for the bank in this capacity. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Does that answer the question that you had for us?

Yeah, no, for sure. I think I should definitely look at doing a pivot, as you guys call it, and maybe just transitioning from like a multi-role of lending and investments into just one. That's right. Just become an investment advisor for a firmer brokerage, and you get to focus on the part that you love. So it's kind of a both and. And the reason I led Vanessa with the whole mindset issue here is just going to give you a little bit more peace and patience to do what it takes to make the actual pivot.

You know, when you're not feeling bad about yourself, then it's less likely for frustration to turn into desperation and where you make a quick move. So map this thing out, right? I know I love finance. I know I love the investment side. You've got some qualifications you still got to get to. So there's four questions. I call these the four qualifying questions. I'm going to give them to you really quick because it'll help you actually put together a plan that will turn into a path that you walk from one to the other. Okay. The first one is

What do I need to learn? So you've already talked about the qualifications that you put on hold, some of the certifications rather that you put on hold because a baby. So, you know, look at everything else. Let's create a list. What do I need to learn? Okay. And then what do I need to do? So that's an education question. What I need to do is there's some experience that I'm going to need to get. So does that mean I have to kind of come in at a lowest level? No.

You've got to look into all this and understand what the path looks like. So what do I need to do from an experience standpoint to eventually get where I want to go? Third question is, what is all this going to cost me financially? That's not just the cost of the certification, George. That's also the cost of if I've got to kind of take a temporary step back,

You know, that's cost. And then finally, how long is all this going to take? So it's what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? How much is it going to cost? How long is it going to take? Those four questions, I'm telling you folks, it's tried and true. It will get you the answers that you need. So now this change happens.

is informed, thus it's not as scary. It's just less emotion. It's more facts. Yeah, because what's it going to take? When we have the unknowns around something like this, George, our brain does an unbelievable job of creating another narrative. So it's like, I don't know what I have to do, or I don't know how long it's going to take, or I don't know how much it's going to cost. Well, then your brain starts to fill it in, and it's usually with really bad news and fake news.

So I found that those four questions and coaching a lot of people becomes a really great process to come up with the information we need to be able to move forward. So thanks for the call, Vanessa. Let's go to Orlando, Florida, where Joseph awaits. Joseph, how can we help?

I just retired from my job. I'm about 49 years old. It's funny you guys are just talking about a major company that I just retired from after 30 years with them. Oh, okay. Hey. Which is pretty funny. And I retired with them about a year and a half ago. Cool, congrats. It was really well for myself. I put about 20% of my 401k for about literally 30 years of my life.

Um, I have zero debt whatsoever. Um, my house is paid for, everything is good. So I kind of wanted to know, um, and I have a couple hundred grand, uh, sitting there and I usually put it into CDs or whatnot. So, um, to get, you know, I was getting five and a half percent, 5.6 and, um, I'm kind of living off of that. So I'm kind of prolonging touching the, uh, the 401k, which is a couple million. So I wanted to know, is there a better place to put it in that, that can yield something without any risk? Well,

Well, there's always going to be a risk when it comes to investments. So the question is, what is the time horizon that you're looking at for this money? So you're saying you're planning on kind of using this $300,000 as a bridge account to get you by until you can access the 401k? Yes, but also with that, I have zero debt. So if I told you $800 a month is what I live off of, that's pretty much what it is. Are you single? Yes.

Okay. So you don't need much to live off of. You could just park this in a high-yield savings account and keep it liquid. I don't like the idea of just playing with the CDs and locking up your money. Put it in a high-yield savings account for the short term, but for the long term, I would look into putting this money into a taxable brokerage account. And you put that money into a good index fund, and it's going to do way better than 5.5% over the long term, over five-plus years. But in the short term, if you need this money to live on, park enough in that high-yield savings to get you by. Okay.

