Slow and Steady Wins the Race Every Time
01:27:37 Share

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work, and make a difference.

that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in counseling, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, and we're here to help you like we have been for 35-plus years now. The phone number is 888-825-5225. It is a free call. Some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Isaac is going to start off this segment in Rochester, New York. Hey, Isaac, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave and John, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm 24 years old, and I currently work as an outside salesman in the electrical industry. I have my associate's degree, and I'd like to go on and finish my bachelor's. And my company has offered to pay for it, but they want me to sign a five-year commitment with them. Should I do that, or should I just pay for it myself? Five years from today? Yeah.

Yes. Or from the last time that they write a check? Five years from when I would start college, if it would be this fall. Okay. But it's going to take you how many years working at night? Maybe two and a half years at the most. Yeah. Three years. So that part's not irrelevant. So really they're asking you to sign a two and a half year, two year contract after you finish school. Correct. Because obviously you wouldn't quit while you're in the middle of trying to get them to pay for school. No. Okay. So what do you make now? Um,

60 000 before bonuses after bonuses probably like 70 to 75. what are you going to study uh go back to school for business why i get my well because in order for me to make more money in this career and move into like a sales manager job the minimum requirement for any big company in electrical industry is a bachelor's degree bullcrap so that's why absolutely not true not true

Some businesses require a four-year degree. They're not necessarily people you want to work for. If you're a freaking sales manager and you know how to manage salespeople and you got five years or six years of sales experience busting shoe leather on the street causing stuff to happen, they don't give a crap where you went to school or if you went to school. All they know is can you make sales happen. A four-year degree's got zip to do with it. Not true.

Not a prerequisite in your world. If you want to go increase your brain power, I'm okay with that. But saying that's a barrier for you to move ahead in sales, nope. Sales is the most well-paid profession in America today. Sales people make more money than any other profession as a body, as a group, because it's all production-based. It's based on your ability. It is not based on your knowledge. It's not based on your resume. It's not based on your degrees. And God help you, your pedigree.

Is your particular company that you work for, is that one of their just HR, like they just have a line that says, we won't even talk to you? It's like their filtering system?

Well, my company is a rep firm. We rep the bigger manufacturers, a lot of the big electrical guys you hear of in the industry. And I would like to eventually transition to being a territory manager for one of those bigger companies. And they have that as a requisite to even get an interview. Not true. The requisite to get an interview is you know somebody there that knows your reputation of being a stud salesman. That'll get your foot in the door.

Listen, if you're working for corporate America that is so freaking structured that they absolutely under no circumstances will interview you based on the fact you don't have a four-year degree, that is not a place you want to work. These are fools. They're idiots. I'm serious, man. You don't want to work there if that's really happening. I don't believe you. I think you've been fed some information that you believe, but I think your information is bad. I promise you, man, I've been in sales my whole life. I love salespeople. Can you tell how I got amped up quick?

I love salespeople, man. And it's the ultimate ability to kick down a door on production and on ability based on nothing else. But once you have a reputation with one of those companies or this guy gets it done, this is a guy that knows how to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. He closes the freaking deal. That's going to get you in the door more than any dadgum third night school business degree.

I promise, man. Don't bet. Listen, the ticket to success in America is perseverance, integrity, ability. It is not a degree. Get a degree if it helps you, but don't depend on a degree to get you in the door or open the door. That is not how it works. And I'll send you a book by Ken Coleman to prove it to you. It's called The Proximity Principle. It's the number one bestselling book. But, man, I got to tell you, you're the secret sauce for success.

Isaac in Rochester, New York to be successful is in Isaac's mirror. Look in the mirror. You're your secret sauce to success, son. It is not where you went to school or if you went to school.

And again, I've got a four-year degree. I'm all about education. John's got a PhD in higher ed. But am I wrong? No, I think that I didn't know that was still a thing. I knew that was a way businesses for the last 25, 30 years filtered applicants. It was just an easy. Oh, yeah. But.

I didn't know they were still doing it. But even then, you could bust the filter is my point. You can, yeah. Like a freaking sledgehammer. Isaac, I want you to consider this. Think of it from the other way. The company is saying, hey, we have a top salesman. We recognize talent. He's 24 years old. We can lock him up for five years.

to the tune of 25,000 bucks. If he's going to a state school, we can put 25 grand on the table, which is going to be five grand a year to keep him locked up here for five years. If that degree is going to get you a bonus with your own company quick, that's fantastic. I would take it. I'm always a fan of free education. But if you're immediately in two years, you're 26, 27, you want to jump ship and go work for one of these bigger companies that you want to do, and you're locked up for another two and a half years with your company,

I'd pay the money. For the wrong reason. Yeah, that's right. That's right. They've locked you up. For the wrong reason. I'd pay the money on my own and just keep doing what you're doing. You've done an associate's degree and if you want to get a bachelor's degree, keep going. Dave, I like it when companies do that, but man, I always want to see what the return is. Usually it's

you graduate, you stay here for five years and here's what your new raise will be, or here's what your new job will be. Not, hey, you're locked into this job for the next five years. Yeah, that's the answer to your question. But the reason you're asking the question is

is based on faulty information. Yeah. Maybe there's still some big giant corporations that still have that as a filter. My point still stands. I wouldn't work there. Yeah. You know, if you've got the ability to sell, dude, you've got the ability to make 200K doing something somewhere without a degree.

Now, if you want to go get a degree, my business degree has served me well. I use accounting, statistics, finance, whatever, almost every day in my job as the CEO of Ramsey. The things I learned in academia were valuable. They were not, however, the actual sheepskin itself, the four-year degree, is not a prerequisite to me starting or running this $300 million company. And that is true all across America. That's right. If you want to get out of sales...

And you're selling now and you're tired of sales and you want to get into a leadership role where you're not selling so much as you're leading salesmen, then you're going to want to learn how to do leadership. But even then, man, sitting in a classroom and just taking classes on leadership, that's not how you do it, man. You sit next to leaders. Taking classes on leadership from a professor who's tenured and has never led anything. Has never led anything. That's right. Hello. Yeah. Sit with real leaders and do real leadership. Yeah. Yeah. This is...

This is very, very doable for you. Your career is fine. I don't mind you going and getting the degree. I don't want you to go get it because you think it's your ticket to success. That's my problem. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

I also discovered that there are a lot of ripoffs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect yourself.

We'll be right back.

So, you know, they'll be there when you need them. Zander is the real deal. And that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them and you can too. Visit Zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch. Give them a call at 800-356-4282. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today.

Well, let me try again here. Taylor is with us. Taylor's in Roanoke, Virginia. Hi, Taylor. How are you? I still didn't do it, did I?

One, two. There he is. Hey, Taylor. I was messing up. I'm pushing the wrong buttons like I've never done this before. Oh, you're fine. Hey, man. What's up? How are you guys? I got a question. We are in baby step two. We paid off about $30,000 in credit cards in about the last 12 to 14 months. But we separated about eight weeks ago. Why?

I think it was a breakdown of communication. Usually is. Why? I'm sorry? Usually is. Why did you separate? I think it's just communication. She realized she wasn't happy with some things and wants some time apart to figure some stuff out. We are in agreement with finances. We want to continue paying down everything. We're not hiding money from each other.

My question is, we're both actually, I'm facing a pretty serious health issue right now, and she is too. Right now, should we continue down paying everything off, or should we just be stockpiling cash in case certain things happen with some diagnoses? Well, the first thing is, how long is the separation period?

