Want To Learn To Build Wealth? Start Here
02:05:28 Share

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth.

do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Danielle is going to start us off this hour in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Danielle. How are you? Hey, I'm blessed and favored. How are you, Dave? Just the same. How can we help?

I have a couple of questions, um, real quickly. Um, my husband is taking out all of his retirement, cashed it in and I am stupid enough to have put, um, my name on the taxes joint, you know, married jointly or whatever they call that. And so like a long story short, he is still going into debt and every day for the last three weeks,

at least four weeks, maybe now, um, every day there's a collection agency, they're calling, showing up or putting notifications on our doors. We've done an itemized statement, um, on a couple of them that he's been taken to court to my question would be as a godly wife, you know, I've, I've been doing your program for like 13 to 15 years. So thank you for all your help. I've got a

a house, a car and everything is fine on my end, but on his end it is not. And I am not sure what is like my responsibility financially as a godly wife and what is how to get him to talk to me about finances. He won't do it with you. He just doesn't like you at all. I'm sorry. But what do I do? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's okay. I'm not real fond of him either. So that's fair.

No kidding. Okay, what do I do? He's not taking very good care of his wife, is he? No, not at all, sir. I'm sorry, but I'm a disabled vet. I'm on a minimum amount of money, and I feel like I keep bailing him out and enabling him to continue on in the pattern that he is, living beyond his means, and I don't know where to stop that at. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. And nobody's telling me they're telling me to combine pastors are telling me that, you know, we're in there for sickness and health and richer and poorer and stuff like that. That's what we took our vows for. I don't remember that part, but, you know, I mean, I was a little nervous. So, but my point is, is that I don't know what I'm supposed to do, what I'm not supposed to do, how I'm going to get him to talk. Do you have any words of wisdom for that?

Because I don't want to share my accounts with him if he's going to continue to pull out money and use it on whatever he's using it for because it ain't coming here. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Thanks for your service. What's the nature of your disability? Well, that's interesting. I have, like, PTSD because I was traumatized in the military. Okay.

if you know what I mean. So, yeah. So, yeah, I get to deal with that. And then you got traumatized when you got home. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Yep. That plays into this whole story, doesn't it? Yeah, it does, because it's really hard to trust him when I know that I've been betrayed. So has he looked at you and basically told you to shut up, and that's the role of a godly wife? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Yes. Well, I've studied the scriptures for 40 plus years on the issues that we're talking about, and there's not one place in there that that is a godly wife. Not one place in the Bible is a godly wife defined as stupid doormat. That is not in there. Okay. It's not in the Bible. So what do I do? It's not in the Bible. Okay, what do I do? It says, the Bible does say, submit yourselves one to another. Mm-hmm. Me too. Mm-hmm.

But how do I submit to something that could be a legal instrument? He's not submitting anything to you. Right. No kidding. So he's not functioning as a godly man in that sense. My wife and I make decisions together, and she's been a full-time mom for 38 years. Wow. And we don't do major stuff without. All the money comes through my name, but it's our money, and we make all the decisions together. She has an equal vote.

with me on it. I've submitted to her. She submitted to me. And the reason I did submit to her, by the way, is Proverbs 31 says, who can find a virtuous wife? Virtuous wife. A virtuous wife. That'd be like a godly woman, wouldn't it? Yeah. A godly wife. Who could find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain.

Isn't that interesting? So I've had no lack of gain once I started safely trusting the heart of my wife. Now, sometimes my wife gets bad pizza the night before and blames it on the Holy Spirit, okay? She ain't perfect. She ain't perfect, right? So we do have to sit down and talk through stuff. Sometimes we have a good hillbilly argument. But at the end of it, we're not moving forward with things that are destructive to our family life.

against the wishes of the other spouse. So you have a pretty serious marriage problem, kiddo. I think you need to go see a good marriage counselor, and a pastor that tells you to shut up and go along with stupidity is not a good marriage counselor.

That's what I said. And he's going through, he wants to, he's 64 years old and he wants to go through bankruptcy to get rid of his debt. That's not taking responsibility. And I'm like, I don't know if he's bankrupt or not, but what we've got here is a bigger problem.

the debt and the out of control is a symptom of his arrogance and his behavior and the two of you not working together. And that's, those are marriage issues. And really what you're calling us about is, you know, what to do with your marriage. And I think you need to get some coaching from a godly counselor. And you're a person of the book like we are. And so someone that's going by the book, the Bible and saying, okay, you know, godly wife does not include abuse. Right.

And you're being abused. Okay. That's what I thought. And I'm not telling you to walk out the door, but I am telling you to not accept the shaming of someone saying going along with your husband while he's doing cocaine is godly in the name of shutting up and being a doormat. You know, that's not love, by the way. Loving someone is actually helping them not do self-destructive things. Ken?

Yeah, I'm just listening to this, Danielle, and Dave's right. You have a marriage problem, and I think this guy is exhibiting behavior of a guy who doesn't want to be married to you.

And I do think the counseling is the way to go because we've got to get an objective environment where he can't hide and he can't bully with some statement. But I am afraid that he doesn't want to be married, period. And I'm not in any way trying to hurt you, but I'm going to speak to you like you were my sister, period.

And I would do the counseling with eyes wide open to find out if this guy really does want to be married. And I'm afraid he doesn't. And we're going to find out. And I think that, again, I'm with Dave. I wouldn't tell you to walk out now. I

I would go all in and try. But you get to a certain point here where this guy either has to decide to heal his destructive behavior because he wants to be married to you. And at some point, you guys are going to have to combine everything to finally be unified. But that's down the road. This thing is this is a dumpster fire. Yeah. And I hate that for you. But I want you to at least know that. You don't have enough money to bail him out. No. Stop it.

There's not enough money to bail this guy out. I mean, he's acting like he's in Congress. So, I mean, just money's going out the door like crazy. That's so sad. I'm so sorry, honey. You deserve better. This is The Ramsey Show.

Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So, work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website. Churchill Mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at ChurchillMortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's the number one best-selling author and host of The Ken Coleman Show on the Ramsey Networks. One of his best-selling books is Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It's his latest bestseller. Included in it is the...

Get Clear Career Assessment that we've sold almost 100,000 of, and it goes with the book for free. So not only do you get the assessment, you get the book to teach you how to read the assessment and what to take away from it. So be sure and pick that up at RamseySolutions.com. Jack is in New York. Hi, Jack. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Well, thank you very much, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I'm at the age now, mid-50s, to where you want to get to be conservative with your investments. However, for retirement. However, I don't have a retirement because of life choices that I've had to make throughout the years. So now that I'm finally in a financial position to where I can start making investments, I'm

I'm afraid to make liberal investments, to make money, to actually have a retirement, because I'm at that age to be conservative. So I really don't know what to do. Well, let me help you with this. You're not at the age to be conservative. I don't know who told you that, but they were wrong. Well, I don't have that many years left to live. You have plenty of time. You're only 50. Okay. I'm not conservatively investing, and I'm 63. Okay.

So I'm investing in good growth stock mutual funds that are growing like a weed, and you need to be. You're broke. Well, I'm not broke, but I have no retirement whatsoever. Well, I mean, how much do you have? How much money do you have? I've got about $20K in savings. Okay. Well, you're broke.

I mean, for 50 years old going into retirement, that would scare the crap out of me. You need like 250, right? Moving on. And so I'm not trying to scare you. I don't want you to panic, but you do need to get with it, as you said. And you recognize that. That's why you called. So what I would do is this. The thing I have figured out is there's two things that we are afraid of.

And fear is a positive thing in these situations. Number one thing we're afraid of is something we don't understand.

So the first time you sat behind the wheel of a car, I distinctly remember I was 12 and dad said move the car around back. I left no gravel in the driveway. No one told me you weren't supposed to press down on the accelerator all the way to the floor. And so I didn't because I didn't know what I was doing. So driving a car, I didn't know how to do it. I was afraid.

And I was really afraid after I screwed it up, right? But now we all have been driving cars for decades and we drive and don't think anything about it. It's like muscle memory. So you learn how to do the thing and you're no longer afraid of it. The second thing you're afraid of is something that will legitimately hurt you standing in the middle of the interstate. You should be afraid an 18-wheeler is going to turn you into a bug.

Right. And so, yeah, that's a bear is standing in front of you. You should be afraid. That's a good thing. But the other is just you're afraid because you don't know how. And that's the investing thing. That's wisdom. But it's something that can be overcome. I don't want to overcome my fear of bears. They will eat you. But I do want to overcome my fear of things I don't understand that can help me.

And the fear goes away with knowledge. So sit down with a good SmartVestor Pro, click that at Ramsey Solutions, and let the guys that we recommend begin to teach you and gradually start to understand. And as you're

confidence builds, then you increase, you'll easily increase the amount of money you start pouring into retirement type investments. And you won't have to worry about the whole idea of conservative versus whatever bull crap, something you read on the internet. Right. Yeah. I completely understand that. That's absolutely true. Ken. Yeah. I was just going to echo that, that right now you have no idea what you don't know and, and that it just paralyzes you.

And so I think the quicker you can get seated with smart investor pros, interview several, figure out the one that you've got the best chemistry with, there's that teacher relationship going on, and you can make up some ground pretty quick, but you've got to be aggressive. And I would say, Dave, beyond just the mindset of aggressiveness,

I'd be doing some things if I were him to make some extra money and try to catch up. Where can I make an additional 10 grand, an additional 15 to 25 so you can play catch up and start stacking some money. When you begin to see that momentum, by the way, that gets really, really exciting and you start doing more of that. A lot of people think that they got to have a side hustle just to pay off debt or just pay the bills. In this case, when someone is that age, to the extent that you can do some extra work

and leverage your skill and experience to pour more money on top of the little fire, the bigger that fire gets. That would be a direct challenge in this situation for him. That's very good. And that reminds me, you know, when they're walking around out there in the world, people say these sayings that are just stupid. You know, here's one of them. What you don't know won't hurt you. What you don't know will kill you. That's a dumb butt saying. Yeah.