But way to go. That's impressive. Very impressive. And maybe find an encore career as well. I like that. 49 years old. A lot of life to live. Come on, man. Do something you just totally love to do. Maybe try doing it for free for a little bit to make sure. And then find a way to make some dough doing what you love. Love the call. Good stuff. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey folks, there's a lot of half-baked investing advice out there, but here's what you can do to get more confident about this stuff. Check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor connects you with local financial advisors who have the heart of a teacher. They'll help you level up your knowledge and build a retirement plan based on your goals, not theirs.

Go to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor to get connected and get more confident about your plan. That's RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor. Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at RamseySolutions.com slash SmartVestor. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel joins me this hour. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Now, George, you've

I get it. You know, listen, I get a bird's eye view a lot of times with Dave, hosting with Dave, and now you. And you know, when you get the money stuff, you've got your own style, as you should. You're not Dave Ramsey, you're George Camel. And I have a confession to make. What's that? I like when you talk nerdy.

To you? Yeah. Wow. And just to everybody. But so I do have a penchant for trying to get in the weeds and get a little nerdy. So, you know, it feels like we're in shock and awe land on social media and media. Everybody wants to talk dirty. We're talking dirty. But I thought today...

We should do something you do very well. And I want to create a new segment. James has given me the green light. It's called Talk Nerdy to Me. Wow. Okay. All right. So I'm going to hit you with a topic here. You knew there was going to be some talking points. You didn't know it was going to be called Talk Nerdy to Me. Nobody filled me in on that. I think this is about to take YouTube by storm. All right. We'll see about that. All right. Here's our topic. Are you ready? Yes. I need a drum roll, but our first Talk Nerdy to Me is...

What is equity, George? Oh, that's a good one. A lot of people throw that word around and it sounds kind of hoity-toity, kind of a $10 word. We got a crack staff. They give me the good stuff. Well, let me try to explain this like you're five. Well, that's probably a good decision. There we go. So equity, Ken, is the value of something you own minus any debt owed on it. Can you give me an example? Well, think about it this way. It's the amount of the asset that you truly own.

So a home is the easiest example. Ah, there we go. You got a home worth $300,000. You have $100,000 left on the mortgage. So we're going to subtract that. That's your debt, the liability, which leaves $200,000 in equity. There it is. That's the part that you love. Love when you talk nerdy. So this applies to a home, a car, pretty much anything.

And no matter how much or how little equity you have, you want to make sure you keep it rather than borrowing from yourself. So the goal in my book is to have 100% equity. Right. Which means you own it outright. So when I paid off my house, I no longer had a mortgage. I no longer had debt or liability attached to it. So it was 100% mine. So just think of equity as ownership.

And, you know, the other term that comes along with equity is the term underwater. We use that often when it comes to... Oh, we hear that all the time. Hey, I'm underwater on my car. And people go, what? How did they get in water? No, this has nothing to do with... It's about negative equity, right? Am I paying attention? Yeah. So what you owe is greater than the piece that you own. That would put you underwater. So if the car, you've got a $20,000 loan on the car, the car is only worth 10, you're $10,000 underwater. Mm-hmm.

And that is a very scary, scary place to be. And that's what happens when, you know, interest and fees pile up, the asset drops in value like a car does. And that's the one you see most often is that scenario is the underwater car. So that is why we teach the baby steps of paying off the debt, staying debt free. It's the best way to build wealth because it frees up your income.

And so, Ken, when you do your net worth calculation, which is your assets minus liabilities, what you own minus what you owe, the most beautiful part of living debt-free is that you have nothing in the liabilities column. Yeah. So nothing is detracting from your wealth when you have 100% equity of the things that you have, your car, your home, and it's the power of paying cash, power of paying stuff off. And if you want to learn more about this, you can learn more about equity at our blog at ramsaysolutions.com, and we'll also put a link in the show notes.

And again, George does it once more, you know, your grandmother never wanted you to talk dirty, but she's okay if you talk nerdy. That's the big difference. You see the difference? It's a difference maker. So here's what I say to you, the masses.

