A 50-Year-Old Mom Forgot She Had A Tech Stock —Turns Out It's Worth $18 Million, Dave Ramsey Warns, 'Don't Keep All Your Eggs In One Basket'

Most people forget where they put their keys. This mom forgot where she parked her stock account — and when she finally logged in, there were $18 million reasons to pay attention.

A 50-year-old homeschooling mother called into “The Ramsey Show” with a very unrelatable problem: “I had some stocks that were underwater… totally forgot I even had them,” she told Dave Ramsey. “A couple years ago it just went crazy… I have up to about $18 million right now.”

The tech stocks were part of an old employee benefit from over 20 years ago. She left the company when she was pregnant with her first child and never looked back — literally. “I actually didn’t even know where my stock was,” she said, admitting it took her digging through old accounts just to locate it. “It was completely underwater and I just filed it away somewhere.”

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Fast forward to today, and what was once a $14-per-share investment — with multiple stock splits since — now has her feeling nervous. “It’s all tied up in one stock, which makes me a little nervous,” she said. Despite the windfall, she hasn’t changed her lifestyle. The family still lives on her husband’s single tech salary, around $250,000 a year. She’s never done much online investing and is now left wondering how to manage the money.

Ramsey didn’t waste time pointing out the obvious risk — holding $18 million in a single stock isn’t just unusual, it’s dangerous. He brought up the classic expression about baskets and eggs, noting the importance of spreading money out to avoid disaster.

“It used to be $3, and it could be that again,” he warned. “The concept of diversification gives you safety. Not having all your eggs in one basket — you’ve probably heard that, right?”

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He didn’t stop there. Ramsey urged her to start offloading some of the stock, even if slowly. “Common sense says we need to get some of this off the table — the faster the better,” he said. But he also emphasized doing it the smart way, not all at once, and not without a strategy.

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But the real issue is the tax headache. With a household income under $400,000, she’s looking at a 15% capital gains tax rate. But if she sells too much stock in one year and crosses the $583,000 income threshold (for married filing jointly), that jumps to 20%.

So, how much can she safely sell each year without triggering the higher tax rate? Not much. “If you only cash out $300,000 a year, you’re never going to get diversified,” Ramsey said. “You’d have to live to be 300 years old to move it all.”

That’s where the hard question comes in: Would you give up $200,000 in taxes just to move $1 million out of a single stock and sleep better at night? Ramsey says yes — if it were him.

“I would rather have the safety than I would the extra 20%,” he told her. “Would you rather have $14 million diversified or $18 million undiversified?”

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Still, he advised against doing anything drastic. “Don’t be in a rush,” he said. “Get with a SmartVestor Pro. Get with a tax ELP. Learn about the taxes. Learn about the investing. Congratulations.”

In other words: great problem to have — but don’t wing it. Even if it takes giving the IRS a bite, better that than letting one tech stock hold your entire future hostage.

While Ramsey preaches diversification as a way to sleep at night, not everyone in the investing world agrees. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime partner, once said, “Diversification is a rule for those who don’t know anything.” Mark Cuban echoed a similar sentiment, saying diversification is “for idiots” who don’t know what they’re doing. So while the advice to spread things out is mainstream — especially for everyday investors — some of the most successful outliers have made fortunes by going all-in on what they know.

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