Are y'all just playing separated? A good separation should have a date and a time and a location. We're going to be apart for 30 days, and then we're going to go have lunch at this place. Have y'all set that up? We've agreed to not make any major decisions for four to six months. Okay. And one of you moved out? Yes. Yeah, I mean, that's a long time. What are you hoping to accomplish for six months? Um...

probably just maybe, uh, reconnecting, uh, working on the communication issues and just deciding what we both want. Um,

In life, I guess. I think you need to decide do you want to stay married? And if you want to stay married, sometimes if somebody's out of control or somebody's struggling with an addiction, like, hey, I'm going to be out. I'm moving out for 30 days. And at the end of 30 days at this restaurant, at this time we're meeting, we're bringing a piece of paper and you got to have that six months just hopefully like, well, you know, like kind of just

We just want to like kind of think through that's it's just a recipe for this thing ending up in ash. The second piece is your health stuff. So all I have to say is I would, Dave, correct me if I'm wrong, I'd pause everything and I would stockpile cash. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish with the separation again. I want you guys to be very intentional. Did your wife move out because it's not safe to be around you? No, there's no abuse. Does she have somebody else she wants to try dating for six months?

No. Okay. Then what, what, what is going to be accomplished? Honestly, I, uh, we're, uh, we're trying to work that out through therapy. Okay. Um, um, right now we're seeing a therapist separately, hopefully eventually to come together. Um, right now I think, uh, she just, it's been a place where she wants to find out what she wants in life. Um, like I said, the marriage wasn't perfect, but there was no abuse. There was no infidelity, uh, nothing like that. Um,

I can't really give you a straight answer about exactly what happened, but I can definitely say there's no abuse or infidelity or... Well, no marriage is perfect, but you try to figure out what you want in life before you say, I do. You don't say, I do, and then get a couple years in and then be like, well, you know, I don't really know what I want.

Um, we've been married and we've been married almost 20 years. So I don't know if this is just, and it's, it was always, we've always had a very happy marriage. So I'm just not sure what, um, obviously I want to stay married. I want to work this out. That's my desire. Um, I just, uh, I think she's just in a different place right now, but with both of us facing health issues that kind of throws a wrench in, cause I'm actually facing a, uh,

cancer diagnosis right now possibly. As far as your financial question, yes, stop paying down debt, pile up cash to survive a cancer diagnosis, whatever her diagnosis is, and to survive the divorce. Okay. Because I can't tell what's going on because you don't seem to know

in your relationship. The one clue you did give me a minute ago was it's 20 years and it's been a hard marriage the whole time. I think she just reached the end and the switch flipped. Yeah. And I don't think that one's coming back. I might be wrong. I've only done this for 35 years, but once the switch flips, it's hard to get it back. And so it's possible that the therapist can help you guys work this out. I hope I'm hopeful. I hope that happens. But I would prepare for the worst and,

as far as the marriage goes on the financial side, and that's a big pile of cash, is easier to split than reduced debt. Yeah. Is easier to split. And both of you need some extra cash anyway if you're both facing health problems. So, yes, let's pause on the total money makeover. Money is not the problem in your life today. Not even close. The problem in your life today is relationships and health. Yeah. And that's what you concentrate on, and you let the money flow towards those things rather than towards...

working the baby steps. And think of, I mean, for people listening, think about that kind of separation. I know it's easy to think, if I just had my own space, or if I just had this time, I'm just going to take six months to... Think about it like this. It's like you going and getting a gym membership. Like, are you going to lose weight? I don't know. I just don't know what I want. I'm just going to go walk around the gym, and I'll do a couple minutes on this thing, and then I'll get a smoothie, and then I'll... That's not how...

you're going to walk out exactly the same person, except you're going to be minus your gym membership fees for six months. Be intentional. If you need to separate, have a very clear reason, a very clear timeline, and then a very clear set of action steps for what is going to be accomplished in this time we're apart. And then specifically how we're going to come back together and decide what we're doing next. But this, yeah, Dave, you're exactly right. This is a

She's practicing being divorced. She's practicing what life is going to be like by herself on her own. Because she's had it. Yeah, how I can get my feet underneath me, and she just doesn't want to cut the ties just in case she needs a little more time. But that's exactly what this is. This isn't a, I want to see if I still want to be married. This is me practicing being divorced. If I were you, I would sit with your therapist and say, I need to know from her what she needs for this to be healed. Correct. Correct.

And have her make that list because I think you have no idea. Yeah. And I'm seeing more and more, Dave, the answer to that question will be, well, I just don't know. I need more time, more time. And what's happening is in some states, whoever files has less of a

of a stake in what happens, right? And the other person can claim, well, this is, he filed on me or she filed on me. And so there's kind of this push, like I don't want to be the bad guy here. And so I don't know any more time. And the way I'm phrasing it with some of the people I talked to is that they're just slowly getting drowned. And the other person is just, they're out of the marriage, but they don't want to be the, they don't want to have the label as I filed. So they can always say like he filed for divorce or he divorced me.

and so it's something there's something about let's call it what it is let's put on the table and let's both be adults moving forward yeah amen it's a mess daniel's in washington dc hey daniel welcome to the ramsey show what's up hi can you hear me okay yes sir um i just got a quick question uh me and my wife we um

just move into our first apartment together. And I'm just wondering how much, no debt, and I'm just wondering how much we should save for a house and also should we be investing in retirement? If you have your baby step three done, you're out of debt, you have your emergency fund in place,

And now you're choosing between whether I'm going to save aggressively for a down payment on a house or whether I'm going to save above putting some money into retirement. We call that baby step 3B. Baby step 4 is 15% of your income going into retirement. Some people in your situation, Daniel, choose to put nothing in retirement for one or two years while they pile up a big old pile of cash for a down payment. And that's nothing wrong with that if you're just now moving into your retirement.

First apartment, you've just gotten married. That's wonderful. Take two years. See how big a pile of cash you can come up with. Big down payment is good. More down payment, less debt. It's always good. And so how much can you do in two years or maybe three years if you did nothing into retirement? And you're young. You're just getting started. If you pause retirement for a little while, it's not going to kill you.

It's not going to keep you from being a millionaire. I don't want you pausing it for six years. That's not what I'm suggesting. But I am saying if you take one, two years, and maybe even three, and you pile up cash for retirement, you'll be ready to roll. That's how that works. All right, open phones here at 888-825-5225. You guys jump in. This is The Ramsey Show.

It's Holy Week in Jerusalem and the city is restless. The people of Israel welcome Jesus as King, his followers ready for revolution. But instead of taking the throne, Jesus turns the tables. "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"

Experience Holy Week like never before. What have you done? Coming soon to theaters. The Chosen Last Supper. Get your tickets now. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

John and I are going on the road. We're going to six cities doing the money and relationships tour. This is going to be the coolest thing we've ever done, John. We were in a meeting this morning talking about how we're going to lay this thing out. You guys are going to be in the audience, and you're going to vote on what subjects you want us to talk about. And five minutes before we go on, we're going to put them in order and do them.

This is going to be a blast. Wheels off. It's going to be fun, man. Wheels off. It's totally riffing. We're going to have so much fun. Anything about raising great kids, handling money fights, estate planning, investing, millionaire numbers. We're going to be in Louisville, Kentucky, April 21. Durham, North Carolina, April 23. Atlanta, April 25. Then we head over to Phoenix, May 5. Fort Worth on May 7. And Kansas City on May 9. If you want tickets...