What would you like to hear George talk nerdy about? I like that. So maybe drop a link in the YouTube comments if you're watching over there. Drop a comment, email the show. I want George to talk nerdy. What's the concept, the word you want explained? I like this, man. This is wholesome for the whole family. I try to keep it PG. That right there, my friend, that's G-rated. Okay.

All right. That's good stuff. So well done, sir. We need more of that in today's world. More wholesome content. Yeah. More talking nerds. There's enough filth out there on the internet. I'm not going to add to it. Yeah. Good for you. Not on my watch. You know, we should have a t-shirt. Talk nerdy to me. I don't know that I want to wear that in public. It feels like you're asking for something you're not prepared for. Yeah. I try to be invisible. It would look great under the bomber jacket. Thank you. Just saying.

Do we have a tally on how many times I've said bomber jacket in today's show? Our team can search. My guess is we're at 10. I feel like I stole one right there. So there you go. Always great fun. Let's go to Jason in Sacramento, California. Jason, talk nerdy to us.

I'll do my best. Tim George, I really appreciate you taking my call. You bet. So I inherited a house from my mom who passed away. The house is fully paid off. The Zillow value is around $500,000. I'm active duty military, so I couldn't live there if I wanted to. And so in the meantime, I'm interested in turning it into a rental. However, it needs a significant amount of renovation, probably around $1,000.

to $150,000. Um, and so I'm kind of in between a rock and like a soft place right now, I feel like, but like, uh, just seeing is this maybe the time a HELOC one would be okay, or should I, uh, just try to sell it for much lower or I'm not really sure where, what's my best option here right now. Hmm.

Well, I'm not a fan of HELOCs for a whole lot of reasons. Number one, it's moving you backwards financially. Number two, it's going to have a variable interest rate that can change with the market, which is scary. And it puts that home at risk. Right now, it's paid off. Very little risk involved. As soon as you add that HELOC, something goes wrong, you default, life changes, and you can't pay back the $150,000. Well, that's a huge problem. And so I would recommend, number one, either you keep it and you cash flow the renovations, or...

or you just clean it up to your best ability and sell it for what you can get for it. And could you think you could get 350 without doing 150 in renovations? Are you saying it would be worth 500 if you did the renovations?

$500 if I did the renovation. So I'm thinking if I sold it now, it would maybe around $300 to $350, maybe closer to $300 though. Then I don't think it's worth the hassle. Yeah, I agree. I would sell it and it's still a part of the legacy that your mom left for you and you can invest that $300,000 and that money could double every seven years based on the history of the stock market. And it's okay to not become a landlord long distance. I think it's actually wise to avoid that right now. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that doesn't sound too inviting, but it just, you know, you hear a lot of ways to handle these kind of things and it's just kind of hard to sort of, you know. Oh, yeah. If you scroll social media for half a second, you're going to hear a bunch of dimwits telling you to go get four HELOCs on this thing and leverage it and go buy 17 more Airbnbs and put that in a whole life insurance policy and borrow against it. But you got to ignore all this nonsense out there and do what's right for you.

And you've got enough going on right now being active duty, which thank you for your service. So I wouldn't add to that by trying to long distance project manage $150,000 renovation and then be a long distance landlord on top of that. And I hate to just kind of pile on here for those that tell you to do this kind of a thing that we're saying not to do.

But, you know, you could say, well, I think it's going to be $100,000 to $150,000. You get into this thing, an older house like this, and next thing you know, it balloons by $50,000 to $100,000. Now you're in a rock and a hard place because you're well beyond what you planned to borrow, and now it's a real pain. I'd let somebody else, if this thing's got some real value, sounds like it's a good house, got some good bones, is that fair? Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

having to deal with this. Absolutely. And Jason, I would jump on to RamseySolutions.com slash agent and you can connect with a Ramsey trusted real estate pro who can help you list this to get the most out of it even without the renovations. I think they're going to have a lot of great strategies and they know how to list it, market it, you know, stage it, all of that even if it is a fixer-upper. Yeah.