You know, lack of knowledge will knock you out, man. I mean, that's ridiculous. Like, you can just stick your head in the sand. And I'm not talking about Jack here. I'm just saying in general. But, yeah, it's a big deal to know new things all the time. Angela's with us in Knoxville. Hi, Angela. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing all right. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Awesome. So today is actually my birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you.

How old are you? I was like in a tip of 42. Oh, okay. Just a pup. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually met you in Orlando a couple years ago, in fact, at one of your events. So I'm trying to get back on track, Dave. I never did the baby steps. I purchased SPU at that event, never did anything with it, like a dummy. And so basically I'm in $30,000 of debt. About 18 of that is my car,

and another seven in credit card debt, and I owe five to a family member. And so my question is, I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about...

Once I get to Baby Step 2, because I'm going to be finishing Baby Step 1 next month, and then in August, I'm going to start tackling the debt. My car has about 250,000 miles, and I use my car right now to make a living. And so my concern is if I start tackling the smaller debts first, and then my car breaks down and...

the transmission goes out or something and I can't fix it and I you know I don't know if I should be saving more in my step one for that or that's kind of where I'm stuck and I just wanted your input you owe eighteen thousand dollars on it yeah I had a paid for forerunner a few years ago and then I started a new job you owe eighteen thousand dollars on a car you have 250,000 miles on

Yeah, because I was a courier. I ran the miles up on that thing. I was a courier for the last two, three years since I bought the car. I just racked it up. Okay. What kind of car is it? It's a 19 Dodge Charger, a six-cylinder. It's a cheaper one. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Okay. No, I mean, we're worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. It's a reasonable thing to worry about because those things may occur, but I'm not going to change the game plan here. I'm going to, you know, if you have a problem, you may have to stop your baby steps and address the problem. But until you do, you were already broke before you started this, and now you're just running broke trying to actually do some good and climb out, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, cut up your credit cards and let's start attacking them with a vengeance and work as many hours as you can. And as Ken says, always, you know, get an extra job. Let's do six things and and do that written budget in detail and live on nothing and work all the time. And let's begin to get this cleaned up because this is a scary place to be for you.

It definitely is. I moved to Knoxville from Florida back just this last December, and I had a pretty decent job. I didn't pay too great, but it was all right. It was my first job since I moved here. I got laid off after three months. They just didn't need me anymore. And so I've been door dashing like 72 hours a week ever since. And I have another job now.

that I started, but they're just trickling me in with work. I'm not full time with it yet. Once I do, that should be about 72 a year. That'd be huge. That changes everything, Ken. Yeah, I'd love to see her really hustle through this quickly because that car is going to be a problem pretty soon. Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to stop doing it. No, no, no. In lieu of something that hadn't happened yet. I'd let that be that extra motivator. Yeah, exactly. This is The Ramsey Show.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Selling a house the Ramsey way, buying a house the Ramsey way makes homeownership a blessing instead of a curse. The Ramsey Trusted Program is the only way to find a real estate agent you can trust.

to keep you on track with what we teach here at Ramsey. Now, we do not put real estate agents in our endorsed program unless we have vetted them and their high performance, high octane. It's not your Aunt Sally who got her license last week and she was selling Pampered Chef right before that.

No, this is somebody that actually sells a lot of houses. Okay, they actually know what they are doing in order to become Ramsey Trusted Agents. So if you want to find out who we recommend in your area and get your place sold or maybe help you get something bought, check it out, Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent. You can do it for free, ramsesolutions.com slash agent. Melanie is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hi, Melanie. How are you?

I am good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Okay. So my husband and I have two rental properties. And my mother-in-law has lived in one since 2019. She moved in from Vermont, didn't have a place to go. And so my husband let her move in to that house.

Um, 2020 hit my husband's in the army. Um, didn't get a certain something that everyone was demanded. They were told to get, and he lost his job. Um, said he was going to sell the house. She told him that God told her it is not possible.

It is his job to take care of her because he is the son. So he bought a new house in the town down the road, and she still lives currently in this same house. Were you all married at this time when God told her that about you? No.

No, we, we were not, we were not, I was not, I was not around. Um, so he was, he was single and she lived with him. Um, so we have one child. We are expecting our second one in October.

Um, and I'm self-employed. My husband's still in the army. Um, but we came mutually to the decision that in August, because my job is pretty physical, that I'm going to stop working. And then I'm only probably going to go back maybe one or two days a week. Um, and so we are, we, it would be very helpful to have an actual income coming in from that house. She pays, uh,

Half of the mortgage, my husband pays $450, and his one brother gives $150 towards it. It's kind of a sticky situation. There's six siblings between all of them, and everyone else has had their opportunity to grow and expand their family. My husband is the last one out of the six to be married and have kids. So we don't want to kick her out.

Yes, you do. Well, I don't want to say I do, but it would just be helpful. You're so sweet. Just say what you mean. You want her to leave. She's taking advantage of everybody, and you're over it. Yes, and that's where my husband is at. Well, then he needs to deal with his mom.

So, but this is the other thing. She won't move in to a senior high-rise. I don't care. She will if she's homeless. She doesn't want to move anywhere. She will if she's homeless. So, do you think that's our best option? Give her, like, 60 days? Yeah. And tell her, like...

Okay. Listen, I can tell you how to get her out. It's two words, rubber snake. That's where I was going. I was going to ask, what is she afraid of? Because we can make this really easy with no tension. Well, but that's the other hard thing is she claims PTSD. She claims all of these issues all the time. I think I claim that she's moving into assisted living if she can't manage her life.

And we'll help her do that with a little bit of money. And we'll use some of the money from the sale of the house. You need to sell the house. And we'll use some of the money from the sale of the house to help her get settled and then unplug the cord, the umbilical cord.

Okay. Okay. Because my husband was just from the Christian perspective. No, honey, there's nothing Christian about this. Let me just tell you. I had a guy walk into the office here a while back at the front desk, and they said, there's a guy down here to see you. And I walked down, and he said, God told me you were going to buy me a van. And I said, no, he didn't. He didn't tell you that. He said, what do you mean? I said, he absolutely did not tell you that.

Because if he had told you that, he would have told me, and there'd be a van sitting out there for you. But he didn't tell me. So I'm always interested as a Christian for people who play the God card with such authority

and all they are is a manipulator. This has nothing to do with honoring your mother. When they say honor your father and your mother, it doesn't say honor their misbehavior. It says honor the office of motherhood, the office of fatherhood. If your mom does cocaine and wants you to buy it for her, that is not a godly act, okay? Right. And your mother-in-law is misbehaving. She's a travel agent for guilt trips.

she's got issues that's good i'm gonna use that i've never heard that yeah i know that's a good one you should yeah i like that and your poor husband has been pushed around by her and and and then she plays the god card and god didn't tell her that that's a complete load of crap okay it's absolutely not true what's your husband's stomach for all of this is he gonna take her is he gonna take her on

So his thought was he was going to put the house on Section 8 and then we would register her for Section 8 housing. No, that's awful. She needs to move. You need to deal. He needs to deal with his mom. He needs to lovingly, kindly go sit down, have a cup of coffee and go, Mom, we're done.

I love you, and I'm going to help you move into some assisted living with some of the money I make from the sale of this house. But you have milked this cow, and it is dry. And you're not milking anymore, Mom. We're done.

Well, no, mom, you're confused. I said we're done, and I wasn't kidding. We are done. You are moving. You're either going to move gently and kindly with my assistance, or I'm going to set you in the street with the sheriff. Now, do you want to play this the easy way or the hard way? You've reached the end of my patience.

I am done. I love you. I'm going to help you as best I can. But you living here is not going to happen anymore. He needs to have the backbone to say that. And you don't need to be in the room.

Well, that's... Yeah, they have... He has a lot of animosity towards her. You don't need to be in the room. You'll get blamed for all this. You'll be the wicked stepdaughter. If he's got animosity towards her, this actually should be a little easier because... Well, you just got to be careful and be kind. Yeah, but I mean, as far as disappointing her, I mean, look, you guys have got to tell Mama... Couldn't give a crap left if she's disappointed. I agree. No, he's not... He's not afraid she'll be disappointed. Him and his brother are best friends. And his brother...

is the one that sometimes also guilt trips him to keep his mom there. Well, then let him write the checks. You guys got to cast a little vision here. Isn't it amazing how everybody's got an opinion about what you guys should do with your money? That's the key. Oh, I know. This family, they put the fun in dysfunction, don't they?

Wow. You're coming home with a new baby, and this is a financial asset that will help you all live the life you want to live. I'd stay in that lane to where they are painted in a corner. You're a multimillionaire, and you want to put up with this crap, and you want to just write checks just to not have to deal with it. That's fine, but it's not good for her. She's going to continue to do this crap the rest of her life, and it's not good for you guys. You're losing respect for your husband. He's losing respect for himself because he won't stand up

to this mom that's out of control. And it's not biblical. Automatically, you have to write checks for somebody who doesn't do stuff. I mean, I want him to take care of her to the point he can. That'd be sweet. It's a charitable act. But it is not a biblical mandate. God did not tell her that he was to furnish her a house. That's an absolute load of religious crap. That's what that is.

And man, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but some of you people are over-saved. This is The Ramsey Show.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to pay my bills?

I'm going to eat next week. Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You've got to say it out loud, and you've got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of a stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282, or go to zander.com. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. We can use your help, folks. If you want to help us out, we need your help. Click subscribe button.

where you're listening or follow where you're listening and follow the show, subscribe to the show. It helps big time. The numbers enter into the algorithm on these platforms and it causes them to push the show forward and push it out to other people. And thank you when you subscribe and when you follow. It's a big deal when you share the show. If it's got a share button, do that or just cut the link and send it to somebody and say, check this out or just tell somebody about us. We appreciate that. We know you're doing it because our numbers are way up.

