The Ramsey Show - App - A Budget Is Not a Straitjacket - It's a Guard Rail (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. You guys jump in and we'll talk about your life and your money. Sam starts off this hour in Indiana. Hi, Sam, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So, my wife and I, we just had a baby here a few months ago, our first one, and after sitting down and looking at our money and our debt and after listening to your show some, I've gotten fairly nervous about, you know, where my financial standing is, and I guess my question is, how do I make a budget and then be able to make myself and my wife, you know, where my financial standing is. And I guess my question is, how do I make a budget and then be able to make myself and my wife, you know, make ourselves stick to it? Okay. It's a good question. Um, the great news about having a baby and congratulations is it makes you get serious about stuff like that and, uh, starting to get your, get your act together on some things. That's very cool. I'm glad y'all are doing that.

Okay, so number one, when you do a budget, it is not a straight jacket. It is you telling you what to do. Okay. Okay, so it's a guardrail. It's don't run off the road. And so you, you, the two of you sit down and say for groceries this month, we want to spend X. And by the way, as a side note, whatever you think you're spending on groceries,

you're spending more. So the first month, go ahead and beef that one up. Okay. But okay. Okay. We're going to spend X on entertainment. Okay.

I'll just make up another 50 bucks. Okay. Okay. We're going to spend X on entertainment. Okay. I'll just make up a number. 50 bucks. Okay. We're just going to put $50 in the entertainment category. And then what you did, you know, the two of you are in agreement that the reason we're limiting our entertainment spending to $50 is so that, and so that's a big deal, we can get control of our money, get out of debt, create a great life for the new baby.

And so the great life for the new baby and change your family tree is the goal, not punishment for entertainment. You see what I'm saying? And so it makes it real easy. It's like when you look at it and you're we're at 40 and to go this movie costs another 30 we don't have that we got 10 left the budget we can't go the movie because we decided that it was more important to straighten our family out for the good of our child than it is for us to entertain our butts off. And so you are limiting you. And then, of course, you write it out, and you keep up with it,

and you track it throughout the month. And the EveryDollar budget will do that for you. Okay. Get that EveryDollar app. It's free, and you can build it in about 10 minutes. That's all it takes. Okay. And you'll be able to, you know that both of you will have it on

your phone and you can look at it and keep up with it and you know just go we don't have that so the answer is you know you have to everyone has a limit on everything a budget is just admitting it because no one has infinite money right and so you know you just say okay at this point we're not going to spend any more because we believe in a bigger goal a more noble goal than simply buying more crap at the grocery store or or i need the shirt that's on sale or whatever it is, right? Right. But then the interesting thing is the things you do spend on, you've given yourself permission to do that so you don't feel weird or guilty about it. Right.

So like my daughter Rachel Cruz, who teaches Ramsey Personality, teaches on budgeting all the time, says a budget is permission to spend. Okay. Because you've said we're going to spend this much on clothes and so as long as you don't go over that amount then you know you feel like you're a hero and you bought clothes instead of like oh god what'd you spend there at the store man you know it's like and but we're on the same page we're working together so you need a good why. You got a good why. It was born the other day.

You have a wonderful why, right? And you need to be on the same page with your spouse and a game plan and then have your guardrails laid out and then stick to them. So very good start. Very good start. Honored to have you in our audience. Tyler is with us in Alabama. Hi, Tyler.

How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I just got a quick question about when you say take 25% of your mortgage, are you talking about your net income or are you talking about income after your 401K and your insurance? Just really curious.

Your take-home pay not counting 401K or insurance, but just after taxes. Okay. And then also, my wife and I are expecting to have children within the next two or three years, and we were curious if it would be smart to take a 30-year if she's expecting to take a year off during that time of the baby. And so it kind of gives us that little bit of leeway in case, you know. No, I would not buy a house on a 30-year mortgage. Okay. Yeah, and I've heard you talk about that,

and I just wanted to make sure that, you know, either way, just stick with the 15. Yeah, and here's the thing. If you're worried about that, just buy less house. Right, right, right, right. You can create a smaller payment by buying less house yes sir so i mean if you're if you're that worried about that and of course the other thing is you build up your you can build up your emergency fund a little bit healthier maybe beyond the normal three to six months because we've got some time that she's going

to be off on fmla when we do start our family and we don't want to get in a pinch. And so, especially like when the baby is actually on the way and it's no longer theory, then at that point, you really could just say, we're going to beef up this emergency fund and get ready for that because we have this 15-year mortgage. Instead of, oh, let's stake out a 30 and promise we'll pay it like a 15 and then we forget to ever do that, which is what people do. Hey, man, thanks for the call. So why is that so hard to guideline? Here's the numbers.