Go to RamseySolutions.com slash tour. They are not yet sold out. These events typically do, so I suggest you get them before you have a problem. It's going to be a blast. We're going to have a lot of fun that evening. It'll be John and I in each of the six cities. We're really, really pumped about this format. It's not something we've done before, and we like trying new stuff around here. All right, Travis and Aaron are with us in Houston, Texas, on the Debt Free Stage. Hey, guys, how are you?

Better than we deserve. I love it. Welcome, welcome. And how much debt have you two paid off? $405,000. Whoa! How long did that take? Total of 17 years. Okay, that works. And your range of income during that time?

So we started with about $150,000. Right now, currently, we make about $135,000. And in the middle there for a big chunk goes up to about $250,000. Okay, cool. What do y'all do for a living? We're both teachers. I'm a teacher and a coach. She's a math coach, actually. Academic math coach for the elementary school. Okay. So why the income go up and down as teachers? I'm confused.

I've only been a teacher for six years. Oh, okay. Yes, I was in retail management for almost 20 years, 18 years. So you chose your love and went into the classroom and coaching? Absolutely. Gotcha. Okay. Once you could afford to. Correct. Okay. So tell us the story. What happened 17 freaking years ago? Well, we were doing like most people, I guess, and spending every bit of raise that we got and just...

We could afford the payment, so we'd buy it. Now we had the payment, and then we came to realize that we're making what felt like a ton of money back then. And we didn't have any money left over. So one of my friends actually told me about this Dave Ramsey guy. I came home, and I told her about this Dave Ramsey guy, and we went and bought your book. And she actually read it first in basically one evening, and she said it sounded great. Next day I read it. We both said it sounded great, and we just went with it. Whoa.

Total money makeover? Total money makeover, yes. I assume. Okay. All right, cool. So you just went hog wild on the baby steps? We did. Sold cars. He traded in a brand new car that we had just signed up for for a beater. Wow. And that was one of the pivotal moments for me that was like, okay, he loves cars. He just traded in this awesome car for this little beater car. Betting on the future, baby. Yeah, very much.

I love it. So what took 17 years? Well, we paid aggressively. We paid off all our consumer debt, $92,000 of it in 18 months to two years. And we were progressively paying for the house until my son got into about junior high age. And we realized we wanted to spend some money on vacations and some experiences with him. So we kind of stopped aggressively paying on the house. We were down to...

How long did we – we had about $70,000 left on the house, and we kind of just were cruising on it. And actually, thanks to my mother-in-law, she just actually paid off the last $70,000 for us. Whoa! Wow! Pretty cool. Absolutely, yes. Okay, just reach over and knock it out. So you were just working a normal baby step for 15% of your income going in, five kids college, and enjoying your budget. Right. And putting what you could on the house. Absolutely. But it slowed it way down. Correct. But you did a whole bunch of this in the first –

five years of the 17. Yes. Is that about right? Absolutely. Okay. So this 405 is your house too. Yes. 100% debt free. 100%. Done. Every brick we own, all of it. How much is in your nest egg? Your retirement nest egg? A million dollars. Okay. And the house is worth what? $465. Okay. So you're worth a million and a half.

Good for you. And your age, how old are you two? I'm 47. She's 46. All right. Very cool. And you're millionaires. Yes. Plus. Well done, guys. So that stinking book worked. Absolutely. The stinking book worked. We were excited. We read that book. She read it first. I read it the next day. I was like, man, let's get started. We were excited. I think one of the hardest things people experience is...

Getting to that baby step four, five and six and deciding that balance between living life and paying this house off. And we see people get it just messy on either end. How'd you guys navigate that?

I mean, I just always wanted to look back and say that, you know, with our son, we had experiences with him that we didn't say, you know, at a later age, we didn't do those things. So that was the balance of figuring out we still are going to go on this trip, but we're still working aggressively to get this house paid off. Yeah. Dude, I love that. And how much you guys being on track together on being super responsible, how much of that did your mother know?

She'd do it pretty well. Yeah, I mean, we are constantly talking about Ramsey to anybody that we can. She kind of looked over there and went, these two could be okay to invest in.

She kind of went like, hey, it's almost 20 years I've been hearing about this. How about I just write this check so you'll never bring it up ever again? So we actually couldn't come visit Nashville until the house was paid off. She's asked us for years. Let's go to Nashville. And I said, I cannot do this until, I mean, we were paying off the house, but we have to have this paid off before we come visit. And here we are now.

Yeah. Way to go. I'm so proud of y'all. Fantastic, guys. How's it feel to be – did you think ever – I mean, when you're 27, you know, you start this 17 years ago. Did you really feel like, okay, before I'm 50, I'm going to be worth a million and a half with a paid-for house and going to be 100% debt-free? Did you ever think that?

It's hard to believe, isn't it? I mean, I believed it, but I don't know that I thought it. Yeah, that makes sense. When you look at the numbers, the numbers say yes. Right. But then you go, wow, my emotions. I don't know if I could catch up. How's it feel now that you're there? Amazing. Great, yes. The freedom and the peace of just...

being in that place. Thank you very much. Was the sacrifice worth it? Yes. What have you taught your son about going to the dentist? He's about to leave your house. He is actually gone. We are empty nest now. So we're in a new stage. And so about a year and a half ago, we went on a bunch of recruiting trips for football in the car a lot. And we were listening to podcasts hours, hours and hours. Eight hours of Dave Ramsey podcast. Oh God. Yeah.

Poor kid. He's like, any college, I'll sign up anywhere. You just get me out of this car. At one point... He turned to me and he said...

Do you realize that most families in America listen to music when they're on these trips? Mom, can you spell Spotify? Wait a minute. We're on Spotify, too. That's right. But I said, you know, I mean, the knowledge that you are getting, the community of people, of Ramsey, you know, people that are calling in, this is so much more impactful in your life. Yeah. That's fantastic. Well, I'm proud of you guys. Well done. And this is really hard for me.

As a guy, as a lifelong Red Raider, I'm going to do something I've never done before, and that's to tell someone who graduated from Texas A&M University, well done. Well done. Thank you. It's hard to tell an Aggie well done, but well done. Thank you. Love it. All right. So what school did he choose? Northwestern Oklahoma State University. All right. Very cool. That'll do. That'll do. Is he going to join you for the debt-free scream? He's going to join us. All right. What's his name? Cody.

Oh, Cody? Okay. And Cody is 18 or 17? 19. 19. Okay. Close enough. All right. Good. Well, welcome, guys. Congratulations. We're very, very proud of you guys. Very well done. All right. It's Travis and Aaron and Cody, Houston, Texas, 405.

paid off in 17 years, making $150,000 to $250,000 down to $135,000, working the dream job, living life large, and in the process became worth $1.5 million. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. There's that trip tonight, Phil. Yeah, baby. Yeah. That's how it's done. And that's a long story.

trek. Most people won't do something for 17 minutes, Dave. A minute and 70 seconds. They can't do anything. Yeah, it's nothing. 1.7 seconds. Perseverance, baby. That's awesome. Wow, that's amazing. Well, great story. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession? Business taxes will go up or

or down. AI will help us work, or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too.

Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data.

And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. The Dr. John Deloney Show, as of January 1st, just a couple months ago, passed the huge milestone. It is in the top one-half of 1% of all shows on YouTube with over 1 million subscribers.