So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the movement and the spreading of the word. We're here to help you. It's what we do. And the more people we can help, the better we like our lives. And so thank you so much for that. And, of course, leaving those five-star reviews, those are helpful too. Valentina is with us in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Valentina. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. My question is, do I keep my home and it's on the market right now? Do I keep it, continue to try to sell it, or do I just try to get more income in order to better afford my house? I did not buy it the Ramsey way, so I only put 5% down.

Um, and so I have a PMI and then, um, so I didn't pay the 20%. So that's basically my question. Okay. Uh, how much is your house payment? Um, everything's 3,500. And what's your take home pay a month? It is, uh, 9,700 total take home. Okay. So you're at about 33% of your take home pay. So your house payment is straining you, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah. You have other debt? Yeah, my car. I have $22,000 in that, but currently my husband is going to take out $8,000 in investment that he had. He's going to cash it out. Oh, wait a minute. You make $9,000 or you and your husband make $9,000? Both my husband makes $9,700. Your husband has an investment that is not in a retirement account. Yeah. And how much is in that investment?

$8,000. That's the total. You're going to cash the whole thing out. Okay. Put that towards the car and then you're going to try to get the car paid off as fast as you can. Getting rid of the car payment will make the house payment much more bearable. And what kind of a path are the two of you on with your careers? If I visit you three years from now, are you going to be making a lot more, a little more, or no more?

I would say a little more. What do you all do? For both, both. I'm an HR manager at a 500 company, and then my husband is a machine operator, and he's working towards getting moved up there as well. Getting his what?

Uh, getting moved up in his role as a machine. Okay. Yeah. Then a supervisor and so on. All right. Well, both of you probably will have reasonable increases. So if you'll stay out of debt, live on a tight budget, save money for an emergency, um,

And even if you did some things to create some extra income until your income comes on up, your house payment's probably manageable. Is there another reason you're selling the house other than you feel like you didn't put enough down or the house payment's straining you? I don't want to stay in Georgia forever. Well, where would you move when you sell it?

I would just go back to renting just so I don't have to stay in Georgia. I'm sorry. You're in Georgia if you rent. So I don't understand. When are you leaving Georgia? I don't plan to, but if I do want to. Well, you would sell the house then. Okay. You're not selling the house because you're leaving is what you're saying. Yeah. So you would just sell it when you get ready to leave. Is there any other reason you're selling the house? Is there any other reason you're selling the house?

No, that's it. Because I did have a job offer last month and I did chose not to take it because I would, I could not sell the house and I would be losing, like I wouldn't be making nothing because I've only owned it for a year. So I feel like it's tied me down to new opportunities for more income. No, it didn't. If you made nothing, but you left and made more income, you weren't tied down. You chose not to do that.

But the house didn't keep you from doing that. Your husband didn't want to leave. Did he? Yeah. Yes. Where was the job offer? In Miami, Florida. I've always wanted to live by the beach, but we decided to stay. Yeah, he doesn't. So let's not blame the house for decisions you all made. He doesn't want to live by the beach. You didn't take the job because your husband didn't want to leave.

And then you turn around, well, the house kept me. The house didn't keep you there. You could have sold the house and left. If both of you were jacked up and jumping up and down and, you know, fireworks going off and you're so excited you get to go to Miami Beach, life is great, that house would have been gone. And you wouldn't have looked in the rearview mirror once. Yeah. Okay.

So I think you all got to decide those kinds of things, and then that'll dictate when to sell the house. But just putting the house randomly on the market, trying to force him to leave when he didn't want to, probably not a good plan.

Yeah, it feels like this is a dinner conversation. And here's the reality, Dave. Rent is very high right now. So I'd run these numbers anyway. And I don't think if we were to run those numbers, it would make any sense for them to sell and just move into renting. No. I think that's actually a bad decision. It is. You're not lowering your cost, your budgetary items. So I like the advice you gave there. I think that's a better play. It allows them to continue to build equity. Get the car paid off. Stay there until you actually are going to leave.

And then if you don't make a lot of money on the house, so what? Sell it and leave when it's time to leave. But both of you need to be excited about where you're going and quit looking at jobs in areas he's not going to go to. So the two of you all ought to talk about it before you start talking about interviewing for something. Don't interview in a city that he says I'm not going to.

So the two of y'all got to talk this through. Something's got to give here. And you've got good possible career moves that you can do in Georgia or not in Georgia. But you've got to get on the same path here. There's a lot of...

wandering around in this conversation. Well, you know, Dave, you have counseled people for decades and couples specifically over money issues, but this is an interesting situation here. We don't get a lot of this, but this is not a money issue per se. I think the bigger red flag here is that we've got two people who want two very different lives. And I think that's really challenging. And I sit there and I go...

Now, money becomes a factor here, but really when you dig beneath this particular call,

We've got two people who want two different paths, and we better figure that out pretty quick because that, to me, turns into a lot of tension, a lot of resentment, and the money tension, the lack of margin makes all that worse. It's kind of like pouring a little kerosene on that leaf fire out there to get it to go up, and that's what I'm concerned about in this particular situation because it's real.

Yeah. So what would you coach someone to do that wants to live in a different city and is looking for a position? Well, we're going to sit down. I would coach them to sit down first and let's both write out without each other's input, separate sheets of paper, what do you want life to look like 15 years from now? I'd start there because I think it's important that they get it out of their head and they write it down. They see it themselves. And then the two of them sit there and look at it and go, we're this far apart.

We start there. Then I think a godly marriage counselor, a pastor, or an actual therapist to go, we have two very different futures in mind. And now we've got to figure out what life looks like when we want to be together, how we get there. Can we both get there at the same time? Probably not. But this is a piece-by-piece walkthrough. Okay, we decided to get married. We love each other.

But we both want different things. And so how can we meet in the middle here and actually get both of those things? So is it Miami? We put that on the list. He's going, no, I want to be in the Georgia mountains. I'm making that up. And we go, okay, what are we actually talking about here? Well, she wants to be near the ocean. You want a rural situation. How big of a deal is it? Who's sacrificing on what? What are our professional goals?

Where do we want us to put our money? How do we want to invest? What do we want retirement to look like? I think you've got to get all that on the same page and see how far apart you are and then go, all right, where are we going to give a little bit? Because both people have to give something. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, that sounds real simple. It is simple to lay it out, difficult to work through. Yeah, that's the trick. And working through it is essential to making a decision on selling the house and on taking another job. And the order that we do that. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. He's a best-selling author of several books, including his latest, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. The Get Clear Assessment is included. Now, we're going to be talking about your life, your money, your income, your outgo, and anything else you want to dig into. We're here for you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Nathan's in Springfield, Missouri. Hey, Nathan, how are you?

I'm great, Dave. I'm surprised I got on your show. My wife will be thrilled. Well, we're honored to have you. How can we help? Well, I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to best ask for a raise or a promotion at work. I've been there for 13 years. I've been promoted twice.

but it's a little slower than other people. I'm in after-hours support, and I work at 16-hour availability. So I need to either, you know, I need to get more income somehow, and it's kind of hard to get a second job with that kind of availability. What do you do? I'm a senior technical support engineer for a fintech company. And what do you make?

I'm about 90. Okay. And have you done any market research just for some of your experience, that particular work to where you know if you're in the bottom, middle, or higher end of salary range?

I have. From Missouri, it seems like I'm on the lower part of the middle end of the range. When was the last time you got promoted? You said you've had two in 13 years. Just over two years ago. Do you have an annual review process or some type of quarterly meeting with your leaders so that you kind of know where you stand? They're giving you things to work on. Any of that happening for you?

Yeah, we do have an annual performance appraisal. When is that or when was the last one? The last one was last August. Okay, so you're due for another one in August. And what was the feedback you got and did you get a raise last August? Yeah, so I score really well. They love me. I usually get the best raises. But this year, yeah,

they changed our raises to january's and and they kind of capped everybody at a two percent raise this year okay okay all right so that's good information to have because here you are going into august and you've already been told that for 2024 everybody's capped at two percent they've got their reasons for that i hope they've communicated that that's good information for leaders to let people know because you know people understand sometimes you got to make changes so um

If, in fact, the company's healthy and there's a good outlook, then the race conversation isn't happening in August if it's been made clear that they're not doing that this year. So now it's, what does it take? What do I need to do? Where do I need to grow? What skills can I add to my tool belt in order to be a candidate for

a promotion and for more responsibility. That's the question you have to ask. That's a, that's a humble question. That's not in any way arrogant because it's gotta be about, Hey, as my leader, where do you see that? I have an opportunity to add some more tools to the tool belt, which one specifically could be valuable to this company. As you look at me and my 13 years here, uh, my last review, uh,

I want to be a guy who is growing and that's in my skill so that I can add responsibility. And with added responsibility, we hold more compensation. So if you come at it that way, you're not going to look, you know, like a jerk. You're not going to look like a pinhead. And you're going to find out if you've got a pretty healthy leader that has some margin in the company to go, okay, here's what you can do. That's what you're looking for. Now,

If you don't get a good answer there, meaning there's not a whole lot of things you can do, there's not room for growth, that doesn't mean that you throw your hands in the air and leave. What it means is you've got a couple of options. You look for a place where you have some room for growth.

And the other thing is, is in your line of work, my friend, freelancing is a really viable option for you. As long as there's no conflict of interest or a non-compete. This is above board stuff I'm talking about. They got him on 16 hour, right?

Yeah, so my point is, even though he's got those crazy hours, he's got to look for something to where he goes, all right, this is how I could maybe supplement. I get off of that 16-hour by working somewhere else, and then I add two. He's got to look at his options for financial growth. Yeah, okay. So one may have to give in order to get somewhere else. So, Nathan, it is not ungrateful to have a logical reason to be paid more. Mm-hmm.

There are two that Ken has mentioned. One is, how can I add value that you'd be willing to pay me more because I added value? What can I do that I'm not doing now that's valuable to the company? And two is, what are you worth in the marketplace? And so...