The Federal Trade Commission, I'm sorry, not the Federal, the Federal Reserve did a study on installment loans, including mortgages, and 97.5% of them are not systematically prepaid. So if you take out a 30-year mortgage promising you to pay it like a 15, you have a two and a half percent chance of that happening on average. In other words, you're simply not going to do it. That's just BS. You're BSing yourself. So don't do that. Don't kid yourself and make yourself believe you're going to do that. Now, do debts get prepaid? I said systematically prepaid, which would mean you every month paid a 15-year payment on a 30-year mortgage. That is systematically. No one does it. Two and a half percent of the loans fall in that category. Ninety-seven and a half percent do not. So don't set yourself up to where you have to be in the top two and a half percent

to succeed. That's crazy. Set yourself up to where when you do what you said you're going to do, you win. And it's a whole different thing. Don't try to swim upstream to that degree. You'll lose. I'll lose. I teach this for a living. I don't set myself up where I have to do that. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, right now you have the opportunity to take your business to the next level this new year. You can start by hiring the right people to help your business grow. At Ramsey Solutions, we post on LinkedIn Jobs because they are the best at matching the right person with the right job. LinkedIn Jobs screens candidates with the skills you're looking for

so you can hire smart and fast. The thing I love about LinkedIn is they look beyond just the work skills and put your job post in front of qualified candidates who match your business requirements perfectly. That's how LinkedIn makes sure your job post is seen by the people you want to hire. People with the skills, qualifications, and other interests that will help your business grow. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn. So this year, set your business up to succeed. Get started today and get $50 off your first job post.

Visit LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. That's LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. some of you listen to the show so much you can answer the questions before I do. Some of you are really developing this idea that you'd love to be able to help your friends, your neighbors, your family with this same stuff. If that's you, you need to check out being a Financial Peace University coordinator. It's a great way to change everything. Millions of Americans have decided that 2020 is the year they're going to take control, and you don't have to do it alone.

You can be gazelle intense. You can join a Financial Peace University coordinator, and you can even coordinate a class in your area. You can join a class and get a Financial Peace University membership for $99. That's $30 off the proven plan. To find a class near you, text JOIN to 33789. You can also click leader at 33789 for an FPU coordinator, and you can join and, you know, go through the class yourself and lead it at the same time. You do not have to have been through it to lead it. That's the thing. So, good stuff. All right, Mike is with us. Mike is in New Jersey. Hey, Mike, how are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, Dave. So my wife and I are 30 years old. We just cleared all our debt this past year, about $36,000 in miscellaneous credit cards and cars. And we have our fully funded emergency fund of three to six months. And now I'm realizing that even after doing our 15%, both my wife and I, for our 401Ks, we still have roughly $2,000 to $2,500 extra a month, which is a blessing. And did you say you own a house? Yes, we do, sir.

Okay. Then that would go towards baby steps five and six. Yes. And where I am kind of hung up is I've done the math and I can kind of throw everything extra to the house and have it kind of paid off between six to eight years. Or do I split between maxing out the IRAs and putting, you know, let's say $1,000 extra toward a mortgage? Yeah.

The data that we have from doing the largest study on millionaires ever done says that the typical millionaire, one of the key elements to them reaching that level of wealth is getting a paid-off home. And it's always been our baby step seven for 30 years that we've been teaching it to get baby step six, pay off the house early, seven is you're debt-free and you max everything out. And it's always worked to have people putting 15% of their income into retirement and everything else towards the house. And as soon as the house is gone, all you've got left to do then is invest and be outrageously

generous and have a blast. And so, yeah, that's the route you need to go. And just let's, it sounds like you got a couple grand a month to throw at your baby step six right now. And that's exactly what I would be doing. Hey, man. Thank you. All right.

Sherman is with us in New York. Hey, Sherman, how you. All right, Sherman is with us in New York. Hey, Sherman, how are you? Great, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just have a question about whether or not I should pay off my student loan early with the extra cash that I have. Why wouldn't you? Well, it's got a low percent. It's 3%. What do you make it on your savings? 1%. Yeah, 1%. That's true.

Kind of answered your own question. I guess so. Should I also then use my – I have like $90,000 in cash savings. Wow, way to go. Where'd you get that? Just been saving, saving, saving. How old are you? I'm 43.