Huge milestone. Congratulations, John. That was a big breakthrough. We announced that staff meeting this morning with the golden plaque from the YouTube people. And that's pretty cool. Pretty cool, man. Yeah. I'm really grateful for the opportunity you gave me, man. Well, you're helping a lot of people, brother. That's what you're there for. All right. Ashley's in Oklahoma City. Hi, Ashley. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Okay, my husband and I are trying to decide if we should go on an African safari hunt or to keep saving for a house. This is the most Oklahoma call I think I've ever got. So here's a little situation and background. So we got married this past year and decided for our 10-year anniversary that we are going to go on an African safari and hunt all

all the jazz. And then a month ago, we entered a raffle and found out that we won a nine day all inclusive hunt in South Africa. And it's a $20,000 value. It includes like the hunt lodging food and Lord willing, like two animals per person. Um, but after we did our research, it does not include airfare, transportation, gun rental, but the kicker is the taxidermy and the shipping of the taxidermy.

In total, all of that comes out to $12,000 to $15,000 out of pocket, which doesn't include extra excursions or spending money. It's a lot of money. What's your household income, hon? $275,000 a year. We're in Baby Step 3B, so...

In our first year of marriage, we are debt-free with our fully funded emergency fund. We are targeting to purchase a house April of 2026, so in one year, and we're on track for $87,000 for a down payment. And we have a sinking fund for our vacation this year of $2,600. So we see three potential options if you could help us with our first marital financial hurdle. Okay.

Well, you're in a much better place than I thought you were going to be when we started this conversation. I was thinking this was going to be a hard no when we started, but you make $275,000, you're out of debt, you have your emergency fund, vacations are on the table. You're choosing between the size of your down payment or the distance of your down payment.

You could easily say instead of spring with $87,000, we're going to do summer with $90,000 and an African trip. And that would put you about the same place, wouldn't it? I suppose so. Yeah. What we're saying is you delay your home purchase and hit your exact same goals, but you delay the home purchase by three months.

That's a good point. And that's really the only question. Would I trade an African trip that I get a $20,000 coupon towards, which it sounds like it's a dream trip for you. Yes, it is. I mean, actually, the voice tone, let me make sure I'm hearing this right, because the voice tone I heard was not your husband's excited, it's you are also excited. Just, honestly. Okay.

Okay. But, like, so we don't know. So we're thinking we could either take the trip and either pull from our house fund, or I guess your perspective is we wait to purchase the home. Or he's like, well, you know, we could take the trip, but don't, you know, don't taxidermy or ship anything and just take really nice pictures. And I'm like, well, I would like to have a zebra rug. You know, like, that'd be pretty cool. Okay. And you can buy those.

Again, this is the most Oklahoma call I've ever taken. This is so great. So anyway, yeah. If you were me. I would go to Africa and delay my house. I would too. By three months. Really? Go do it right. Yeah. Do it right. No, I did not expect that. Yeah, but I'm delaying the house. Again, if you were in baby step three or two, the answer would be a hard no.

Okay. You don't go on vacation in the middle of that crap, okay? And you certainly don't go to freaking Africa in the middle of that. But you guys make $275 a year. You're out of debt. You're saving for a house. And all we're saying is we would rather go to Africa and buy a house three months later for the exact same money.

And, yeah, I think, you know, that's not a bad trade. It's a reasonable tradeoff. And baby steps four, five, and six, or 3B, four, five, and six, are where you go from intense to intentional. And that's what I would do. Sharon and I didn't shoot anything except with cameras. We spent three weeks in the incredible –

glamping or whatever you call it with these fabulous tents and situations out and got all the big five within just a few weeks on camera. And that is probably in the top five trips we've ever taken. It's an incredible trip.

Wow. Okay. That's so exciting. Wow. It's mind-blowing when you are, you know, sitting under a tree and the cheetah is above the tree or shooting with an iPhone. You know, it's mind-blowing. So I'll just, you know, it's a great trip. And it's a wonderful thing. And I will load up the grandkids and take them when they get old enough. But, yeah, you got to do this stuff, folks, if you're listening out there, in order.

And so the point is not Africa, John. The point is, do you do a dream thing when you have the money at the right time? That's where they are. And when I saw this pop up, it says we want a hunting trip to Africa. Should we go? That's what popped up on our screen. I'm already in hard no mode before I picked up the line.

Because most of the people calling us that question are going, I'm so broke I can't pay attention, and I want to go to Africa because we entered a raffle for something we shouldn't even have done. Well, and I thought it was a scam, like, hey, we'll let you come to the campsite, but you have to pay for this and this and this and this. Well, that is – It's kind of – They're not paying for everything. It's not somebody – some wealthy person is furnishing the whole deal for them. Sure. But it was a hunting trip raffle at a charity, and

And that's the way they're usually structured. But and yeah, you can then you can make the decision about, OK, do we want to trade taxidermy for another month? Right.

Yeah. Fall in the house. And it sounds like her husband. These are values-based decisions you can put in front of you at any moment and go, yeah, I really want a zebra rug. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, her husband needs to get her a zebra, man. I'm telling you, there's guys out there that are hunters all over America going, does Ashley have a sister? Oh, man. They're like, man, I'm married. Way wrong.

She's more excited about it than he is. I know. He's like, can we just move? Drew's in Chicago. Hey, Drew, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Thanks for having me. Sure. How can we help? Well, about 10 years ago, I was sold a whole life policy. I'm sorry. And it's only been about recently that I've discovered what a poor investment these things are. Good. I'm glad you figured it out.

Yeah. In fact, I actually sold two of them. And I'm looking to get out. Good. However, you know, I'm doing the math, and I'm about three years from breaking even on one of them. No, you're not. Well, according to the cash value, in about three years, I'll have paid the same amount. Like, I could cash out for the same amount that I put into it. Oh, so you can make zero money. Okay. Right, exactly. So I'm just wondering, should I just get out now, take my loss, or should I...

keep paying the same for a couple of years. And if I pedal real hard, I can break even. No way, man. It's time to quit throwing money at this thing. Yeah. Get the cash value out, put it into something that you don't lose when you die. Get your term insurance in place first and cancel this crap. This is the payday lender of the middle class.

Yeah, that's what I'm discovering here. I wish I'd asked more questions when I signed up. Well, the person you signed up with didn't have the answers. That's the problem. And you bought it a long time ago, and a long time ago people sold more of this stuff. Very few people in the financial world sell cash value insurance of any kind now. The only ones that do are insurance agents. Everybody in the financial world has figured out that this is an absolute rip, and we've been telling people not to do it for, you know, a couple decades in my case, but in your case you just, you know,

about a decade late finding it. But that's okay. You can fix it. What would I do if I woke up in your shoes? I would get term insurance in place immediately for the proper amount to take care of my family if something happens to me, which you go to Zanderinsurance.com. You can get a quick, easy quote there. They'll shop it among a zillion different companies. They'll get you the best deal and get that in place. About 10 to 12 times your income is what you should have, most of you.

to take care of your family because if they invested that amount it would throw off enough income to replace you that's the idea once that's in place then cancel this crap and do some good investing with good investments it'll be a lot cheaper than what you're spending now you'll be in great shape this is the Ramsey Show

Hey guys, I'm Jade Warshaw and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student loan refinancing. If your payment and your interest rate are burying you and you feel like you can't dig out, refinancing your student loan debt might make sense. That's because a lower rate could free up more money in your budget and a shorter term could help you pay down your debt faster. So reach out to the student loan refinancing experts today at laurelroad.com slash ramsey.

There you'll find helpful resources like a student loan rate table, a refinancing calculator, and other tools. Plus, you can get an initial rate in just a few minutes. Laurel Road offers low competitive rates starting under 5%. And you can get your interest rate even lower if you sign up for auto pay. But if your situation is more complex, sign up

for a free 30-minute consultation with one of their student loan refinancing experts to get your tough questions answered. Listen, not everybody should refinance their student loan, so make sure you run the numbers. But for some people, it is the right move. Learn more at laurelroad.com slash ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing. That's laurelroad.com slash ramsey.

Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk. Nashville is calling. Nicole is on the line. Hi, Nicole, how are you? I am doing well, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I have a question. We are on baby step number two, but we're just beginning. We've really just gotten our $1,000 emergency fund. And so my husband and I are in our 50s and just starting on all of this. There's a little bit of a journey that came before this that...

That meant we were just getting started now on what we're learning from you, but blessed in many ways. So the question, though, is that now we have our every dollar budget, and really what it looks like is we need more income. And so what I'm wondering is, I'm a homeschool mom, and I have two. My two youngest are still in school.

I'm 9 and 11 years old, and so getting an outside job is not really something that I would like to do unless I could work it around what I'm doing with them. But I have found a resource where I could possibly get a certification that would allow a significant amount of income that would work around our home life and homeschool. But it costs $10,000, and I don't have that. So is there ever a time that it makes sense to try to finance something

some kind of education or a gaining of a qualification that would give you the opportunity to increase your income, or is that always a hard no? It's a hard no, but that doesn't mean I'm against the idea of doing the certification or against the heart with which you're approaching this, but never would I finance it. So let's talk that through. What does your husband make? About $75, brings home about $75. Okay, and how much debt do you guys have, not counting your house?

Not counting the house, they have about 60. Okay. Well, let's see. Let me look at this note. I'm right before I called you. 35 on our vehicles.

$45,000 in personal debt and about $4,000 in medical bills. And so our every dollar budget covers payments on all those things, so we would eventually get there, but we don't have insurance. And in our 50s, I'm starting to see things that give me concerns for the future, and so just wondering how we could make some significant progress. How much is your house payment? $1,100. Okay.

You own a boat, a motorcycle, or a camper? We have one van and one motorcycle. One van? Is that your daily driver? It is our minivan, yes. Okay, all right. And a motorcycle. Right. What's the motorcycle worth? I do not know. It's new. Oh. Is there debt on it? Yes. Oh. I think it was, yeah, I think it was $13. I'm pretty sure we're upside down on that one. Okay. I'm pretty sure that's being sold this week.

You can't afford toys. You're a broke homeschool mom. Yes. So would you just stay with the one vehicle? Oh, that's the only car he has? You have one van and one motorcycle. You don't own another car. Right. I thought this was a play toy on the weekends. Okay. No, it was actually when my now 18-year-old was looking for a vehicle, my husband sold him his car.

And then to replace his car, we looked at, you know, some motorcycles are less expensive than cars. This one didn't happen to be, but that was what started us down that path. Is he riding a motorcycle without insurance? No, no. I mean, we have, oh, you mean, yes, yes. There is auto insurance, of course, like, you know. No, I'm talking about health insurance. Yes. Yes, he has health insurance, or yes, he's driving around on a,

death trap with no health insurance? The latter. Yes. He's driving a motorcycle with no health insurance. He does have life insurance. Oh my. Yeah. There's so many jokes. I know. I know. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're just, okay. I got to clear my head. Can I be honest with you? It doesn't sound like, it sounds like you really, really like the idea of getting out of debt.

I really do. But I'm not hearing the idea that we're completely sold out for it. Or is he? Yeah. Is he? Well, you might. You might. I don't. We're trying a new approach because, well, I say new when I come to you guys, because we have heard of Dave Ramsey and known of some of the resources, even used them in our homeschool, and our children are doing well. But we have struggled to be on the same page financially for quite some time.

And now we're making progress in that area, so I'm really glad we've got the $1,000. Okay, so you're working together with some mixed level of enthusiasm on the together part. Right. Okay. We see things pretty differently, but we're getting there. Yeah. And so improvement is good, but I'm just not sure about how we go from where we are to if we –

Yeah, here's the secret sauce to you all getting out of debt is both of you turn up the heat about three more notches, and that includes him taking an extra job, probably trading his motorcycle for like a car because he's like a grown man with children, and he needs health insurance, and he needs to get like six jobs and get his family help straightened out instead of his wife calling me trying to do a Hail Mary with a $10,000 certification.

The secret sauce is for the two of you to get fired up and wired up together, willing to do anything and sell anything to get this thing off a dead center. You can wander into debt. You cannot wander out.

And you're really trying, but I get the sense that you're carrying 70%, 75% of the weight of this discussion emotionally. And that's what generated the call because you're the one trying to fix it. You're the one trying to get the certification. We didn't call with him getting a certification or him doing extra work or him getting rid of his toy that he bought so that your teenager could have a freaking car while you're broke.

So that's the kind of stuff that I'm hearing all woven into this. And it's not to fuss at you, but the answer to your question is not a simple Hail Mary. If I could just borrow money, if I could just get this certification, which honestly probably won't work. I didn't even ask what it is, but it's probably some scam.

But if it wasn't even that, even if it's legitimate, I don't want this whole thing on you being the only adult or the main adult in this discussion pulling this wagon along by yourself. And sometimes, not sometimes, always, you have to lay on a table. Here's our values, and here's what we –

are willing to do to get this thing done. And it may be, I'm going to go to work for one year and our kids are going to go to school for one year and then we'll get back into this homeschooling thing. But with one year of hard work, you going to work full time, him taking another job on top of the one he's got, y'all can be debt free. And yeah, get a $2,000 car and get rid of the $13,000 motorcycle. But you're going to have to say our values are worth it. And driving around on a motorcycle without health insurance is

I just, I can't think of a less responsible thing a father can do for their kids. It's just not, it's just not wise. It's just not wise. Ask people who work emergency rooms. Yeah. That's what you'll find. That's the one request my father gave me after all the years in emergency rooms. It wasn't, don't do something crazy. It was, please don't ever get a motorcycle. And I said, yes, sir. Like, man. But,

This is the police officer father. Yeah, but you got to get radical, guys. You got to get radical, and he's got to get on board. That's what's happening here, kiddo. You can do this. You can do it. It's possible, but you're ready to turn the notch up, and he's got to be ready to turn the heat up. This is The Ramsey Show.

Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete Me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete Me actually goes in and removes your information.

from data broker websites, and it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information and

When they removed it, how many hours they've saved you. I mean, it is incredible. So detailed and it's beautiful. I love these reports. So far, get this, they've reviewed 27,000 listings on my behalf, removed me from 240 data broker sites and saved me 77 hours of time. It's incredible. Absolutely amazing. And Winston and I now get fewer texts regularly.

weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Listen, I know a lot of you would rather watch paint dry in slow motion

then file your taxes. But thankfully, you don't have to dread filing when you've got Ramsey SmartTax. It comes packed with everything you need to file online before the big deadline. That means all major federal forms and deductions are covered with no hidden fees. Plus, with Ramsey SmartTax, you can save up to 70% compared to other tax software out there. It's a no-brainer. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash smarttax and see how simple tax filing can be. That's ramseysolutions.com slash smarttax.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Joel is with us in Cincinnati. Hi, Joel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Good. How can we help, sir?

So I'm looking to start a consulting business with a friend of mine. We've both been in the industry for over 20 years and we're selling our businesses and we're looking to form a consulting company. And I know you don't and I don't want it to be a partnership. So wondering how else we could structure it. That could be a win-win for both of us. We have similar interests.

views on things, and he has some skill sets that are different than mine, so I think we could make a good team, but I wondered how we could structure it without it being a partnership. Okay, if you took on 100 cases, how many of them would be you only, him only, and how many would be combined because you would need both skill sets? Probably, I would say...