The reason they put a 2% cap on raises is either they're not making money or they're trying to run their stock price up before they take it public or something. Okay? Because payroll is your largest expense in any business, so they're trying to limit the increases. However, they have another problem.

Let's say that you were in one of the explosive areas of technology and your marketplace value went from 90 to where you'd have 20 different companies offering you 150. Well, their 2% raise idea, that memo is worthless because everyone that has your job is going to leave if they don't violate the 2% rule that they made up out of thin air.

Okay. And so if a marketplace is dictating that you are worth 120, 150, um, they're going to lose everyone. It's in a similar position if they don't adjust to market. And so, um, you know, and they may, they may be willing to do that. I don't know, but you're, you know, one way when you're in a job, what one measure is always, what can they replace you for?

If you leave and they have to pay somebody $120 to come into the role, then their replacement cost on you is $120. Then they have a real reason to do that. That's right. That's what I'm saying by marketplace study. And so I would go in, like Ken said, with some actual comp studies and go, look, guys, here's what this is happening. And I'm willing to work with you. I'm not trying to –

blackmail anybody i'm not trying to be ungrateful i'm just saying that this position now it looks to me like am i looking at it wrong tell me if i'm looking at wrong but it looks to me like this position is paying 120 150 000 somewhere else and um they may say go we'll go take it and which case i would i would if they say that but um but but they may also just not be informed

Because the technology sector, we've experienced it here at Ramsey, the comp studies, we do them quarterly, and it moves rather rapidly up and down. And there was a time that it was just shooting straight up, and then there's a time where it kind of adjusted backward a little bit. So, you know, just look at it and ask them, this is what I'm seeing. What are you all seeing?

And they're probably not even looking at it. I agree. And that's why this is a great lesson. When you go in with a salary range based on real marketplace numbers, you don't look like I deserve. You're just simply going, hey, here's what I'm seeing. And they may not have any idea where their compensation is on that scale. And it really helps you because, again, you're dealing in facts, not I just deserve. Exactly. Exactly.

And the I deserve the entitlement thing is where in gratefulness comes from. It's like, hey, I love being here. I'm just looking at this. And what are you all seeing? Tell me what's happening here. And how can I help? And how can I add more value? I'd love to be a blessing to this place. And very few people get mad at you when you're doing that. This is The Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey good folks, it's Deloney, and with Back to School Madness on deck, my family's schedule is already so packed. And we haven't even made room for things like exercise and date nights and counseling and all the other things that make our life even worth living. When it comes to taking care of me, I have to remember to put on my oxygen mask first, meaning I have to do the things that help me stay well and whole. And you have to do the same thing too.

Together, we can show up and be strong in all of this chaos. So don't skip the things that matter to you, including therapy. When it comes to therapy, call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. Therapy can help you learn positive coping skills, set boundaries, and learn ways to find peace in the chaos.

Be sure to put your oxygen mask on first and never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Diloni today for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Diloni.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. We're glad you're here. He is the author of the book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It includes the Get Clear Assessment. Now, the Get Clear Assessment has helped almost 100,000 people that took it.

learn what they are good at and what they love and how to put all that together, who you are, the way you're wired, and what you want to do professionally, how to get there. All of that comes out of this assessment, and the book is there to help you read the assessment and properly apply the findings from it. It includes the Get Clear Assessment, so you don't have to buy the Get Clear Assessment separately anymore. The best way to do it is buy the book, and it comes with...

The Get Clear Assessment comes with a code. And Ken, you can take the assessment in what, about 20 minutes? 15 to 18 minutes if you're just instinctively taking it. Which is what you ought to do. Don't try to game it. That's exactly right. And after that, you're going to get a really great report. And it's going to give you a detailed report on the things you're good at doing. We're talking about in the world of work, the type of work that you really enjoy, and then the results that motivate you.

And then the book itself is like me coaching you with your results. Now you know who you are. So the book comes along and says, all right, now let's see where we can do this thing that I'm really good at, the stuff that I love. Where in the world will it work? So it helps you with the where and the how. And it's a really fun little project. So super simple. It's a bestseller. It is. It is. It's no longer a little project. That's right.

Well, you know, I say little. Turned into a big hairy deal. Because we write books that are longer than this, and this was one of those things where it was like, if I was going to coach someone with their results on what to do, now how do I go turn this into money and freedom? This book does that with the assessment results. Just go to the store at RamseySolutions.com. You can find all of our products and books and assessments and all kinds of things there.

find the work you're wired to do. The get clear assessment is what we're talking about. Be sure and check it out. Grant is with us. Grant is in Tampa, Florida. Hey, Grant, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, Dave. Thanks. I appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? Uh, I am calling with questions about, so essentially my, my main issue, um,

My brother and I are starting a construction company, or we actually already have a construction company started. I am currently working for another company right now until that takes off. But I do plan on leaving this company I currently work for to pursue that full time. And I was just curious, you know, how much money would you recommend saving before taking that leap?

Do you think or do you anticipate that you're going to be paid very similar or less than or more than what you're making in your current job when you go work with your brother? I would assume less. It's still growing, and that's something obviously I would wait until the income was somewhat worth my while. But, yeah, I would definitely do less. What's the reason for jumping? Yeah, why would you do that? Why don't you get it? Why don't you make more?

Well, I've worked for this company for quite some time. It hasn't been too bad. I know deep down it's something I've always wanted to do is be my own boss. Make less money is what you always wanted to do? No, sir. Obviously, in the beginning, that would definitely be the case. I don't know why it has to be. It doesn't have to be. So here's the thing. You said, I'm going to take the leap. I'm going to recommend you don't leap. I'm going to recommend you step.

Get the boat closer to the dock. Maybe even an electric slide right into that, you know, a little style. Here's the point that we're making, Grant. Yeah, go ahead and get this construction company kicking butt, and you guys are working 80, 100 hours a week, and you're about to collapse from fatigue, and you're making more money at the construction company than you are at your old job. Then it's a no-brainer to quit your old job, and you're not asking me about emergency funds because you're not in the water. You stepped into the boat. You didn't leap and miss. Yeah.

Yes, sir. It's going to be there. That's what you do. That's how you do it. All that requires is patience. Yes. You're all excited about this, and you just want to go over and do it right now, but grown-ups have to wait.

Yeah, I'm finding that out more and more as I get older. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt. Yeah. But I tell you, when I look at it that way, if I'm in your shoes, then I got to go really pour the gasoline big time on the fire over at the construction company because the faster I get that thing up, the faster I can go back to a normal set of hours working a normal job at a place I own, and I don't have to leap.

Okay. Yeah. And then your emergency fund doesn't come into play because you're not creating an emergency. You create one when you leap. There is no emergency when you step.

And so let's get this thing going. You guys go over there and just really, really work on the jobs and let's get them going, man. Here's a really important mindset shift right here for people that are in Grant's situation that are listening or watching. Grant, you have to switch from looking at this day job as this job that's holding you back from doing the thing you've always wanted to do. And you got to flip it to this day job is the stability and the

boat that is going to get me to the bigger boat. It's a mindset shift. And if you do that, you'll find that the patience is extended, but it is a complete mental game right now for you. And that's what will keep you patient. Otherwise, if it's all emotion and I keep thinking about how much I want to work for myself and be with my bro and never work for the man again, it's

You will never be able to wait. Your emotion will rule the day. You've got to reshape this deal. That's wisdom. That's good. Good work. Good work. Brandon is in Boise, Idaho. Hey, Brandon, what's up in your world? Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I have a question. The best way to put it into words is how do we take advantage of a pandemic

larger income that's more likely than not shorter term. And what I mean by that is my wife is making larger amount of money than she has been for a few years, but we know that approximately the next four to five years, that's going to go down. And then in my situation,

is I'm a disabled veteran and have a medical retirement, but I can no longer work and I will no longer be able to work. And so our concern is how do we set ourselves up over the next four or five years to ensure long-term financial independence? Yeah, that's a good question. Thanks for your service. I'm sorry you were hurt. Um, thank you. The, uh, um,

Well, the answer is, and then we can dig into it a little bit, but the answer is the baby steps that we teach, Brandon, are the fastest right way to build wealth where you don't have a problem later. But if you strike a chord of desperation, oh, God, this is going to run out, so we got to go do something stupid. Right before I get stupid, I'm usually desperate. Hmm.

So let's don't get desperate in here. I hear wisdom right now. I don't hear desperation. But if you start panicking about it, then you're going to go do something stupid in an effort to try to leapfrog, right? I should tell you a little bit more. So what I would do is I'd just work the baby steps. How much debt have you all got? We have $60,000 in a car. A car? It's part of...

So she has social media. It's part of the business, though. So I grew up listening to you from the Middle East as well as born. And we've done actually pretty well. So the vehicles are only debt. We kind of went backwards a little bit because she uses it for social media. So her income that you think is short-term is her social media income. Yes, sir. Why is that short-term?

It's influencer, and that industry is very volatile. It's up and down. No, it's dying. It is. It is. I mean, we're seeing it everywhere, yeah. I mean, it's not what it was 18 months ago for sure, yeah. Okay, so it's hard for me to speak intelligently because I don't know what she's doing, but I will tell you this. I think you rationalized your butt off on this car. You need to get rid of this car, man. That's bogus.

If the only way she can have influence is to be stupid and $60,000 car, then that's a bad idea, man. So we got to, we got to be thinking about some other way to get at this and start getting rid of this car debt. I don't know what kind of money she's making, but if she's making a couple of hundred grand or something, pay the stupid thing off and keep it. But we're not going to finance our way into influence. That's a way to make this temporary for sure. Because your influence is based on hypocrisy then. So, um, no, you don't want to go there.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. You can come by and watch the show anytime you want. We're on every day, Monday through Friday, from 1 to 4 Central Time. Usually have 50 to 200 folks out here eating our free homemade cookies, drinking our free coffee, and watching the show for free. And it's worth every dollar you paid, too. I'm just saying.