So that's going to help you avoid, you know, quote, lose a ton of money on this, even though it was a free asset to you from your mother. So that's what I would do if I was in your shoes. It's just too much hassle for this stage of life. If you had $150,000 and you were excited about renovating this thing to live in or to rent, I would say go for it. But that's not the current case. Yeah. If you had Chip and Joanna and the whole show and the crew, they always made that look so easy. Oh, yeah. But what you don't see is crews working 24-7. Oh, yeah.

And unlimited budgets to make this all happen. Yeah. With a big reveal. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, I'd take the cash, Jason. I agree with George on this one. All right. Don't move because we've got more of your calls, more of the Ramsey Show right around the corner.

Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. Look, when you're stressed about money, it makes everything feel out of control. You run around like a maniac trying to make sure everything's covered, everybody's okay. I've been there. It's the worst. But you can flip the script with an every dollar budget. It helps you track spending and expenses in real time so you always know what's happening with your money. Talk about a weight lifted off your shoulders.

Start feeling in control of your money again. Download the EveryDollar app today for free. This is the Ramsey Show where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. George, we've had several calls today.

around real estate. People trying to buy, people trying to sell, homes not selling because they're working with a bad real estate agent, all kinds of calls. We really have. It's been a real big theme today, so I think it's important that we just mention our Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find an agent you can trust to keep you on track with what we teach. In other words, they're

They're versed in what we believe about money, how we teach you to handle your money. And so they're going to guide you the right way through what can be a disastrous process if you don't have somebody who's really, really knowledgeable and helping you. So what does it mean when we say Ramsey Trusted Agent? It's the top agents in your area who we trust because we've put them through a strong vetting process.

And then you get to review their data, how they've done. You interview them. Do you have chemistry with them? You get to decide.

If you use them or not. So Ramsey Trusted Agents, a lot of experience, a lot of wisdom, and a lot of them out there for you to choose from. They're going to help you with pricing, marketing, making, choosing the right offer. You can find your Ramsey Trusted Agent for free at ramseysolutions.com slash agent. That's ramseysolutions.com slash agent. All right. Phoenix, Arizona is where we're going to go now. Josh is there. Josh, how can we help?

Hey, I just want to say first of all, thanks for taking my call. My question to you guys today is just kind of what order am I supposed to be paying off my debt? I've got two really big loans that are kind of the last two pieces aside from my mortgage payment. And I'm just kind of wondering which way to attack them. Okay, lay it out for us. What are the debts and what are the balances?

So as of right now, uh, we have paid off about $125,000 in debt in just over a year's time. Wow. Most of that. Yeah. Most of that went towards student loans and we have two paid off vehicles. Uh,

What is remaining here is we have about $100,000 in student loans. And then the other one besides the house is we have a solar payment, which we assumed when we bought our house, that's about $20,000. So I'm just kind of wondering here, should I keep my momentum, keep attacking the student loans that we have, or should we switch our focus and pay off that solar? So that's just one last thing that we have to worry about every month.

Well, my guess is, unless you consolidated, these student loans are not one giant $100,000 loan, correct? Is it split up? Correct. Yes. And her loans, unfortunately, my wife's loans, they cannot be consolidated just based off of the way that they're broken down. They're broken down into four individual categories. Okay, that's fine. I wouldn't recommend consolidation to your case anyways. You guys paid off $125,000 in a year. You got $120,000 left, which tells me you're going to be done in less than a year.

Right? Correct. Okay. So if you listed out all of the debts and you actually split them, because you don't have $100,000 in student loans, you have a $10,000 loan here, a $12,000 loan here. So how many student loans are comprised in there? She has four loans that are remaining. Okay. Are they even? Are they all random numbers?

They're relatively even. The lowest one right now is about $19,000, and then they range anywhere from $20,000 up to, you know, in the low $30,000 split out. Okay. So if I'm in your shoes, what I'm going to do is just list out my debt snowball, which means smallest to largest balance. So a student loan that's $19,000 would go first. That's the next one to attack, make minimum payments on the rest. And then my assumption is solar probably is the next one up, if not close. Okay. Okay.