Probably 85 to 90% would be both of us. There would be a few cases where his skill set would be the only thing needed and he would be doing it and a few that I could handle on my own, but most of them would be a joint effort. Because they would need A and B and you have A and he has B.

Yes. Okay. All right. I'm trying to make sure I grasp the business model. All right. That lends itself to where most people would go with a partnership, and I'm always against partnerships. It's the only ship that won't sail is a partnership. And so coaching 10,000 small businesses, the number of them that are still partners 10 years from the start date, other than medical and law, is almost zero. Okay.

Right. They just don't make it a decade for various reasons, and life change, life phase, whatever. One works, one doesn't, all that kind of stuff. So I don't know exactly how to structure this other than to give you an uncomfortable suggestion because it's going to make you flinch when I do it, but I'll go ahead and say it out loud anyway, and that is the more dominant of the two of you own the thing and the other one is the employee.

Okay, I'd thought about that. Yeah. And so an example of that in my case is I have a, you know, I've got 1,100 team members, a $300 million company. Our senior leadership is called an operating board here, and they're the people that all get paid. They're the top leaders. There's 14 of them out of 1,100. They run this company.

as a group with me and my son, the president, and they get paid off the bottom line of the company. They get paid as if they were a partner, and they make very good money, and they should. However, they have zero ownership. The comp structure is they share in the profits of the company as if they were a partner, but they don't own anything. I own it.

So maybe a scenario would be, say, if I say, okay, you know, Jen, you're more dominant. You've got a better vision of where we're going. So you start the LLC. We work together. We still do a 50-50 split on that, but you're going to be the one. Well, or you get paid for your billable hours. He gets paid for his.

Okay. So if you jump into a company and you end up putting $100 in it and he puts $10 in it, they did need a little bit of the B, but they needed more A, or vice versa, then you get paid billable hours and a percentage of profits or something like that. You pool your hours, a percentage of your hours, and make that go to the bottom line and split that up if you want. I don't care. But the actual ownership, who actually is anything with two heads is a monster. The actual ownership is one person or the other.

Because at the end of the day, I can, I almost never do because I run this place on a collaboration basis like it's a partnership in a sense, but with a large number of people. But because I trust their insights and I trust their intelligence and I trust their business acumen and so forth to run this business with and for me.

So I don't really need to go against them all the time. But I do hold the final card. I can play that trump card, that ownership card on top of the deck and win the hand anytime I choose. I do that probably 2% of the time. I doubt, Deloney, I doubt you've ever seen me do it, have you? I wouldn't say that publicly.

Not public. You wouldn't say. I would admit it publicly that I've seen you do that a couple of times. Oh, you have seen me do it a couple of times. Okay. I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know. What in the world does that answer even mean? He's not one of them, by the way. No, I'm not on the board. I'm not on the operating board. I actually like – no, I've never seen Dave –

say this is what's going to happen and if anyone else challenges me you're out of here I've never seen that happen ever I knew that I actually like the billable hours model because the thing that I hear breaks up these tiny teams is I'm working harder than you and so I like you guys building in from day one an incentive structure that is I get paid for the hours I'm putting in and

And that way you can go to sleep at night knowing I had to work extra because you took a three-week vacation instead of a two-week vacation, and I got comped for it. Yeah. And there's some skin in the game. If he chooses to take a three-week vacation, there's some skin in the game. He's not just going to ride off into the sunset on the back of you. But you can also say 80% of the billable hour goes to me and 20% goes in the pool. There you go. And the pool creates profit, and we split the profit.

And so you can create some mix over like that. And that's just a comp design that's different than an ownership design. And what that changes then is the power flow or structure. And then if you decided or he decided that you didn't need to be together anymore, you can quit.

as an employee if you make him the LLC guy, or he could say, I'm going to go a different direction. I don't need any employees, or I don't need this type of employee, and I need you to look for something else. And that's a lot easier breakup than a partnership breakup.

Because now we're selling the copier and the desk that the receptionist sits at to try to break this partnership up and split it right down the middle. And it just gets – it's very difficult to break up. And so I always recommend trying your best to figure out some other way to build it. And usually a comp structure change mentality is a place to do that. And that's what we teach a lot in Entree Leadership. David, is there such thing as a –

I don't know another word for it, a prenup for businesses, for people going into businesses. There's some kind of, I guess you'd draw it up in a contract. You can drop it out if you want in a contract. Yeah, in this case, it would be called a general partnership agreement. Okay. And it would include all what we always call all the Ds. Like if you fire me. So what happens in the event of divorce, death, disability, drug use, default, disinterest. Okay. I always call them the eight Ds, all the bad crap that can happen. Yep. So if you're in a wheelchair.

What happens to your share? Okay. And you can't do this job. You can't do this job anymore. Okay. From a wheelchair. Maybe you can. Maybe you can. Maybe you can't. But I mean, if you lose the ability due to some kind of disability to do the job, obviously, if you die, what happens to your share with your wife? Gotcha. You know, if you start doing cocaine, what are we going to do? Yeah. So it's a default drug use disinterest. I just don't want to do this anymore. That's disinterest. Default is I quit coming to work, but I want my half.

I had a guy do that on me one time. Yeah. Yeah. He was saying we ran a deal together and he just quit coming and then he wanted his half. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-uh, Bubba. That's not how this works. So, but. I would have liked to have been in that room. No, no, you wouldn't. It was not fun. It was still not fun. It was

It was a long time ago. But I just hate that. That's how I learned all this crap is doing it wrong. And so anyway, that's where we get to. So guys, figure out some other way. Two guys. That's two great guys right there. Exactly. And that's the worst. And they're great friends. And it just seems like it's going to work. Yeah. And it's not. Yeah. And they're great friends. They're both great employees. They're both good thinkers. Yeah.

Yeah. And then life happens. Yeah. And, you know, two guys having a beer decide they're going to start a construction company, and here we go. Nope. Don't think so. We've all got a hammer. Let's do it. Well, it's the thing you talk about. You got a hammer. I got a hammer. Let's do it. It's the thing you talk about with –

It's the family, right? It's the wife that says, hey, don't you own this company? We can go another week. And the brother-in-law. Yeah, it's not actually the two guys usually. It's actually some weird cousin. Tangential crap. Yeah, exactly. Exactly what it is. Everything was going good until his kid hit somebody head on and he's been in a lawsuit. Yeah, this is 20 years of hearing these stories. This is The Ramsey Show.

As an investor and a person of faith, when your mutual funds and ETFs put your money into the dark side, you might feel a disturbance. Well,

Well, good news. Timothy Plan offers investments for people who want to be intentional about where their money goes. As the pioneering force in biblically responsible investing, Timothy Plan entered the investment space to offer clean alternatives to secular funds that invest in stuff you'd never willingly expose your family to. And for more than 30 years, Timothy Plan has offered mutual funds and ETFs that won't contradict your values or sabotage your faith. So if

If you're serious about investing with a clear conscience, Timothy Plan could be just what you're searching for. Contact your financial advisor today to see if Timothy Plan is right for you. Or visit timothyplan.com for more information. Investing includes risk, including possible loss of principal. Before investing, carefully consider a fund's investment objective, risks, charges, and expenses contained in the prospectus available at timothyplan.com. Read carefully before investing. Mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners LTD and ETFs distributed by Foresight Fund Services LLC.

