For some people, watching the stock market is like doom-scrolling with a 401(k). The gains never feel high enough, and every red arrow is a five-alarm fire. And for one caller on "The Ramsey Show," the obsession got so bad, he finally asked: Do I even need to invest in the stock market at all?
That was the title of the segment — "Do I Really Need to Invest in the Stock Market?" — and the question came from David, a 53-year-old caller from Charlotte, North Carolina. By most standards, he was doing everything right. He and his wife had followed Dave Ramsey's "Baby Steps" for years. Their primary home was paid off. So was their rental property. He had a successful business, IRAs, and a Roth. But there was one thing he just couldn't get a handle on: keeping his money in the market.
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"I have made many mistakes pulling it out, putting it back in," he admitted. "It's cost us a lot of money… I want to watch it every day. Multiple times."
It sounded less like investing and more like surveillance.
The problem, he explained, wasn't that he didn't believe in investing. It was that he couldn't stay invested. Every dip sent him into panic mode, and every rally tempted him to time the top. It was a pattern he knew was hurting him — he said himself that if he'd just left the money alone, he would've had far more in his accounts — but he couldn't stop looking.
Ramsey didn't dance around it.
"If you are 100% gonna jump in and out of it," he said, "stop doing it. Just stop… and go buy some real estate."
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Ramsey told him there's no rule that says you have to invest in the market. But the deeper issue wasn't about strategy — it was about fear. "This is an intellectual exercise," Ramsey said. "Learning something new that you don't know today."
To illustrate his point, Ramsey shared that he owns a mutual fund with an 80-year history and an average annual return of 12.2%. "That's more safe than your rental house," he said, "statistically, mathematically." But the key was being able to internalize that — to trust the history the same way many people trust housing, simply because they're more familiar with it.
That emotional comfort, Ramsey said, often comes from the tangible. You can touch a house. You can drive past your rental. You've seen what it's worth over the years. But the market? It flashes green and red and makes people feel like they're losing money in real time — even when they're not.
"We become emotionally comfortable with real estate because we're familiar with its history," Ramsey explained. "We grew up with it."
The market, he added, works similarly — if you let it. "You should be able to do the same thing with the stock market," Ramsey told the caller. But if you can't — if it keeps pulling you off course — then real estate might be the better path.
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Ramsey made one thing especially clear: the only people who get hurt on the roller coaster are the ones who jump off early. That's what the caller had done, repeatedly — and he was paying for it.
Warren Buffett, legendary investor and longtime champion of index funds, has warned about this exact behavior. "Some people are more subject to fear than others," he said at a 2020 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. Buffett has also famously said that if you can't handle seeing your stock portfolio drop by 50%, you probably shouldn't own stocks at all. For him, long-term investing requires not just patience, but emotional stamina.
And fear, Ramsey noted, often comes from not understanding what you're dealing with. "Knowledge gives you calmness," he said. The more you learn, the less scary it feels. But until then, if market swings are keeping you up at night, maybe it's time to step off the ride — before you jump off the edge.
For some, that may mean putting money into real estate they can actually see. For others, it could be investing through platforms like Arrived, where people can buy fractional shares of rental properties for as little as $100. This gives them the ability to earn passive income without having to become landlords themselves. Not everyone wants to deal with busted plumbing and 2 a.m. tenant calls.
Whether you lean toward bricks or brokers, it may be worth consulting a trusted financial advisor — especially if you're losing sleep over where your money's parked. The best investment plan isn't just about what earns the most. It's about what keeps you invested in the first place.
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