So in the lobby also is the debt-free stage, and that's where Kyler and Stephanie are because they're debt-free. Way to go, guys. Congratulations. Thank you, Dave. Well done. Where do you all live?

Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga, just down the road. Nice little day trip up to Nashville then. And how much debt have you guys paid? $123,000. Very good. And how long did that take? Just over two years, Dave. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? About, I think it started at $90,000 and now it's $160,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living?

We have two of the most boring jobs ever. I love it. I'm an accountant. And I'm a data analyst. And Ken actually gave great advice and helped me move into this role about a year and a half ago. What were you making before you made that move?

About 40. Whoa. 120K. And you now make what? 120? We combined make 160. Oh, okay. What do you make? About 70. Okay. So you almost doubled your income because of Ken Coleman. Yep. Well, no. So what's your cut, Ken? It's pretty good, man. I'm telling you right now, I like hearing those stories. That's great, man. That's really cool. Really cool. Way to go, heroes.

I don't care if they're boring or not. You're making bank and you got out of debt. You did some data analysts and some accounting and figured out $123,000 sucked. How long y'all been married? Just over two years. Okay. So by the time you get married, you looked up and said, this has got to go. Tell us the story. How's your I've had it moment unfold?

Well, so I was kind of, it took me longer to get on board. The accountant. Yes, I know, I know, I know. But Kyler had actually found your podcast before we got married and then we kind of talked about it before. I didn't really think he was serious. You hoped he wasn't. Right. I was like, maybe he'll forget about it. But we got married and then we tried to cash flow a wedding and it was super expensive and then

We were kind of at a point where he was really pushing it, and I kind of was like, well, I've kind of worked a lot, and I kind of just want to enjoy it at first, if I'm being honest. But then I was like, I was remembering when we were trying to cash flow our wedding, and

I was like making good money, but I was like living paycheck to paycheck. And I was like, this is miserable. Yeah. So I kind of thought back on that time and I'm like, we make good money. We don't have kids yet. Like, why don't we just go for it? So with his help, we kind of started it. There we go. It took a lot of, uh,

Difficult conversations, but also a lot of graciousness from both of us to be able to come together and really develop that budget. And that was the cornerstone of it all. Yeah. And as soon as you turn that corner and join arms, boom, game on, right? Exactly. I mean, but until then, it's like it's pushing the rock uphill. Exactly. Yeah. Way to go. Very cool. What kind of debt was the $123,000? Just normal stuff. Credit cards, car loans, student loans, and the wedding. Of course.

Some of the wedding day, yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. Did you guys sell anything or was this just all hustle? I mean, honestly, we were graced with like great, we were blessed with like great promotions at work. And I feel like if you keep your head down and you keep working at it, like you're bound to have something great happen to you and that hard work is going to pay off. So we like tried Uber Eats for a while too. We did that for maybe a few months. But honestly, we were just both pretty blessed with promotions and everything.

you know, instrumental moves in our career. And just dialed in the numbers and said, we're going to stick to it. Yes. Dialed in the numbers for sure. Yes. Because, I mean, you blew up. I mean, you did 60K a year for two years. That's pretty impressive. Probably the larger in the back half as you got some raises and stuff, but still the average on that's strong.

Starting out at 90 and now to 160. Way to go, y'all. Way to go. I get this question a lot, and I want you to answer it, Kyler. What was it like to change jobs?

in the midst of paying off debt? Because a lot of people go, man, I don't know if I want to do that. And you did it and you upgraded, which helped you get through quicker. I'd love for people to hear what the psychology was for you going through that switch. Sure. So it wasn't an easy transition just because I didn't hate the job that I had. It just, I knew what I wanted to do and I knew that I had to get qualified to do what I wanted to do. And where I was, wasn't going to allow me to do what I wanted to do. So,

I had to make the switch. So it was a little bit easier for me in that regard. But like I said, the job I had, I didn't hate whatsoever, but I'm very blessed with the job that I have now. But you, you weren't, it wasn't scary. You were able to just prepare and get qualified and then step right into it. Yep. And I had a lot of support from Steph as well. So it was, it was easy. He's gracious in that regard. I was kind of hesitant more so, but he like blew it out of the park. He, you know, got a certification in the process and I really saw like his determination through it. So I guess when you go through like,

scary stuff like that i think the best comes out in your partner so that's cool very nice very good good for you guys so what are you going to do now that you're debt free we're going to actually take a vacation oh good where are you going uh we're going on a cruise in september and then disney in october wow very good he hasn't been to disney yet okay so where's the cruise

I think it's to Mexico. Okay. We're just going with a few friends. It was a pretty cheap cruise. That's what we're doing too this year. Okay. That's great. Good for y'all. Well done. That's fun. That's fun. So you started the whole thing off, Stephanie, saying, in a sense, I make too much to be this broke. There's a little bit disgust was your why. I'm disgusted with this. I'm not going to live like this. And that's what finally helped you turn the corner. Now that you're the other side of it, does it feel like you thought it was going to?

Like you're free? I think it feels better. It's like we have so many opportunities in front of us now that we wouldn't have before. I mean...

right now we're we're a dinkwad family dual income no kids with a dog so like that puts our like future family in a better position too and like the next move is for us to purchase a house so it has opened that door greatly and it's just like lifted a whole different burden off our shoulders for sure you can for sure stack cash right now i mean you're in a great place how's it feel to be free

It feels, well, freeing. It's really nice. It's reassuring that all the hard work is paid off and we can confidently go into our future and know that we don't owe anybody anything right now. And once we do buy a house, I'm sure that will be paid off as quick as possible too. Yeah, we didn't want to like, you know, we kind of got...

I was, what, 27 when we got married and I kind of felt like that was a little, like, later on in life. But having, like, this pause and this reset to, like, get us on the right track was better. And we knew, like, we wanted to set our marriage up for success. And we saw the, like...

statistics on like finances being like a huge contributor and divorce. And we were kind of like, that's not going to be us here. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to go ahead and tackle the number one. If that's the number one thing, let's get that off the plate. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Very, very good. All right, Stephanie, talk to the person out there who just got married and their husband or their wife is a little Ramsey crazy and they're driving them nuts. Uh,

Tell them whether they should do this or not. 100%, yes. Or I wouldn't be here. But, I mean, I would say just hear them out because truly, like, you guys are on the same team. If you're married, you're on the same team. If you're working towards that, you're on the same team. You have the same goal, or you should, right? So, like, when he was trying to convince me, I kind of had to put, like, my internal, like, thoughts aside. And I was like, okay, Kyler just wants the best for me. He wants the best for us. Yeah.

And if I can put that aside and really see like why his why on it and his why was just to set us up better financially, then it was like a no brainer at that point. So just kind of get all the outside voices out, whether that be yours or like people who think your other spouse, your spouse is crazy. Just get it out the door and look at because truly it's going to come from a place of like he has your best interest at heart or they have your best interest at heart. Yeah.

Way to go. Very mature. Good word. Good word. Well done. Well done. You guys are heroes. Way to go, man. Thanks. Touchdown. Yeah. All right. Kyler and Stephanie, Chattanooga, Tennessee, $123,000 paid off in two years. Newly married and set, baby. $90K to $160K was the income range. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, baby! This is the Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He is the author of the book that is a recent bestseller, his third one, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. It includes the Get Clear assessment. Today's question comes from Brian in Washington, D.C.

I have done the Get Clear assessment, and it was both rewarding seeing how accurate it was about me, but also discouraging as I feel hopeless on where to go from here. I want to provide more for my family, give my wife the opportunity to be a stay-at-home wife. I earn $100,000 a year in a stable government job, but it's not enough to sustain the cost of living. To be honest, I don't enjoy my job, and I'm not motivated to grow in my career or pursue other higher-paying opportunities in this industry.

I would much rather scrape on by doing the minimum at work and get a second job that pays $50,000 a year. The problem is I don't think that's sustainable long term. I'm not really sure where to go regarding my work-life balance and taking care of my family and doing something I enjoy.

Okay, this is one of those tricky situations where it's almost impossible to answer this question the way it's worded. On one hand, Brian, I'm glad that you saw that the assessment was accurate, but you quickly went from the self-awareness that the assessment provides, the clarity, to you actually got so focused on your circumstances that

that you've taken your eye off the ball. So the way that the assessment is designed to work and what actually needs to happen for you in your life is you've got to see other opportunities for you to step out of government work. This is sucking your soul out of your body. I mean, it's very obvious to the way you're wording this. And you just are at a point, though, where you're so exhausted that

You're so demotivated. There's some other stuff clearly going on to where you just want to stay there and get some other gig and scrape by. And you're accurate to say that that is not sustainable. That's a dangerous mental and emotional place to be. And that's going to only end up causing destruction in multiple areas of your life. So what you have to do here is you have got to get back to your results and go, all right, where in the world of work can I do what?

what this purpose statement says that I'm supposed to do. And by the way, it's a job description. And so if you apply that, you say, okay, I can get out there and do this. Now, what qualifications do I need, if any?

and then begin to make the connections and you get out there. But this is going to take you kind of shaking off this really horrible experience that you've had. And really, Dave, I feel like there's some depression going on here, but it's just really hard to read in a lot to what's really going on. Is this a classic case of if I do what I love, I must make less?

I don't know. It's hard to say. I know what you're talking about. We get that from people who say, well, you know, I just kind of want to do this thing. Because I always throw the work-life balance crap in there, too. Right, right. I don't hear work-life balance questions from people who love what they do and are bringing bank home. That's true. You know why? Because there's no such thing as work-life balance.

The actual idea of balance, if we were to take two old scales, right, and we were to tinker with the rocks to see which one we could get it to even, that doesn't exist in work or life. Just from the sheer amount of hours we spend at work, it's impossible to have a balanced schedule. So you make a very good point there. I think what's going on is this is a guy who –

He does not want to do any more hard stuff. And it's hard to transition out of government if that's all you've ever done. Let's just say that the skills that he has...

if he used that he's using his government job that he hates if he applied those same skills in the marketplace assuming they could do that within the context of what the assessment told him okay that's right but most government jobs pay less than oh yeah marketplace jobs and are full of bureaucracy and red tape a lot of frustration yeah so i mean if you just went and did the same thing in the private sector usually you get a raise

Yes, and it would be slightly more enjoyable just from the environment change that you're pointing out. But let's say that he's in a government job. Let's play this out. And I were to say, okay, what are you really good at? And he says, I'm really good at process stuff, detail stuff. Okay, great.