And so either way, if you did the math, the way you guys are attacking this with intensity, it's not going to matter if you do the one that's 19 or 21st, but the debt snowball method psychologically causes people to actually finish and to actually stick with it. And that's the power of it. Right. The key is you're not focused on interest rates, trying to play this game and listing highest interest rate first and then falling off the wagon because you're trying to tackle a mountain.

up at front. So you guys are on the path. In one year, you'll be debt-free and you will have paid off $250,000 of debt, which is amazing in two years. What an accomplishment. Yeah, Josh, way to go. I mean, absolutely phenomenal effort over the last year. And this is going to change your life forever. Let's go to Grace now in Boston, Massachusetts, Georgia's old neck of the woods. Grace, how can we help?

Hi, thank you guys so much for taking my call. How are you guys doing? We're having a good time. George, how would you answer in Bostonian? Wicked sick. She'll know what that means. She liked it. She liked it. Oh, yeah.

I love it. George, I'm starstruck, by the way. But anyway, I just closed on... Wow. What am I, chopped liver, Grace? Gee whiz. Sorry, Ken. No, no, I love you too, but I watched George's channel. It's a Boston thing. Wow. Wow. Thank you, Grace. How can we help? Ignore Ken. How can we help? Yeah, it's just a joke, sort of. I just closed on a condo in Norwood. Oh, right next to my hometown of Dedham.

Wouldn't you know it? Oh, yay. I didn't know that. Wow. I work in West Roxbury, so it's great. I feel like I should just take the rest of the segment off and let you two talk. Yeah, we're just going to bro down. I feel like a real third wheel all of a sudden. Okay, so you bought a condo in Norwood. Yep. Continue. And I literally just closed on it today, and I'm having buyer's remorse because I really, really wanted a house, and now I'm looking at

a $257,000 debt that I will try to pay off as soon as possible, but like I want a house and I like the was there is so expensive that I grabbed the first thing. Like it's not the first day I've been looking for three years.

But I bought it and now I have it. So where's the regret? Because you said you really wanted to be a homeowner. Now you're a homeowner. And today as you close, you're going, oh boy. Because she got a condo. Is it because of the condo? You're saying I wanted a single family home?

I really wanted a multifamily because I want to have the investment. So like long-term, if this could work for me and the condo be an investment where I rent it out and then I buy a house, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how am I going to pay this off and then save for a down payment in time before I'm like 40. How old are you? My...

I'm 32. Okay. So you're 32. I don't know if there's any like Massachusetts state law that says you must be a real estate guru by 40, but I love your excitement to do this at a young age, which is great. So how quickly can you pay off this $257,000 mortgage with your income? Well, I'm really like looking to you. So I make, I'm averaging about 140 per year in salary. Great. And I've

And I have this, I owe on the condo 257. So like how long do you think I would comfortably be able to pay it off? I love it. This is a great riddle. And I'm going to point you to an easy home payoff calculator at ramsaysolutions.com slash real estate. And this is exactly what I did when we paid off our house. I use that tool to find out how long is it going to take. And then you can say, all right, what if I added an extra 300 bucks a month? What if I could shave enough money on my budget to put an extra 300? Well, now it

It shaves three years off the payoff. Okay, what if it was 400? What if, what if, what if? And now you know the gap of what it's going to take to pay off that house in whatever time. So maybe you set a goal. I make 140 a year. I can throw 40 a year at the mortgage. That's the principal interest plus the extra payment, right? Which means that puts you about six years.

So by 38, you'll have a paid-for condo that's now appreciated, thanks to the Norwood real estate market in Massachusetts. And now you have no mortgage payment, and you're probably making $200,000 at your pace right now with your income. So how quickly could we save up another few hundred thousand, making $200,000 with no payments in the world? Pretty fast.

Yeah, you're right. And maybe you don't need to go big, start small when it comes to real estate investing, but I'm telling you, make it a goal to pay cash with your investment property. It's going to be so much more peaceful. Don't do it today and go buy a fourplex. And because guess what? Everyone else wants a fourplex because they also saw that Instagram video showing how great it is. But you also got to be a landlord with your three other tenants and they're right downstairs. They're knocking on your door every time there's a toilet leak.