Hey, guys, good news. Presale is on now for my new book, Build a Business You Love. If you're a business owner, you know running a business is hard. That's why I wrote this book, to share what we learned over the last 30 years so business owners can grow your business faster with fewer mistakes. Pre-order your copy today, and you'll get access to over $350 in bonus items only at RamseySolutions.com. RamseySolutions.com. Pre-order today.

today. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host. Chris is in Orlando. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, Dave. How are you guys? Better than we deserve, man. What's up in your world? Just calling in and living the dream, man. I love listening to you guys. I grew up with you guys in my household and super cool to be here. Thanks for having us. Well, good to have you. I see on my screen, you're a baby steps millionaire. Tell me about it. What's your net worth?

We're right at 1.1 million. Good for you. And how old are you? I recently turned 30, and my wife is 27. All right. You're young millionaires. So you grew up, I mean, you were like a kid listening to this stuff. How do you get there at 30 freaking years old?

Well, so in our house, debt was a common word. So by the time I got older, I hated the word. So didn't want anything to do with it. I honestly thought you were like a long lost uncle for how much you've been mentioned in our household. So it was awesome. So my parents taught us your principles, but also shared their shortcomings. And it really just gave my brother and I just a tremendous opportunity to

to not make the same mistakes they did. So what's your household income? Well, so we have a business. It brings in about $400,000 a year. I pay myself right around $100,000, $120,000. And my wife recently left her job as a teacher to come work with us full-time, so she works with the business now. Wow. Very good. Good for you. Okay. And what kind of business is it?

It's actually a wedding company. So we do, so funny enough, I'm actually a DJ. So I started off DJing and we grew a wedding company. My wife left being a school teacher to be a coordinator. So now she's able to stay home. We're actually expecting our first baby in September. So is your home paid for?

So it's not paid for yet, and that's something we're working on. We have some liquid cash, and that's the only debt we have right now is the home. So what is the net worth made up of that you made a million-dollar net worth by 30?

Yes, sir. Yeah, it's savings and checking. We have about 550 of liquid cash. And then we have another 6,000 in my wife's savings account. We have about 140,000 in general investments. So like the index funds, mutual funds. Then we have a Roth 401k that we set up for our business. We have about 16 and a half in that. And then my wife as a school teacher, she had a 403b, 30k in that.

And then we have a Roth 401k as well as IRA. So the pattern sounds like that you're a ridiculous saver and you've never borrowed money except the house in your life. That's about right. That's about right. What do you drive?

Okay, so I drive a 2014 Nissan Versa, a 2008 Mustang that needs a new battery. And then I have a, this is for the business, we bought our one new vehicle. We have a 2023 Honda Odyssey minivan. And their wife drives that.

Yeah, well, actually, funny enough, I have adopted the minivan until the Mustang gets the battery fixed. But yes, he does love it. Okay, all right. I mean, because, you know, federal law is wife gets the good car. That's right, that's right. And if I want a happy life, we need to keep it that way. That's it, okay. You're doing great, man. Congratulations. How does it feel to be a millionaire at 30?

You know what? It's liberating, right? It's liberating, but it doesn't feel all that different. I mean, money can go as fast as it comes in. So for me, it's very freeing. We don't have to think about our finances in the same way that you normally would have to in life. We're able to travel and do our thing, but it doesn't really feel that different because I know how fast it can go. That $550,000, how much of that would it take to pay your house off today? About $200,000.

What are you waiting on? What are you doing, man? So that's a good question. So that's kind of like the next thing we're working on. So we actually were...

I'm just trying to make sure that our life is in order for the new baby coming. It's in order. You have $300,000. You have $300,000 left over. Do it today. You're 30 years old and you're a millionaire and you make $400,000 a year. You're in good shape, man. Just get on hold, do it, and then come back on and do a debt-free screen. That old uncle that was in your old house when you were growing up just said pay off your house. Yeah, exactly. Pay it off, dude. You have $500,000 in cash. In your checking account. Yeah.

yeah dude pay it off man today and it calls back in hour three and you can do your death free scream that'd be cool we'll put you on i promise hey congratulations chris well done well done i was curious what these millionaires particularly uh uh young millionaires what they're driving it's very interesting uh you know what the average is is a three-year-old toyota

for just across the board yeah toyota and three of some kind three years old land cruiser whatever tundra whatever yeah taco whatever all that stuff but i mean they're driving some kind of stinking toyota maybe a honda or maybe a camry uh might be a ford f-150 yeah but somewhere in that range is what you get two to three years old that's the typical millionaire what they're driving and um now these are not billionaires these are millionaires

And a million is, you know, a billionaire is a thousand million. Yeah. These aren't a hundred million. These aren't 50 millionaires, right? No, they're, they're, they're not even 10 millionaires. They're one millionaire. That means their net worth, what you own minus what you owe is a million dollars. But for you young parents, um,

I think we just found the formula. Put this show on and just play it over and over for the whole time your children are being raised until they hate my name. Get an old frame and just put Dave's picture in it. This is our uncle. This is the uncle. This is our long-lost grandpa. He went away to the gold mines. We never saw him again. Exactly. Exactly.

He's just hollering about something there in Nashville, Tennessee. He was yelling about something down in a hole somewhere. Exactly. But it's something about debt-free or something. I don't know. I can't wait. One day someone's going to bring their kid on the debt-free stage and be like, Uncle Jay! I think that's really him. We found him.

It's happened before. I kind of worry about it. So that's why we call them financial peace babies. That's what that is. They were raised on financial peace. We don't call them Dave babies because we don't want people to be confused. I just think that would be amazing. Financial peace babies. We had thousands of Dave babies. There's lots of financial peace babies. No Dave babies but three. That's it. America, I'm entrusting you guys to get this thing going.

People have read it. Y'all have come after me for a long time. You can make it up for me right now. Dave babies. No, no. I put at the end on that a long time ago. All right. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. In all seriousness, the beauty of taking a baby, why we call them baby steps millionaires is they became millionaires by following the baby steps. You can become a millionaire a lot of ways.

You just need a net worth. What you own minus what you owe, your assets minus your liabilities, is a million-dollar net worth. That is a better measure of your progress with money than your income because you can make a lot of money and have none. So your income is irrelevant if you don't do something with it. And so, you know, the growth of your net worth is actually the growth of your wealth.

That's the proper measure of your wealth building. And so watching that number and measuring that, we're actually building out a tool. The EveryDollar team is working on it now in beta, and we're going to have a net worth measurement tool built into your EveryDollar budget. So it pops up. And so as you pay off a debt...

Your debt goes down, your net worth goes up. Hey, that's a number that most people don't know. I remember the first time my buddy who works in finance, I said, hey, calculate my net worth for me. And he said, all right. And so we pulled up my bank statements and what I owed. It was negative. Oh, it was red. And-

He still marks that as one of the top three hardest he's ever laughed in his life. I was like, it's negative. And he's like, yeah, dude, you have negative net worth. And I was like, it's going to take five years to get to zero. But it was a hilarious, but I had no idea. I just thought, oh, my net worth's probably about, I just had no idea. That tool would be great. Wow. Just having something there where you look at, these are my investments. These are my debts. These are the things I own. They're assets. These are my debts. And of course, no debt makes it real easy to calculate, right? Yeah.

And so that's how we measure this stuff and how you help you go forward with it. So it's a good thing. And a million-dollar net worth at age 30, which, you know, if it's invested, say, not on a checking account, but maybe something that made 10%, it will double every seven years. So at 37, it'd be two. At 44, it'd be four. At 51, it would be eight.

At 59, it would be 16 million. At 66, it would be 32 million if he never adds anything to it and kept it invested at an average of 10%. That's compound interest. The eighth wonder of the world, Einstein called it. This is The Ramsey Show.

I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you. Join me and Dr. John Deloney for a night that will challenge the way you think about this stuff and possibly change how you live forever.

Starting April 21st, we'll be in Louisville, then on to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Kansas City. Grab your tickets at ramseysolutions.com slash tour before they're gone. Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by YREFI. Feeling stuck with defaulted private student loans?

Y-Refi can reduce your payments, help you get control of your money, and that loan for sure. Take the first step by getting unstuck. Visit Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right, today's question comes from Amber in Maine. Amber writes, I'm a 39-year-old divorced mother of three with an annual income of about $100,000.

I've worked hard to maintain the same lifestyle for my kids that they had before the divorce, so my budget is tight. My 35-year-old boyfriend wants to move in with me. I enjoy his company, but he only makes $40,000 a year and he works fewer hours than I do. He thinks he can't earn more money than he currently does. He's happy to help with cleaning and cooking, but can also be resentful when I ask for help.

He also can't afford a 50-50 financial split, which has me questioning whether I'm being foolish by allowing him to move in, especially when he can't contribute equally. How should we handle finances and household responsibilities, or am I making a mistake by bringing him into my home under these circumstances? Oh, geez, Dave. Dang, man. Yes, Amber, you want to break up with him? Just call it. Just call it.

Yes, please, please, please, please don't let him move into your home. And not because he can't, quote, unquote, earn 50-50 split. It's because the only thing you like about him is his looks. Right. No, I don't even think of that. She didn't even say he's really good looking. She just says, I enjoy his company. I know, I just made that up. There had to be some redeeming value in this guy. I like him sitting next to me on the couch when we're both playing TikTok. I don't think you play TikTok, but anyway. Listen, you don't –

Don't settle and don't have him move in. You don't respect him. You don't love him in that way. You don't want to build a life with him. He's convenient right now and you are very, very much alone. I'd much rather see you get some friends and begin to tackle that part of your life and to stop, um,

Stop guilt budgeting. And what I mean by that is when people get divorced, they often think I've got to keep everything the same because so that way it affects my kids not that much. Listen, your kids have been fully affected. I'd much rather them have that full effect and a mom that's not stressed every month when it comes to money and not considering letting this knucklehead move in, somebody that you don't respect, even love, move in and play house with.

Yeah, don't do that. Let's reimagine the whole thing. But to answer your question, yes, please don't let this guy move in with you. You've done so much to take care of your kids. Don't signal your daughter that settling is a good idea. Don't give her that example. Settling is not a good idea. It's a long freaking life. You settle. Don't do that. And you're definitely doing that here. You're definitely, you know.

You know, I was talking to, I was on a leadership podcast earlier this morning. We're talking about hiring people. A bit of a corollary, but not exactly. It's not the same thing, obviously. But sometimes when we desperately need a job done and we own a company, like I've got this slot that's been open for, you know, four months. We've been trying to find somebody to do this work. We can't find somebody to do this work. Then you get, you tend to get aggravated and you settle.

And you go, I got to put somebody in there for God's sakes. And this guy can fog up a freaking mirror. Let's put him in there. And it never works out. Never. When you settle when you're hiring people. And I understand they're different, but they're the same. Yeah. No, it's – you know in your guts. Yeah. You know in your guts. You're making a mistake. You're going to screw up the organization. And these are long-term mistakes. Yeah. They don't – not undone quickly or easily. And –

The unintended consequence is you're signaling the entire rest of the people that this is who you are when you hire this person. When you let this guy in the house, you're showing your kids that this is all you think you're worth. Or you almost always, in my case, I can think of a couple of hires that, man, golly, I wish I could have them back. And I overrode my team.

Or I can guarantee you these three kids don't super love having this guy around because they can feel that mom doesn't even respect this guy. He's not respectable and you're going to override the kids, right? So you always go against the people in your life when you do stuff like that. Good point. Man, just don't, Amber. Just don't. Amber, we love you and you're worthy of better. Yeah.

For sure. Because you're a rock star. I mean, you're a warrior princess. You're out there making $100K, raising three kids. You're the mama bear fighting your way through the thicket. And, you know, don't put some guy riding your coattails. Oh, my God. No, thank you. You're worth more than that, kiddo. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. Nico is in Newark, New Jersey. Hi, Nico. What's up? Good morning, guys. How you doing? What's up? How can we help?

All right. So I know we talk about debt a lot. I'm doing that right now. I did the first baby step, but that's been done for like years. And you talk about debt and getting rid of it. And I fully understand that. But my question was, there's a few like between you, Graham Norton, and a couple other people that talk about like, just don't have a credit card in general. How can you not have a credit card, but build enough credit to eventually buy a house?

I bought a house within the last year with a credit score of zero. I'm assuming that's what it was. Or it said something like credit not, what is it? Credit not? Yeah, not available. Not available. I have no score. And they do a process called manual underwriting. And it's the way they did it up until just a few years ago where somebody actually looks at, like, dude, you can have $10 million in cash in your checking account and have bad credit.

It has no bearing on how much wealth you have. It's just a marker. Basically, it's like a dating site that tracks how well you've dated in the past and gives you a dating score. It just does that except with debt. That's it. It's your I love debt score. How much have I played kissy face with the bank? Oh, man. That's it. And so it's a pain in the butt. You have to sit down and go through some extra worksheets, and they want to know how much money do you actually have? Do you actually pay bills on time? Yeah.

Are you actually employed? Things that actually matter as to whether they're going to get their money back. So, Nico, I'll add one more thing. We did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. The Ramsey Research Team did. It's about four years ago.

And we ended up studying 10,167 of them. It's a huge, massive study. Detailed, airtight research. Okay? And we asked these millionaires in detail multiple questions to determine how they became millionaires. Did they inherit their money?

Did someone give them their money? Did they win the lotto? Are they professional athletes? Where does money come from? Where does wealth come from in America today? Eighty-nine percent of them did not become millionaires because of inherited money. Okay? That's number one fact. Let me tell you the number out of 10,000 millionaires that we talked to. The number of them that said, the reason I became a millionaire was my credit score is awesome.

How many out of 10,000? Precisely zero. So don't buy a lie from broke people that are going, well, you need to build your credit score, Nico, because that's what all the broke people do. That way we can borrow money up to our freaking eyeballs and we can't breathe, but we have a nice 880 score. We paid $150,000 in interest for this 880 score, and no one gives a crap.

Because I have bought a bunch of stuff with money I don't have to impress people I don't really like. And I have a score that doesn't mean anything except I have given the bank half of my freaking life and I can't breathe because some moron told me a few years ago that I need to get a credit card and build my credit score. That's how it works really, Nico.

Just wouldn't want you to miss out, buddy. Hey, listen, Nico. Opt out of the system, man. Just don't play. Just don't play. Get off the grid. As for me and my house, I'm out. Stay off the grid. Everybody is hurting. Haven't found anybody this works for except Citibank. I'm out. What's in your wallet? Money. I don't have any of your freaking plastic in my wallet. That's what's in my wallet. That's how this works, boys and girls. Oh, my gosh.

Good question, Nico. It's a really good question. Thank you. And thank you for letting me get on my little soapbox. Welcome to our gang, man. Good for me. I need to use this caffeine I have for something. But the truth is that I do not find people among the wealthy who have used credit to get there. How many of you borrowed your way into wealth? None. That's how this works. So don't need a credit score, buddy. What you need is money. Stacked.

and stacked and stacked. That'll work. This is The Ramsey Show.

You're still here? What are you doing? You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right? All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store, or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free. Yep, you heard me right, for free. Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the rest of today's show. Bada bing, bada boom. All right, I'm getting out of here. Enjoy. We'll see you on the app.