Okay. And how much is your student loan debt? It's $9,000 is what's left. Oh, cool. Okay. So you still got $81,000 left. That's true. I just like seeing the numbers grow in that.

Yeah. Well, they'll grow faster now that you don't have a student loan bag bogging you down. That's true uh well with that listen your most powerful wealth building tool is your income you have proven that because even though you suck as an investor and put the money at one percent you still have accumulated almost a hundred grand well done so you've proven that your income is your wealth building tool so let's get that much more of your income back by getting rid of the student loans staying completely debt-free getting debt-free staying debt-free and then build that you know you you need to allocate a portion of this over for an emergency fund and the rest of it you need to start investing do you own a home i? I do. I own a home.

I have $210 left on the mortgage. Okay. What do you make? I make $145. Man, you're doing great. You're doing great. So you probably heard me talk through these baby steps, right? Yeah, yeah.

So that's exactly what I would do is just apply that to your situation. And so that would be debt-free today. How much of the 90 is your emergency fund? Set that aside. Add a crummy rate of return. The rest of it, I'm going to start moving. The rest of that money, let's say we put, I don't know, we put $81,000 left after the student loan, and we put $31,000.

That leaves us $50,000 to do something else with. $30,000 is your emergency fund maybe. I'm just making this up. And so what are you going to do with the $50,000? Well, we're going to walk it up through Baby Steps 4, 5, 6. Do you have kids? I don't. I'm a single guy.

Okay, cool. And so you're going straight to Baby Steps 6 and start paying off this house early. And so what I want you to do, if I were in your shoes, because paid off house is one of the keys to becoming a millionaire. Yeah. paid off house is one of the keys to becoming a millionaire yeah so the the what i want you to start getting as big a high out of watching that mortgage drop as you did this savings account increase okay because it's more conducive to you becoming wealthy than putting money in the savings account at one percent you understand got it yeah yeah because think about it if you make 140 grand you're a single guy who's very disciplined which you are you have done a great job okay because

you don't have to talk anybody into this but you and you're good at talking you into it you don't have to drag some you don't have to drag a spouse along right okay so yeah um you know you you make 145 000 and let's visit you four years from today, and you don't even have a mortgage. Yeah, that would be great. You know how much you could save then? Yeah. Oh, my Lord.

It's going to go bananas. I mean, you'd be saving $10,000 a month. Yeah, that's very true. And, you know, how quick that turns into a several million dollars really quick really quick so let's walk these baby steps out they're there for a reason they're not that they are easy to understand but the implications of them are profound so just because they're easy to grasp doesn't mean they're not sophisticated so let's walk them out man because you're gonna pan you are doing so good and you've got all the ingredients for a guy to just go into a rocket ship as far as wealth building goes

without having to do some high-risk, get-rich-quick crap. Okay? So you really have done great. Good job, good job, good job. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Kay is in California.

Hey, Kay, how are you? Hi, great. So glad to talk to you. You too. My husband, yeah, thanks. We are in baby step seven. Good. And I just turned 50 at the end of 2019, and I'm wondering if I should invest more than 15% to take advantage of the catch-up contributions.

Yes. Okay. All you're doing is investing, and any time we load up a 401k or a Roth IRA or anything, all we're doing is keeping the government's hands off of money. I've been in Baby Step 7 for years. I max out everything I can max out in retirement plans. My 401k is maxed. My Roth IRAs are backdoor Roths, and I do those and anything I can do to keep the stinking government's hands off my money. Okay.

Yeah, definitely do that. Okay, so like figure it out to like maybe maybe a 17 or 20 percent the percentage doesn't matter when you're on baby step 7 15 only applies to baby steps four through six baby step seven is become very wealthy by maxing out everything and be outrageously generous which is more fun than piling up savings, by the way. But you ought to do both. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. I can't believe 2020 is here. If you're paying attention, you're already planning your new budget.

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Hi, Asia. How are you? I'm great. Hi, Dave. Welcome, welcome. Where do you live? I live in Los Angeles, but I'm originally from Hawaii. Ah, all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free screen. I had to. It was so important. Well, we're honored to have you. How much have you paid off? I paid off $200,000 in 23 months.

Whoa! That's radical. I'm tired. And what kind of an income? I started off at about $70,000 and finished off at $250,000. That's a little raise. What do you do for a living? I'm a content creator, so I have a YouTube channel that's lifestyle-based and has been heavily involved into my debt-free journey for the past two years. Okay. So you're pulling that off of YouTube. You've got some serious stuff going on.