Do you recommend when I do have the money to buy it in cash, do you recommend buying a multi-family or just...

Keep this condo, buy like a single family and rent this out. There's nothing wrong with it either way, but you just got to know the pros and cons of going with that duplex, you know, multifamily versus a condo or a single family home. The key is buy what you can afford in cash and what you're comfortable with and that's in your area because you want to keep an eye on it. But I think you're going to get there. 32 years old, she's crushing it. She's got a mortgage payoff goal. I think investment property is in your future, just not in the next two years.

I'm a little surprised you didn't select single family as a little bit more desirable. I'm curious about that. It is, but it's way more expensive. Right. Okay. So it's going to take longer. Okay. I just wasn't clear because I was a little surprised at that. I was like, hmm, I would go single family, but you're, you know. It ain't cheap in those neck of the woods. I mean, you're the star, so. Sorry, Ken's a little miffed. I'm still just wounded over here. I'll give him a hug at the break. All right. A quick hug and we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

This is the Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win with your work, and win in your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell is alongside.

Our scripture of the day comes from Job 17, verse 9. The righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger. Our quote of the day is from Mark Twain. Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. George and I were talking during the break. I just want to call out that the word astonish is a fantastic word. Got to bring it back. I'm going to highly recommend at some time in your next week, if you want to score some points, you've got to be ready for this. You've got to pull it off. You can't be smiling and laughing.

But George, I want you to, so, so just as a reaction, if someone says something, you got to go, I am astonished. Fantastic. That will do it. That'll get, that'll get their goat as they say. Yeah. Another one would, instead of saying awesome, the word that is so overused, it almost should be banished. Instead of saying, that's awesome. You could say, I'm astonished.

Really sets you apart. Thank you. I think that word doesn't get used enough. Communication from Ken. I like that. Ken's school of communication. But I like you acting it out. I think it's a real great... You gotta be a little exasperated, a little, you know, theatrical about it. Let's go to Houston, Texas.

Where I'm hoping Lee has got some power. Have you been reading about the power outages in the Houston area? Oh, man. Let's check in on Lee. Hurricane Beryl came through and took the power out. Going live to Houston. I had a generator on my house. Lee had a generator. Not entirely around Houston, but yeah. Wow. It's a real problem, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, really feel for you all down there. Hopefully, when do they think they're going to get your power back?

Well, by the 14th. Good gracious. That's a lot of time to be without power. Speaking of astonishing, this is one of the biggest cities in America they can't get the power back on. Unbelievable. Well, Lee, we're here for you. Glad you're safe. How can we help today? My question is, how do I really get my spouse on board here with budgeting? Okay.

I'm 63 and she's 62. The both of us are retired. And it's it's it's not one for budgeting. She tells me that she says, I don't like the budget. OK. And I say, well, honey, how are we going to get through this?

So that's my biggest question. How did I get her to buy in on this? We currently, like I said, we both retired in 63 and 62. We've been married 37 years.

House, we have a mortgage of $1,450 a month. She retired and went out and bought her a new car, not a new car, but a different vehicle. With payments? And with a note of $1,300. Oh, my gosh. A month. What is she driving? For the next five years. What kind of car is this? I got to know what kind of car is worth a $1,300 car payment.

Range Rover. Oh, boy. Is this the nicest car she's ever had? Yes, but she's had nice cars as well. Okay. So now you guys are stressed about money because money's tighter than ever as you enter retirement with no working income. What is your monthly income? Well, you know, I think I'm stressed about money, okay? She's not. She's not stressed because she's not dealing with it.