Well, do you enjoy solving detail problems? He's probably going to say yes. Then I'm immediately going into the private sector and I'm going, all right, maybe look at project management, which is a viable career path that can lead you all the way up to a C-suite. That's how versatile project management is. It's just one example. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, seriously, almost all the government positions pay more in the private sector. Without question. I did find one that was the exception. What?

You know who the highest paid government employee in history was? Uh-uh. Anthony Fauci. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. $810,000. Really? Was that through grants or was that the actual budgetary line item? Stinking pay. That's more than the president. And you know what? When he retired, we idiots gave him civil service at a high percentage of that salary.

So just by the way, just go ahead and piss you off about something else. Jennifer is in Pensacola, Florida. Hi, Jennifer. What's up? I don't know if I can follow that. I know. I know. Jennifer, how do you even try to follow that? Oh, well, not with that much money, let me tell you. I've been divorced from after an almost 30-year marriage since 2020. And

And I, that was the fallout from COVID. Anyway, I receive $1,000 a month spousal support and I will until November of 27. And I'm also going to be the payee of an annuity that's currently worth $100,000. And when I'm 65, it's supposed to double on paper.

and I'm supposed to be able to receive a 6% per month payout, which is supposed to be about $1,000 a month approximately for the rest of my life. Is that all in place already, the annuity part?

Yes. Yeah. My ex-husband received a large inheritance, and we haven't done anything for me retirement-wise during our marriage because we didn't anticipate not being married. So the actual purchase of the annuity was part of the divorce decree? He had it in his name, and then... Oh, they just transferred it to your name?

It's in both of our names currently, but I'm the payee on it. Forever? Yes.

Okay, go ahead then. What's your question? So last week I received a call from my ex-husband and he said he wanted to make me an author that he thought was going to make me happy. And what he wanted to do was to pay me out of the annuity and give me $100,000 now and then to stop the spousal support. He thinks I'm in a new relationship where the new man in my life is, quote, taking care of me financially, which is far from the truth.

My new friend rents a room from me in my home, and the money he gives me goes towards monthly expenses and annual expenses of the home. But he doesn't, quote, unquote, take care of me. So my ex says if I don't take his offer, it just shows how greedy I really am. I don't give a crap about what he thinks. That's not an issue. This is a math decision. That's right.

I would make this decision 100% on math, not anything on broken hearts or emotions or anger or revenge or anything, okay? Or name-calling or anything, okay? So it's pretty simple. So you get $12,000 a year until 27, so you've got $36,000 coming there, right? Right. And then this annuity is worth what? It's supposed to pay you what? $10,000.

He says $1,000 a month starting when I'm 65. I'm 60 now, starting when I'm 65 for the rest of my life. Okay, so that's $12,000 a year. And so the amount of money that would take to create that would be $100,000 at 12%. Okay. Okay, so if you had $100,000 invested at 12%, that'd be $12,000 a year, right? Right.

That'd be $1,000 a month. And so it takes $100,000 to replace that, but it doesn't kick in for five years. So we would need $100,000 five years from now and $36,000. So his offer's not bad.

Oh, okay. It's not bad because here's the thing. The $36,000, we could just call it dollar for dollar, okay? There's a concept in money. Let me walk you through it. Here's what's going on in my head, okay? The concept in money, would you rather have $100,000 today or would you rather have $100,000 five years from now? Well, you'd rather have it today because of what you could earn on it during that five years. Agreed?

I understand. That's called present value and future value. And so you can take $100,000 in the future, like say five years from now, and you would discount that to a present value, and that's probably $66,000. So if you get $100,000 in your pocket now and invest that now with a good SmartVestor Pro, you're probably going to end up with more money.

I might go back to him and say, I think I might be close to doing this if you go a little higher and just see if he'd come on up to 100.5 because he might because I think he's trying to get you distanced. I'm going to try to negotiate it up and then go to a SmartVestor Pro. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth.

Do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires Theme Hour.

If you're unfamiliar with our Baby Steps Millionaires theme hours, this is when we talk only with millionaires. Regardless of how you got a million dollars or more, we want to learn from you where it came from, who you are, so that some of us out here can be like you.

And so it's a lesson from real people that have really done it. We need to start with the idea that we're going to define millionaire. It is an accounting definition. It's a math definition. A millionaire is not someone that makes a million dollars a year. A millionaire is someone with a net worth of $1 million or more.

A net worth is determined by your assets, things that you own of value, minus your liabilities, your debt, what you own minus what you owe. And regardless of what it is, if it is of value, it is an asset. And so what you own minus what you owe, when that equals $1 million, you are a millionaire. Well, nobody should be a millionaire. It's not a moral construct.

It's a math formula. Well, a million dollars isn't enough. Maybe, but that's a different discussion. It's a math formula. You either is or you isn't. What you own minus what you owe. It's not an emotional thing, and your little left-wing crazy professor, communist professor in college doesn't get to redefine it. It is simply a math formula.

You either is or you isn't. Is it enough? Probably not, and it's not as much as it used to be because of inflation, but it is more than most people got. There's about 26 million millionaires in America today.

And we talk to them all the time. So if you are a millionaire because your grandmother left you money, because you hit the lottery, because you've worked your tail end off for 842 years, whatever it is you did that made you a millionaire, we want to talk to you and learn from you how you did it and see if it's something that is replicatable for other people who have not done it yet to build a level of wealth.

This is the first level of wealth where you would start to say someone is, in air quotes, wealthy. Now, they're not billionaires. They're millionaires. A billionaire is $1,000 million.

They have five houses, a private jet, and seven cars. Millionaires have two cars and one house and fly commercial. Okay? So let's just keep in mind how this works, all right? And so don't get confused about what this stuff is. David is our first one online in Tulsa, Oklahoma. David, what's your net worth?

Hey, Dave. Net worth is $1.2 million. Very cool. Would you break that down for me by category, like how much real estate, how much retirement, and so on?

You bet. So in retirement, we have got a little over three quarters of a million. College fund for the kids, we've got right around 46,000. Real estate is a little over 300. Vehicles, right around 33,000. Liquid, we've got 50K, and then there's about 13,000 in other assets. Very cool. How old are you?

41. 41-year-old millionaire. How much of this $1.2 million did you inherit? We received a gift from a family member for $85,000. We got that pretty close to when we were approaching the $1 million mark. So mathematically, you did not become a millionaire because of inherited money. That's correct. Most of this was your doing, and the $85 just kind of put icing on the cake.

Yes, sir. Okay, cool, cool. And so what's your best year working household income and worst year since you've been working? Best year was around $160,000. Worst year, first year out of college was right around $50,000. Cool. What do you do? What's your career? So I spent 13 years in the oil and gas industry, and now I am in real estate. Cool. What's your degree in?

I have a degree in industrial safety. Okay, cool. And is that a four-year degree? Yes, sir, it is. Your GPA was what? I almost would rather not say, but I think it was like a 2.8. Hey, I had a 297. It's okay. I'm still pissed about that three one-hundredths of a point. I think beer was involved. I know, so close. Okay, cool. Good for you, man. Way to go. And you're a 41-year-old millionaire. All right, and you or your wife...

What's the most expensive pair of blue jeans you ever bought? I'd say probably around $80. Okay. And what do you drive? I drive a 2011 Toyota Camry with 253,000 miles on it. Good Lord. I hope she's got a good car. She does. What does she drive? She drives a Mazda.

A minivan, a Honda Odyssey. Oh, nice one. Okay, good. Because you're a tightwad, man. Way to go. I'm having fun with you. That's impressive, man. You're a hero. Look at you. Thank you. Very cool. Not rolling up in a $500,000 Lamborghini, I can tell. Okay. To be fair, that Camry's probably got another 250,000 miles on it. Yeah, it does.

Those things will go into the millennial. Okay, so I've got to ask, because I think we're here. This is a natural place to jump off. Why not the nicer car? Does it even matter to you with this net worth and where you are financially?

It really doesn't. And knowing that vehicles go down in value, it just doesn't make sense to us to do it. What do you think when you're pulling up to the old stoplight in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and some dude drives up in a gigantic truck that you know he's paying $1,200 a month? What goes through your head when you look over at that dude?

I'm just grateful that I don't have a car payment like that. That was so kind. I thought, yeah, I set you up. I was like, wow. Way to go. Okay. What advice have you got to the younger version of you that's listening? So when my wife and I got married, we had, uh, I think close to $92,000 in debt. And, um, we went through financial peace. We followed the baby steps. Um,

like you said, they have kind of a tight wall and we, we buckled down for two and a half years, um, got the debt paid off and then, um, contributed to my company's 401k. They had a pretty good match. So just continually did that. Um, so really just follow a plan. If you find a plan, follow it. And, um,

And now you're over a long, long period of time. It'll pay off. And now you're a baby steps millionaire. Way to go, man. Proud of you. You baby stepped right into it at 41 years old. Wow. Well, this is why we do this. Just to remind you folks, this is possible. Some of you are in the middle of that two and a half year buckle down time right now. And David is telling you what your future looks like. That's pretty encouraging if you'll let it be.

This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour on the Ramsey Show. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. Ken in Manchester, New Hampshire. Ken, what is your net worth? As of today, it's about $2.9 million. Good for you. Give me a little breakdown by category. So I have an IRA rollover. It's worth about $1.7 million.

We have money in our mutual fund that is about $244,000. SEP IRA is about $39,000. I have an inherited IRA, which is $29,000. My wife's IRA is $88,000, and we have about $155,000 in checking. And our house is about $600,000.