YouTube and Instagram, yes. Yeah. Well done. So well done, influencer, obviously. Wow. Excellent numbers. I'm proud of you. Thank you. And so you jacked all of that up during this 24 months uh while you were getting after 23 months while you're getting after two hundred thousand dollars in debt so what kind of debt was this what'd you do i went to school and went to school i went to um it was a small credit card a car loan, and then the rest was undergrad and grad school.

So $180,000 of that was school loans. Wow. So what's your grad in? I have my undergrad in marketing and my master's in broadcast journalism. And you're using your degree. Good for you. Yes, ideally. And making bank with it.

Yes. Well done. Very well done. So what happened 23 months ago? What was the milestone? What was the wake up call? Well, Dave, we have two dogs and one of my dogs had to go into emergency surgery and I couldn't afford it. And while I was in the emergency room, I was watching people having to put down their pets or take out credit card debt to save the lives of their family members. And fortunately, my boyfriend was able to afford the surgery and everything was fine.

But after that, I just couldn't sacrifice my family like that again. So I told my girlfriend, Jen, and she was like, you know what? You need to download Total Money Makeover. And I went to do that and I had already downloaded it, already read it, already highlighted it. And that was probably once I graduated grad school and I didn't apply it at all. So once I realized that. The drive-by shooting. Yeah.

I mean, you didn't even retain it. You forgot you did it. In one ear, out the other. But that was the last time. And then after I read the book a second time, I paid off my credit card debt immediately. Okay. And that started the journey. So as a YouTuber, did you plug into our YouTube stuff too?

Yeah. You had to. It was everything. Long Drives was the podcast. Reread the book. The Debt Free Screams was definitely something that pushed me a lot because I was very close to giving up a couple of times because just doing it, having that amount of debt and pushing it that hard is really frustrating at times. But I had

originally given myself five years to do it and then that got cut down to two. So. Well, because your income shot way up. Yeah. Oddly enough. Very. Yeah. And it wasn't really that you just necessarily, I mean, you were diligent, but it wasn't like you worked that much harder.

Your stuff just caught fire on social media, right? No, I mean, you know, I absolutely. You did work hard. You were diligent. I'm not saying you weren't working. Yeah. I mean, I think what happened was when I started talking about my debt-free journey and how much student loan I had, the very first video I did, it just happened. I vlogged it, and people resonated with it.

Yeah. And after I started reading the comment sections about, you're the only person in my life that talks about this or has the same amount of debt or all that stuff. I thought it was very important for me to continue on that. So since then, for the past two years, every month, I've posted my monthly budget videos. And I share my income. I share my expenses. I share how much I paid off every year for the past two years.

So there's a lot of people who have been very dedicated in watching me get to this point. Um, and yeah, their own little reality show there. Yeah. Let me tell you, there's a lot of tears, but, um, yeah, we, we did it together. Definitely. Yeah. But there's something freeing, um, about being that open about just putting yourself out there. 100%. It holds you accountable because you know you gotta do it I can't disappoint everyone you can't you can't drop the ball but it's also freeing because there's so much shame and condemnation around having screwed up with money and we have a tendency to hide don't we 100% I mean I tell I say this all the time the moment I

owned up to it and shared it I felt a weight lift off of me. Like it was, it was immediate. And just also the process of paying off debt. I've always considered myself to be a fairly confident person, but once I got like a handle on my finances, it's like nothing can compare to the confidence you get once you get your finances in order. What do you tell people the key is? I mean, budgeting. I've never touched a budget before in my life. And just holding yourself accountable and knowing where your money is going.

I mean, you don't realize how quickly a couple lunches out or dinners out can add up and really screw up your budget. But for me, I mean, obviously I had to increase my income. And I did it in a way that I would, since I was very open, there's a lot of people who wanted to help me and be a part of my journey that helped me increase my income as well. So spread the word for you. Yeah, absolutely. Through your channel. So, so very grateful for that. So how many subscribers on, on YouTube? Um, I think about, I have about 430,000. Okay. And Instagram? Instagram, I think almost 170. Good for you. Well done. Yeah. That's a solid platform. Yeah. Hopefully it just continues to

grow. Yeah. Well, you've done a great job with it and it takes work to do all that. It's not just a, it's not an accident to get to that size and to make this kind of income off of it. Thank you. Very well done. Proud of you. Thank you, Dave. Very proud of you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? I mean, just honestly, the community. I was a part of, obviously, the people who tuned into my channel.

Just like I said, I couldn't disappoint them. And a lot of us were going through the same things and just being able to go through the comments section and people had advice to me, people had suggestions and just the stories they told. I, that was definitely the biggest push because you know, social media can be a very scary place. And I think, well, there's all those trolls out there. Yeah. It's very hurtful. And the ones that have really hurt the most saying that my accomplishment is meaningless because of what I do for a living or how much income I have. And those are the things that hurt me the most. But, um, yeah, I mean just everyone, I, since I've been so open about it,

everyone knows and has been, everyone has been very supportive. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Very cool. Good for you. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. That's the next chapter in your story. You're going to be a millionaire. That's so cool. Thank you. Thank you. That's so cool. How old are you? I just turned 33 today. Oh, happy birthday. Thank you. Wow. Very good. Well, your accomplishment is not meaningless. Lots of people make more money and are dumb and do a horrible job with it and so you have you started from 70 and scratched and clawed and hustled and grind your way up and you're making good money but you've done a really good application with the money you've done smart stuff with it not everybody does that lots of people get money and goof up with it and you've uh you've

been very diligent and very responsible. I'm proud of you. Great job. Thank you so much. All right. It's Asia from Los Angeles. $200,000 paid off in 23 months, making $70,000 to $250,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Dream. Three, two, one. I've done free! Oh, well done. That's exactly how it works right there. Very, very well done. Man, that's fabulous. Good for her.

I'll tell you what, you can do anything if you set your mind to it. And it's amazing to me the number of times that people's careers blossom about the time they decide to get smart with money. The Bible says when you're faithful with the little things, then, the key word there, then you will be given more to manage. Ta-da! I present a case study in the last few minutes. When you're faithful with the little things, then, then you'll be given more to manage. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. show. One of my favorite parts of this show is hearing your debt-free screams. You guys are our heroes.

You've kicked debt to the curb and you've saved for the future. Now we want to celebrate with you. If you have lived like no one else and are currently in baby steps four through seven, well, it's time to enjoy some money. And the perfect place to do that is on board our first ever live like no one else cruise in March. That's right, just a couple of months away. But get this, it's not too late to book your cabin.

So don't miss your chance. This Caribbean cruise is going to be an incredible seven days at sea on a stunning new ship with amazing experiences. I'm talking all of our Ramsey personalities and other world-class entertainers. seven days at sea on a stunning new ship with amazing experiences. I'm talking all of our Ramsey personalities and other world-class entertainers. We're stopping in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Turks and Caicos. It's going to be an amazing, debt-free celebration designed just for you. Don't miss the boat. Head over to RamseyCruise.com today to reserve your room. So Aja has grown an incredible YouTube following there with 470,000 subscribers on her site.

That's pretty neat. And 170,000, I think she said, on Instagram. You know, we cheat. I've got this huge platform to launch this from. You know, our YouTube channel is in the top 1% of all YouTube. And so there's, you know, for instance, our channel is about 1.5 million roughly. And our Instagram is about 2 million. But she has done a great job growing that.

That's very, very well done. So we'll promote her here. She did and tracked her story all the way through this. And I didn't meet her until today. That's very neat. Very neat. Her last name is D-A-N-G if you want to look her up. Is that okay? I'll just give her a little promotion because you'll enjoy that. I'm sure I haven't seen it yet, but I'll go look at it too when I get a minute. So good stuff. All right. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Avi is with us. Avi is in New Jersey. Hey, Avi, how are you? Better than I deserve. Thank you so much for taking my call.

My pleasure, sir. How can I help? So this is my first time watching your show live. I was recommended a couple of videos of you in my feed. And after watching your channel, I personally totally disagree with you on everything credit card related. I'm personally 18 years old. I'm a full-time student in college. I've managed to amass a net worth of about $25,000,

excluding birthday money, money my parents have saved for me just from working, investing, and using credit cards responsibly. I personally view credit cards as a great tool that if used responsibly, saves you money.

Because, I mean, when you pay with cash, I was watching some of your videos. Let me stop you a second, okay? I'm supposed to care? What do you mean? You're 18 years old. You have $25,000. Why do I care what you think about money? Because I'm going to be the next generation.

And you're over here telling people that I'm not going to be broke. Yes, you are. Why am I going to be broke? Because you're violating the law of gravity when it comes to money. And you're going to have trouble. No, I'm not. When you pay with cash, you subsidize everyone that pays with the credit card. You go do what you want to do.