She's relegated it to you, right? She said, hey, you handle the money, but don't come telling me how to spend. Yeah, because she told me when she retired, she says, hey, I'm going to buy the car that I've always wanted. There you go. And you allowed that to happen. We can get it. You're complicit in this crime. Is he? You're complicit because you allowed her to do this.

know if he did or not i don't think he's got any control what did you say when she said i'm going to go buy a ninety thousand dollar car i'm complicit oh george you were right i was trying to give lee i was fighting for you man but now i can't i can't fight for you anymore i'm throwing in the towel okay so she doesn't want to get on a budget she wants to live la vida broca over here in retirement you're stressed out about it she's not does she have any awareness

that you guys are broke? Because clearly, unless you have some nest egg you're not telling me about, how much money do you guys have? Well, the breakdown is we've got 20... I get a Social Security check of $2,300. She gets one of $2,200. She has a pension of $5,000 a month. Okay? And all of that... And then we've got retirement accounts. $457,000.

We got around, it's like $322,000 there, an IRA. Let's see, when she has an IRA and I have an IRA, and we're just north of $3 million with our retirement accounts. Amazing. So why are we going into debt when we have money to pay for all these things in cash? Here's the deal. My house, because this is how we function.

Oh. Is this because of HELOCs and second mortgages? Yes. We moved, yes. And what'd you do with that money? Spend it.

Okay, so we've had basically a spending addiction for our entire marriage that's never been addressed, even though you guys have done a great job still, you know, building wealth. Right, but this money has to last us for 30 years. Have you done the math with her to show her, hey, honey, I know you don't like math and numbers. I'm just going to show you we're going to run out of money. We're 62. If we make it to 95, here's what's going to happen.

Yes. Have you shared your feelings with her? Hey, honey, I'm scared. I know you're having a good time with this brand new car, and we make decent income with all the pension and Social Security, and we got money in the bank, but I am not comfortable with our monthly spending with all these payments in our life. We have never been able to solve a problem when it comes to money. It blows up every time.

So now we're talking about, honestly, marriage counseling to where I would set up some marriage counseling sessions and say, look, this money issue has always been a problem, and a professional can help you all start to deal with what makes this stuff blow up. But aside from that, you're going to have to go back to work, my friend. You're going to have to pay this stuff off. If she won't, you're going to have to. You told George you were complicit. So if you two don't come together and figure this out,

And even at that, I think you may have to go back to work, my friend. I don't have a feeling your wife's going to go back to work. I think she was like, I'm out, deuces, and I'm going to get this car. And I think since you're complicit in it, aside from the therapy here, I'm just trying to keep it real as if you were my dad or my older brother. And I'd say, look, you're going to have to deal with this. If you won't deal with it with her, then you're going to have to go work and pay this stuff off, pay the car off, and not allow it to happen again.

So you got some options. I roll over every time. I know you do. And it sounds like this is not your first rodeo doing this, and it's not just with money. It's probably with everything. Yep. And so that's where I go. The money is just a symptom of a bigger problem. In 37 years, truthfully, it's going to be really hard to uncover these stones and deal with the trauma underneath.

And so it's going to take some work. But I'm telling you, if you guys live to be another, you know, 30 years, I'd want a marriage that's fun and a retirement that's fun and not one filled with communication where we can't even talk because it's going to blow up. She's going to be doing her thing. You're going to be doing your thing. I want more for your life. And I hope she does, too. And so I would have a real come to Jesus. Sweetie, this is a big deal to me. I need you to listen.

And you be real honest with her. And I would really, I'd set up the therapy sessions. Do you think she'd go with you if you set them up? I said, honey, let's go talk to a counselor. She says, no, I don't want to do that. Oh, so we've been down this road. Yep. Does she shower? Does she brush her teeth? Yeah. Does she like doing those things?

No? Yeah. You do them because it's part of being an adult. So she needs to understand that some things you do, even though you don't like doing them, she's got to act like an adult instead of a child because she's 63 years old. I'm afraid you're going to have to go back to work, Lee, because you don't want to do the work on herself and on your marriage, so you may have to go back to work. She's going to find more things to get payments on if you're not careful. Thanks for being with us. Good show, George Campbell. Thank you, James Childs. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you.

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