Good for you. Very good. All right. How old are you? 59. Very cool. Okay, good. And how much of this did you inherit? Obviously, you got a $29,000 inherited IRA. What else? That's it. Just that inherited IRA. And I'm guessing that came after you were already a millionaire. Yes, got that a couple of years ago. Okay. Haven't touched it. Yeah. And what was your worst year of income during your working life and your best year?

Well, I was in the Army, so my worst year was about $7,000, and my best year was $231,000. Okay, cool. What was your career other than military, and thanks for your service? I was an aircraft mechanic. Oh, okay, cool. That's good. And a four-year degree? No? No.

No, no, just trade school after I got out of the Army. Cool. Good for you. Okay. And a great choice, obviously. Very well done. Yes. Very well done. What's your wife do? She's been staying home for most of the time. She worked a little bit while I was in school to support us. So let me get this straight. A 59-year-old aircraft mechanic makes a quarter million dollars a year.

At the end, yeah. That's where we are, yeah. That's pretty impressive. I mean, just talking about our friend Mike Rowe and the trades, right? That's exactly right. Cool. Very good, very good. So what advice would you give to people that want to be you when they grow up? It's all about discipline saving. Discipline saving, you know, and looking at it as more of a marathon than a sprint.

And we never really let lifestyle creep affect us. Yeah, you've dumped money consistently for a long time. I can tell by these numbers into your retirement plans. I have. It's advice I got from my father years and years ago to...

No matter what you make, 10%, 15% goes. He used to say, feed the pig. Yeah, feed the pig. That's a good word. I like you, Dad. Good word. What's the most expensive pair of blue jeans you or your wife ever bought? Probably not me, but probably $100 for my wife. All right. That's good. I'm glad you're taking care of her. What do you drive?

I drive a 21 Chevy Colorado, and my wife drives a BMW, 21 BMW. Which model?

Uh, three 30 IX. Nice. Very good. You are taking good care of her. Good job. Of course. Three, $3 million net worth. Yeah. She needs a Beamer man. Well done. That's good. I like that. And you're definitely a Chevy Colorado guy. I can tell. I love it. Very well done. Yeah. Yeah. Good car. You understand that you are like a case study template for America millionaires. You're like the, when we studied 10,000 of them, we found almost all of them are exactly like you.

The wife gets the good car, he drives a junker, and doesn't care what anybody thinks. You have zero care about what people think at a stoplight. Exactly. I mean, my wife ran the house, and I was always the earner. So we've been married a long time. How many years?

38. Nice. Good for you. I can hear, if you listen closely, folks, you can hear Bob Seger like a rock in the background. Ken is a rock. Isn't he? No doubt. No doubt. He's awesome. Hey, man, we appreciate you. You're a hero. You prove America's great. People like you are proof that this works. I love it. Trent and Taylor are with us in Philadelphia. What's your all's net worth?

What's going on, Dave? 1.7. 1.7, and give me a little breakdown by category. All right. We got $350K in an IRA or both of our IRAs combined, $600K in a brokerage account, $400K in cash, house equities around $300K, and we started from $529K for our future kids at $20K. Got it. Good. How old are y'all?

33 and 34. Whoa, young millionaires. Good for you. And how much of this 1.7 million did you all inherit? None of it. Zero. And what was your best working year and worst working year of income? I mean, right out of college, it was bad. 60, 70K. But we've been able to make, you know, just by saying approval, we've been able to

take some chances with our careers and we're actually approaching the 500k mark this year. Cool. What do y'all do? I'm an engineer and my wife's a dentist. Oh, great, great. I love it. Okay. And you maximize both of those very, very quickly. So what was your GPA as an engineer? Not great. Like a 2.9 maybe, something like that. Okay. All right. Very good. My wife's a pharmacist.

Like she was up for three, like three sticks. Yeah. So what motivated you guys to do so well? Cause a lot of people, the engineers do a great job. Uh, a lot of dentists don't do a great job with their money, but you two have obviously been geniuses. Well done. What, what, what, what lines you up on this?

I don't know. We've always been, we're very aligned in how we spend. We're just very frugal people. And even as our, we've been married for four years, but even before that, I thought I was frugal, but she makes fun of me for drinking Folgers. She calls me Poo-G for drinking. I've had some Folgers before, bro. Don't knock it. I love it. I'm telling you.

house because it's like two bucks cheaper at cosco golly y'all aren't well i didn't know there was a fight about folders or maxwell house you guys need something better to fight about wow that's great who's the most frugal this is a great argument yeah yeah she beats me i thought i didn't know i could find a woman that would beat me in that because what what do you drive

So I knew you were going to ask that. I'm a seasoned veteran in beaters. I've had a bunch of, you know, old Civics and Jeeps and whatever. I just sold my 08 Civic with 300,000 miles on it. Wow. But I have a new truck now. I've still got a baby on the way. All right. What'd you buy? What kind of truck? Silverado. Yeah, nice. Good car. Very good. What's she drive?

He drives a Beamer. Okay. So if you guys were talking to a younger version of you, can this still be done or is the American dream dead? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, I think it's a lot of just being in alignment. I think it's, you know, just, just,

us working together and putting it away and not allowing lifestyle creep to get, you know, creep up on you is really helpful. It puts you in four wheel drive, you know, but you know, with, even with our increased income over like the past six years, we're still living off 50, 60 K in expenses. So we're, we're putting away like $23,000 a month into this brokerage account. So it's pretty awesome.

Yeah. Wow. Quarter million dollars a year saving. Yeah. That adds up quick at the age of 34. Yeah. That's how you end up being a 33 year old millionaire, man. That's pretty incredible. So well done guys. Y'all are rock stars. Absolute heroes. So proud of you. So just to let you guys out there know, when we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America,

10,167 of them. The white paper is in the back of my latest bestseller called Baby Steps Millionaires. If you want to read the details on the research, it's airtight research. The research methodology, no questioning it. If you disagree with it, you're what's known as wrong. Okay. So, I mean, it's air. It's a fact. What we found was 79% of America's millionaires inherited precisely zero. Okay.

Another 5% inherited a small amount like $5,000 from granny that did not make them millionaires. And another 5% inherited money after they were already millionaires. So 89% of America's millionaires did not become millionaires because of inherited money. So don't let your crazy nutburger TikTok friend tell you that all the opportunity in America is gone.

It's not. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. Thanks for being with us, America. One thing we know about millionaires is they tell their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. That's called a budget. It's called a plan. They make their money behave. Give every dollar an assignment, every dollar a name, every dollar a mission. That's why we named the world's best budgeting app.

Every dollar. You can download Every Dollar. Tens of millions of people have in the App Store or Google Play or go to everydollar.com and get it for your desktop, whatever you want. You can keep a pulse on your spending, and we will show you exactly how to walk through the baby steps, the fastest right way to become one of these baby steps millionaires. Heidi and Sean are in Cleveland. What's your all's net worth? $1,000.

Our net worth is $1.2 million. Excellent. Give me a little breakdown by category. So our house is worth $400,000. We have $845,000 in retirement and about $30,000 in cash. Excellent. Perfect. How old are you guys? I am 49 and Sean is 50. All right. Way to go. Good job. And how much of this $1.2 did you all inherit? $1.2.

We inherited about $32,000. That was about 10 years ago from my aunt who had passed away and then inherited IRA, but that's it. Okay. So mathematically, did that cause you to become a millionaire? No, it did not. Okay. All right. And your best year of working income and worst year of working income?

So our best year is probably this year. We're at $206,000 this year. And our worst was probably when we first started out around $70,000 to $80,000. We've been married for 22 years. Good, good. Early on. And your career, what do you all do? I'm a physical therapist, and Sean works in higher education. He's an administrator in higher education. All right.

Very good. So both of you have done postgraduate work. Correct, yep. Okay. And what were your GPAs? So my GPA was a 3.9, and Sean's was a 3.6. Very good, very good. She's the smarter of the two. Ha ha!

Well played, sir. Yeah, you just hit that out of the 22-year park. That's great. I like it. Good work. Good work. All right, so what do you tell people if they want to be you when they're 49 and they want to be a millionaire? Can they still do it?

Oh, absolutely, 100%. Definitely staying out of debt and living within your means and following a budget. And that is definitely, I would say, the keys to achieving millionaire status for sure. And you need to invest. And invest. You have to invest. I mean, $850 of your 1.2 is your retirement. Correct.

So you proved that. I mean, you guys did it. That was your lift right there, mathematically anyway. Yeah. Great job. Great job. How early did you guys get started on investing? What were your ages? So I probably started when I first got out of school, like 25, 26.

but didn't know what I was doing. We probably got more savvy once we really started following your plan. In 2009, we had $48,000 worth of debt and then got out of the debt in 2011 and then started more regularly investing going towards the 15% and everything. So basically from zero to where we are is about 13 years.

Correct. Wow. That's what I want people to hear. That's very doable. That gives you a lot of hope. So if you're listening and you're 50 and you think time has run out, 13 years later, you'd be 63 and be a millionaire. If you follow the stuff, that's it right there. Way to go y'all. Absolutely. What do y'all drive? Um,

I drive a 2007 Toyota Sienna. It's got over 200,000 miles on it. And Sean drives a 2011 Toyota Santa Fe, and that has 135,000 miles on it. It is time for the upgrade. Y'all need better cars. I mean, really.

come on i'm gonna i'm gonna help the car companies today out i'm just saying but wow we do have uh we do have one going off to college and then another two that are coming up too so that's part of it yeah you're just watching it making it making it happen on 200 grand you got to watch what you're doing that's right well done y'all very very well done congratulations you're heroes i'm proud of you very very good david is in los angeles david what's your net worth

My net worth is $1.1 million. Very cool. And give me a little breakdown on that. I've got $80,000 in cash and high-yield savings, $700,000 in individual stocks, $175,000 in an IRA, $30,000 in bonds, and $140,000 in my state retirement fund. Okay. No real estate? No real estate. Okay, cool. And your age?