When you go be somebody, then we'll argue about it. Right now, you're an 18-year-old kid. I'm not going to argue with you. Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Lori is with us in Georgia. Hi, Lori. How are you?

Hi, Mr. Ramsey. Okay, I'm 59 years old. Two years ago was divorced after a 35-year marriage. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, it was not by my choice. The pension was split that we had $246,000. That's the part I was given. At the same month of the divorce, I suffered a stroke. So I'm on disability right now. My total income from alimony and disability is $1,175 a month. $1,100 a month. Yes, sir. But you've got $250,000 out of the pension.

Yes, sir. Okay. I'm living with my parents right now due to the medical stuff, but I want to proceed with a place to live. My question, and I do not have any debt, my question is would you recommend at my age going ahead and buying a small house, maybe $90,000 to $100,000 apartment or townhouse or condo, putting the rest in an account.

I mean, I know in four years the alimony is going to stop. So, you know, is that wise? Yes, I would pay cash for a conservative. It's very wise. You know, is that wise? Yes, I would pay cash for a conservative. It's very wise. I'd pay cash for a conservative place because that stabilizes your life. Housing is your largest expense, and having that as an unknown variable is scary as crud and mathematically unwise.

So you are very wise to gravitate that way. Very smart on your part. i completely agree with you and um the uh from there you know what i would do is like you said i'd start investing the rest of it how old did you say you are again 59 i'll be 59 this year and what is the uh did Did the stroke leave you incapacitated? It affected the part of my brain that is executive functioning. So I have some short-term memory loss. I had to write down everything I'm saying to you because I knew I might blank out. Yeah, I understand. That's the problem. But I'm working on building.

Is it permanent or is it healing they say it's permanent but um you know some of them don't know our god well i agree with that for sure so i guess what i'm trying what i'm driving towards is what is the propensity or probability that at some point you create an income, or are you going to be on Social Security, disability, and alimony? Alimony stops in five years. I know. So I'm trying to build some sewing business. I'm good at that, so that's my future.

I know it's going to take a while, but that's what I'm hoping to do. I feel like that's something I can do. Yeah. Well, especially if you can control the time frame during, you don't have to engage someone over a long time frame. Like you can get away with this conversation with me on a short term because it's short term. But if this went on for 30 minutes, it starts to strain the processes that you're using. So I think you're very wise and I think you're very brave. I would do exactly what you're talking about. I would invest that about 100 of it in a house and that leaves you about 150 to invest and that'll create you some income. You'll have Social Security disability when alimony runs out in addition to that, and then hopefully you can continue to come up with some kind of, even if it's small, side career thing and do some selling like you're talking about

and create some extra income to go with this. Hey, really good question, and I'm sorry you're facing this. Man, you've had a bad decade here. Wow, ouch. That hurt. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You can jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Curtis is on Instagram. Dave, I've got three credit cards with crazy high interest.

Can I transfer all three of these to a zero card? Sure. I'm freaking out over the interest and how long it'll take to pay them. Good. I'm glad you're freaking out. But here's the thing. The interest rate is not your problem. Zero interest does not make the debt go away.

What makes it go away is you cutting your budget down to nothing and increasing your income and throwing the difference at the debt. The interest rate is really not your problem as much as it is getting on a really, really tight budget, getting your income up, your expenses down, throwing the difference at your debt. List your debts, all of them, not counting your home, smallest to largest. Pay minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack the little one with a vengeance. And that'll change everything for you. That'll get you moving.

But yeah, it's good to be aware if you're in the middle of something stupid instead of actually defending stupidity, which is ridiculous. So, you know, if you're being stupid and you're not aware, that'll get you, okay? But if you're being stupid and you're aware, then you can turn it around. I've been stupid plenty of times in my life. There's a lot of dumb things I have done, and I was only able to turn around when I became aware. So I don't want you to be stressed or freaked out or have high anxiety, but I like that you're emotionally upset for your good,

because cleaning this mess up becomes a priority when you're emotionally upset. So you've done a really, you know, it's a good thing. You know, you've had the wake-up call and you answered the call. You're like, I don't want to live like this anymore. I'm going to clean this mess up. I'm going to change this. And so that's exactly what I would do. So, hey, man, thanks for following us on Instagram, Curtis.

We appreciate it. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniels, our associate producer and phone screener. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be right back. I'm Dave Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for the show. You know you can listen or watch anywhere with the Dave Ramsey Show app on your smartphone. Catch the full show or watch the highlights and check out Dave's upcoming guests. Head to the App Store and download it today.