Fifty-four. Good, good. Okay, and how much of this did you inherit? Two thousand dollars. Okay, so that is not why you're a millionaire. All right, good. Not at all. And your best year working income and worst year working income? My best year is going to be this year at $120,000. My average income is $65,000 and my lowest income year was $20,000. Wow, okay, cool. What do you do for a living?

I'm a teacher. Ah, excellent. Excellent. Very good. Okay. And so you have a degree, I'm assuming, in education? I have a degree in, a couple degrees in art. Oh, okay. Cool. Art teacher. All right. Good. What was your GPA? I am proud to say you're the first person that has ever asked me that. 3.91. And I'm still pissed I didn't get a 4.0. Yeah, but obviously it didn't hold you back.

no it did not because i'm the first one that ever asked nobody cares is your point and i don't disagree true exactly very good very good so can this still be done can an art teacher still become a millionaire in america even in california whoa yeah i was gonna say david's the poster child for what we teach an art teacher in california yeah worth one point

Two million dollars. Yeah. Making 120K. I mean, high income ever. Yeah. Because we see tick tocks every day of someone making over 100,000. What he's making saying they can't live in California. David, what do you say to that?

You've got to budget. You've got to live on the budget, do the every dollar, and move at the speed of cash. Oh, there we go. That's the game. That's the game right there. I like it. So for those of you that didn't catch it, the last caller or two callers ago was an engineer, and this was a teacher. So the number one category of career category, people become millionaires in the study that we did, is engineer. Number two is accountant.

Number three was teacher. Number four, business executive. Number five, lawyer. Medical doctors didn't even make the top five. They're number six. So because they're notoriously bad of handling money. So the art teacher has a higher probability of becoming, based on the study that we did, of becoming a millionaire than a doctor does. Right.

There we go. So, you know, teachers can't survive. I know. Listen, I wouldn't mind if teachers made more money. I'm not mad about this. But teachers are process people. Lawyers are process people. Engineers and accountants are process people. You follow a set of rules. You follow a process. You follow a plan. And you execute. And you don't reinvent everything.

And even the art teacher didn't reinvent everything, and they would have a tendency to. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, be creative, right? Don't be creative. Follow a system. Follow a process and plug into a proven process, and that's how people become millionaires.

And this is the first $1 to $5 million worth of net worth. It sounds a lot like the callers that we've had today. Most of their net worth is their retirement and their paid-for home with most of these callers today, and that's what we found in the study. It's nothing really fancy. Pay off a house and load your 401k and do it steadily and stay out of debt so that you can keep doing those two things.

And real quick, Dave, for everybody listening, that last couple, I think they had about $845,000 in retirement. I think they were in their early 50s. What's that look like 20 years from now for them? Just that chunk alone. Well, it'll double about every seven years. Right. If you've got a $1 million net worth in seven years, you'll have a two. In seven more years, you'll have a four. In seven more years, you'll have an eight. Yeah. So that's your 21-year mark right there. Yeah. This is The Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, Romans 15, 2, our goal must be to empower others to do what is right and good for them and to bring them to spiritual maturity. Amelia Earhart said, decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.

That's good. She was next level right there. Moxie, I'm just saying. Yeah, I like it. Very good. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. The reason we do this theme hour is to give you folks hope because when you hear how people that really are millionaires, not your broke brother-in-law with an opinion who votes wrong, okay, real millionaires, how they really did it,

It shows you that you can do it. That's called hope. The show is all about giving people hope.

Hope if you're struggling and hope that you can get there and that the struggle is worth it, that you can push through. And that's what we teach. It's that simple. But there's a lot of lies out there about millionaires and about wealthy people. And, you know, well, they all inherited their money. Well, we've already told you they don't. Eighty nine percent of America's 26 million millionaires did not inherit their money. Nine out of 10 did not.

That bodes well for us regular folk out here. By the way, I'm a millionaire, and this is the second time I've done it. I'm so stupid I had to do it twice. So there you go. All wealthy people are crooks. Nope. Crooks go to jail. People don't do business with crooks. People spread the word on crooks, and they lose their wealth.

In the real world, crooks don't prosper long term. Now, sometimes they have a windfall, but then Mr. Bitcoin ends up in jail, didn't he? Okay, Mr. Crook. Okay, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Y'all know who I'm talking about. He's not Kentucky Fried, but he was just fried, right? And so, you know, this is the deal. Crooks don't make it long term. They become poster children for how not to do it.

All millionaires and wealthy people are famous people. Nope. 0.8%, less than 1% of America's millionaires are celebrity types, sports figures or music figures or Hollywood figures. Almost no one becomes a millionaire doing that stuff because almost no one makes a living doing that stuff as a percentage of our culture.

Uh, that's why we, you know, why they're in the spotlight because they're a big deal, right? They're rare. They're rare birds. They're birds for sure. Some of them, they are all, all millionaires are rich, are, are, are, are super smart. They're all got a, of course they're rich. Are they all have a, uh, a 4.2 GPA and they were valedictorian? No, no. Matter of fact, the average is right around 3.0 GPA.

Most of us that are millionaires are right around the 3.0. So listen, if you got a 1.2 GPA because you played beer pong and you're not real smart, you're

you're probably not going to get there. You haven't got enough gray matter to do it, right? But you don't have to be some kind of Mensa to pull this off. As a matter of fact, Ken, you were telling me off-air about a study that people that are in the two, that billionaires, a lot of them are in the two and a half, and valedictorians underperform. Yeah, high percentage of billionaires were less than 2.5, so somewhere between 2 to 2.5. And interestingly enough, valedictorians,

go on to just do slightly above average as it relates to income. In other words, they aren't what they call world changers, people that are doing something really huge. And the reason is not knocking in any way valedictorians, but they are rule followers. So that's why they do very well in school. They follow the rules. They're test takers. That's right. But they are not world changers.

And so this I never color outside the line. That's it. And so it's why you don't see a very high percentage of valedictorians that are very wealthy. Do they do well? Yes. But they're not super wealthy. But it's not a prerequisite that you'd be the smartest person in your class to become successful. Hello. Yeah. Think about this, people. It's important. This is a hope giving message. If you think about it, Joe and Ashley, what are your in Greenville, South Carolina? What's your net worth?

$1.1 million. $1.1. I'm going to get you to speak straight into your phone. You sound like you're in a barrel. What's your breakdown of that $1.1? Hey, Dave, $400,000 is in a paid-for house. $640,000 is in retirement and other mutual fund investments. $60,000 is in cash and savings, and we've got a whopping $9,000 in cars. Love it. Okay. And how old are you two?

We're 35. Whoa, young millionaires. Good job. And how much of this 1.1 did you all inherit? About $74,000. Cool. Okay. Was that early and it caused you to become a millionaire, or is it mathematically did not cause you to be millionaires? No, we were well on the way beforehand. It happened a couple years ago. Okay. All right. So, again, it stands up to what we were just talking about. All right. So your income, your best year and your worst year working income?

We were about $130,000 when we first got married, and our income now is about $270,000. Excellent. What do you all do for a living? So I'm an engineer by trade, but I'm actually going to be going out on my own and building decks soon. And Ashley is an IT account manager. Very neat. Okay, there it is again. All right, good, good, good. What was your net worth? I'm sorry, your GPA? I was three... Yeah, I was...

Sorry, mine was 3.85, and I think Joe's was 3.31. Okay, all right, so we know how that worked. Good job, you two. Good job. Well done, man. You're young millionaires. What's the secret to being a millionaire by the time you're 35 in America?

You know, we did the whole baby step process starting nine years ago. We took financial peace. We did everything you said to do. We actually have coordinated four classes since then. We joined for the debt-free stream in 2021. And so we really just did what you told us to do. And we did it together and consistently. We pledged every dollar every month for the last nine years while being diligent at our jobs and being content in our life. Wow.

Sounds boring. $9,000 worth of cars. What do you two drive?

So this is funny, Dave. When we came for our debt-free scream, we talked about the cars, and you told me to retire old Carla and get something new. And it's some of the only advice that I haven't followed. She's got 388,000 miles. It's a Honda Accord. Wow. And Ashley's driving a Toyota RAV4 with about 160 on it. Wow.

You know, I think at this point, Joe, you should drive it until the thing dies, literally, on the road. That's kind of hard. And then call AAA or whoever you got, and then just kind of bury it. That's kind of – I'd keep going now. That's so high. Got to get to half a million, right? Yeah. At least $400,000. I mean, let's go for it. Why not? Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Good job, you two. That's awesome. Y'all are heroes, man. 35-year-old millionaires. I'm so proud of y'all. Way to go. That is phenomenal, Dave. Very, very, very well done. Well, Ken, that's it. I mean, none of these people were $20 million. They were all... I mean, the highest one was $3 million. That's right. And so one...

2, 9, 1, 7, 1, 2, 1, 1, and 1, 1. Some of them just barely millionaires, but some very young ones, 32 and 35 today. Well, Joe and Ashley have, I think they said, over 600,000 in retirement. You and I were just talking in the last segment. They keep contributing to that. That's going to add up to be a lot of dough when they're 70. I mean, you understand that if their stuff just continues to grow at around a 10% rate between their home and their retirement and that kind of stuff, that they're going to be worth $20, $30 million. That's crazy.

That's I mean, because you just take the normal math and watch it compound. Oh, my gosh. It's incredible. And they don't have to drive junk cars to do that, by the way. They don't. But but I'll tell you what's really fun is to see that they've got the money to go out and buy nicer cars. And they're the ones that are set up to be multi multi millionaires. And we got tick tockers bragging about having twelve hundred dollar car payments.

Well, that's why one's on TikTok and one's a millionaire. Driving a Honda with 388,000 miles. 388,000 miles. Hey, guys, this is how you really do it. Oh, that's great. You know, you can try to dispute this, but you'd just be know it's known as wrong. I mean, I've been doing this for 30 years and watching people do this over and over and over again. This is how it's done.

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar.