The Ramsey Show - App - A Powerful Generosity Story (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

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Music 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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Sarah is with us, and Sarah's in Pennsylvania. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. It's such an honor to talk to you. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Okay. I really appreciate you and all you do. So just a short, brief background. My fiance and I, we're getting married in about eight months or so. We're very blessed. We went to college for free. Right now, I'm currently paying for nurse practitioner graduate school out of pocket.

And so we're in SPU. So in about the past eight months, I've been with a gazelle in Pennsylvania and I paid off over 20,000 in debt, which was my graduate schooling and my car. Wow. Yeah. And so I sat down and I talked to my fiance, Zach.

He's so wonderful. And I got him to I talked to my fiance, Zach. He's so wonderful. And I got him to trade in his, um, new truck, which he had $40,000 left on. He traded in for a car and now he has 10,000 on it, which knocked a bunch more off for us. Um, so I guess my main question is, um, so I am currently in baby steps four and he is still on baby steps two. Should I work on saving up for a down payment for a house that I know we want to buy after we get married? Because we are currently both renting. Or should I save up and throw my savings at his car after we get married? Like, because we want the house, we want to pay off the car.

But I don't know. Like, do I focus on my stuff for the next eight months, or do I prepare to help him? Well, my stuff sounds like saving for a house, right? Yeah, correct. Okay, so that's also our stuff. Okay. And so what I would just tell you to do is your own on baby step three, beyond baby step three. You finished it. And so I would just pile up cash so that when you come home from the honeymoon, you write a check and pay off any debt he has.

And we are then debt free. And if there's any cash left above that, that starts your hour down payment fund for our new home purchase. You notice the words I'm changing? Yeah. After married is we and our. Until until then it's yours and mine okay and just keep it keep it separate but you are anticipating the joining and combining of your finances in eight months and so we're gonna you know we're just gonna get ready for that with a big pile of cash on your side. You're going to pay off all of his debts that are remaining.

He's also going to be beating on those debts during that eight months, I'm sure. He is, yes. We are taking an extra waiting, waitressing job this summer. Good, good. Okay, well, you guys are after it. I mean, you've got a really solid, very intentional, you've combed through the tangles, you really see the details of the plan, and all of that is an indicator you're really to really solid, very intentional. You've combed through the tangles. You really see the details of the plan. And all of that is an indicator you're really, really going to win.

Just don't cross the line of doing each other's stuff until you're married, but be ready to completely combine everything as soon as you get home from the honeymoon. And that's then we are on baby step 3B, saving for a house, when we come home from the honeymoon and write a check for any of his remaining debts above the emergency fund. Okay? Okay, yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. That helps a lot.

Perfect. You got it lined out. Well done, kiddo. Very well done. All right. Charlie is with us in Michigan. Hi, Charlie. How are you?

Doing great, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm 22 years old. I'm maybe step three. Recently graduated college. And I have a health insurance question for you. I have two options with the new

open enrollment period, and I can either stay on my parent's health insurance plan and pay them $1,000 a year, or I can start an HSA through my employer. I'm young, healthy, and they'll put in $7,000 a year, or I can start an HSA through my employer. I'm young, healthy, and they'll put in $750 a year. It costs what a year? They'll put in $750 a year, my company will. Oh, that's into the savings plan.

How much does the premium cost? $2,500. Okay. Okay. Coverage is similar between the two plans? Yes, both are great health insurance plans. Okay, then we would take the cheaper one, $1,000 versus $2,500. Okay, so stay in my parents' health insurance and just pay them.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that at all. Not only is it legal, but it's just a matter of where you're getting the best possible deal for health insurance. And right now, that's pretty substantial. $2,500 sounds awfully rich for an HSA on a 23-year-old. That's $200 a month for a single person. On our plan, that would be $80 inside our company. So it sounds high. Are you sure you've got that number right?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'll have to go back and double-check, but I think I may just stay on my parents' plan. Well, does that include you saving money in the HSA, or is that just the health insurance premium? I think that would include the saving. Okay, now that would make sense. Okay.

Okay. Now, so what I would do is compare the two health insurance plans, not counting the savings issue, and say, what does mom and dad's plan cost? Well, it's $83 a month, okay? What does the Hsa health insurance cost and you don't need to do the savings portion of the hsa when you're in baby step three you need to be finishing up your emergency fund and you would skip the uh savings portion if you have a medical event you'd have

your emergency fund to cover it and i don't want money in the hsa even if they match in the savings side at this stage of the game. And so it's not a discussion. We match $500 for hours here, and the vast majority of our team is in the HSA plan, and a whole bunch of 23- to 28-year-old single people in a very similar decision-making process that you're in. And so that's how I would advise you if you worked here and you were on my team or you were one of my own kids or something. So I think you want to compare the insurance against the insurance.

That's the big thing. Let's make sure we do that, and that will set you up for where you want to be. Hey, thanks for the call, man. Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Randall is on Twitter. Dave, I know you're no fan of home warranties. That's true.

How do you feel about asking the seller to purchase a one-year warranty for the buyer at closing? Well, anything you get for free is not hard to do. Just make sure they're not building it into the price. I mean, if you go back with a counteroffer on a property and they raise the price based on the fact you're asking them to purchase a home warranty for you, I think you just paid for the home warranty and the price of the house increase. And so just be careful. But if you've got the price locked down, and then they'll throw in,

or you can get them to throw in the home warranty, without an increase in price as a result of them doing that, well, that would be free. I'm not against free home warranties. I just wouldn't buy one. So free is never a bad thing. Just make sure that it's not resulting in a higher price on the home for you. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs.

Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry. A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Well, Christmas is around the corner now. And you know, I love Christmas because I love generosity.

I love inspiring people to be generous. I love being generous. Generous people are, well, they make you smile. Sometimes generous people make our eyes leak, don't they? I love being around generous stuff and generous humans. Sometimes a small gift or a small act of kindness can actually create a huge impact on friends or family or your community. And then years and years later, that person is still giving as a result of you having changed their life because they remember that.

It's the butterfly effect of generosity. We call it the generosity effect. And we're collecting stories on the generosity effect. If you have a story about the time someone was generous to you or you were generous to someone and then you kind of got to see the effect of it that it didn't just stop there because it always goes further generosity outrageous generosity done well changes the shape of things, lives and relationships and everything else. And so if you have a story, email me at DaveOnAir, DaveOnAir, one word, no dashes, no spaces, DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com.

Put generosity or the generosity effect in the subject line. Kelly will get back to you because we're going to begin all through the Christmas season featuring some of these generosity stories, just to remind all of us how that is supposed to go. And we're actually going to start with that today. Brian and Kimberly are with us from Little Rock, Arkansas, with a generosity effect story. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing well. How are you, Dave? Good. Tell me your story, guys. All right. So our generosity story starts when we first went through FPU in the eight months

leading up to it. We were blessed with twin baby boys and that took on a lot of medical expenses. And then shortly after, my wife took a $21,000 pay cut. She had a job change. Of course. And then daycare increased 1,000 a month. And then my sister, who was paying half our rent, moved out. So our rent essentially doubled. So our expenses went up and income went down and it just made the perfect storm.

We walked into FPU with $274,711 of non-mortgage debt. We were behind on seven credit cards, two months behind on both of our cars, five weeks behind on daycare, and our gas had just been shut off. After the debt video, the coordinator asked if anybody wanted to cut up our cards. My wife and I didn't. We were at a point where we were paying on our other credit cards, and after it posted, we would use it to buy groceries, gas, and baby essentials, and we both knew that we should have, and so we talked and prayed about it the rest of the week, and God gave me this verse, Nahum 1.7. It says, the Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him. He said he said bro i can't do in your

finances what i want to because you have a plan b i only operate when i'm the only option so my wife and i decided we were no longer using our credit cards and we were going to cut them up the next class well the day before class we we ran out of diapers and i didn't get paid for for two more days and all i had was four dollars in my account, a $2 coupon and a, had a gift card that I found. Um, I had enough credit to get somebody, but I'd sworn them off.

And so I sat 20 minutes in the Kroger parking lot, just crying cause I couldn't get my family something that they needed. And, uh, I felt like a hypocrite too, because my occupation is I'm an accountant and I graduated with a 4.0 and was working for an auditor of a large firm. And on top of that, my wife and I would take home six figures and here I am scraping together all I could to buy diapers. So I went in and got the smallest pack, went to the self-checkout line because I was embarrassed about how I was about to pay for these, and rang up 836.

And I took my account down to a penny, and I scanned the coupon, but it didn't take. So I called the attendant over, and she said, these are for baby wipes, they're not for diapers. My heart just sank. She looked at me and said, this boy's a mess. She overrode the coupon, and I used the gift card for the remaining amount. I walked out that day with a bag of diapers and pennies to my name. My wife and I went to class the next day, got up in front of everybody and cut up 28 credit cards. After the class, the leaders came up to us and said, hey, some other life groups at our church like to bless the FPU group, and we have something for you.

I said, okay. So we followed them into the lobby of New Life Church in Maumelle, and there on the counter, somebody had bought a pack of 104 diapers for us. Wow. I just cried. Yeah. I couldn't believe it no that's powerful exactly the same thing you were trying to buy two days before yeah yeah that's just got god written all over it doesn't it yes sir and you know when you think

about it if you make six figures it's a freaking pack of diapers. I mean, it's a pack of diapers, you know? But it turns into a whole obedience setting up God to show up through someone else's generosity, and a pack of diapers turns into a spiritual experience. Yes, sir. That's powerful. Now we've knocked off 40,000, and we are on our third class as if you're coordinators. Thanks, Rich. And I suspect now necessities come out first, right?

Oh, yeah. And how old are the twins now? They are two now. Wow. Growing like weeds. Wow. So this is a two-year-old story approximately. Yes, sir.

Wow. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, I suspect $230,000 from now you will be always seeing young couples with new babies come across your path with God appointments. Probably for the rest of your life you'll get to buy some diapers. No doubt. Yeah, and be a blessing. Way to go, man. Very cool. So Kim, are you guys doing well now? Yes, sir. A whole lot

better since that story started. I can imagine. You got around in front of the necessities and start taking those out first because you made enough to cover this stuff you were just out of control right yes sir wow a way to go you guys very proud of you and thanks for leading financial peace university and uh thanks for uh sharing that story because it is very interesting how obedience is um tied to blessing and is tied to generosity and how many times that's happened in my life and i bet you there's a whole bunch of people listening right now going oh yeah oh yeah about the time i surrendered is when he shows up oh yeah in his weakness we are made strong oh yeah i yeah. I get this. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of people nodding out there all across America.

Thanks, guys. Thanks for sharing that. Truly a generosity effect. And the generosity effect is that they will have the opportunity to give away packs of diapers the rest of their life. We had people do stuff for us and different things. When we were so broke, we couldn't pay attention and scared like they are and tears run down our face over something basic like that and um so that tends to be how people then intersect our lives personally when god's tapping us on the shoulder and going uh here's a generous moment for you so it ends up spreading generosity spreads

it never ends with the person that is given to. It almost never ends there. Sometimes there's a toxic situation, but most of the time it just begins there, and especially when it's something tangible like that. So share your generosity effect story with us at DaveOnAir at DaveRamsey.com, and we're going to feature these stories like Brian Kim's. In the coming weeks and coming days, you're going to hear more of these because this sets me up for Christmas, and it sets you up for Christmas. It reminds us that attending a store with a bunch of angry, frustrated people fighting over a big screen is not Christmas.

It's not what this is. And so, I don't mind you buying some stuff for Christmas. I'm not at war with consumerism. I just want to remember the reason for the season. And I'm going to help you do the same. And if you don't want to, I understand. You won't enjoy the show for the next couple of months this is the dave ramsey show Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Michael is with us in Georgia. Hey, Michael, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Dave, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Dave, I afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Dave, I got a question for you. I've been an independent contractor now for about 19 years, and 19 years ago, I set up a SEP plan. Good. And that's what I've been contributing to all

these years. But my question is, Dave, is that I know that other colleagues have done different things, such as like solo 401ks and so forth. And I've not done any research lately, but is there a better retirement plan for someone like me? I'm just a one-person sole prop. I don't hire anybody. I'm not going to be. It's just me, myself, and I. But I just wondered if there was another retirement plan out there that I should be considering because I plan on working probably another 20, 25 years.

Yeah. The Solo 401K is pretty similar to the SEP. Either one you can do in a roth and you should be from this point forward doing roth on it um and the the sep is calculated on your net profits which basically you probably don't have a lot of expenses you probably just contract labor right that's correct and so my sep ends up being my biggest deduction, Dave, but that's what I wanted to solve. I wouldn't do it as a deduction.

I would do it as a Roth from this point forward. I'm not worried about the deduction. I'm worried about how much money we can get into a retirement plan that we like into good mutual funds. I assume your SEP's in good mutual funds. That's correct, yes, sir. It's invested with Vanguard. Okay, all right.

Well, what I would do is probably sit down with SmartVestor Pro and look at the details of the options. There's really three that you could do. The Solo 401K, you could do a simple IRA, which is a 401K for small business, very similar to the Solo 401K, and then there's the SEP. And is your home paid off yet? Yes, sir, it is. Okay, so you're a Baby Step 7 guy, and you're loading up whatever you can load up.

You might be able to do both. And that would put a whole bunch of money into a Roth plan. That would be killer if you want to keep the government's hands off the growth from this point forward. You just need to balance it out with how much you've got in there now, how much longer you're going to work, what you need when you want to start drawing down on these funds, and that kind of a thing. But the simple 401k is really good for even someone that has two or three, five employees. That's the first thing I did. I did a SEP first, and then when I started hiring people, I couldn't do the SEP anymore because I had to give the same percentage of

their income into their plan as I did on mine, and that gets really rich fast. And so I just backed off of that, and we went to a simple IRA, which is basically a 401k for small business, but you're required to do a 3% match for employees. You don't have employees, so you don't have that problem. And you might be able to get another $19,000 in that way in addition to the SEP. I don't think they cancel each other out. I'm not positive, but it may be that the answer is both. So holler at one of our SmartVestor pros and let them look at the investment options you're using and then the structure around it, and that would be whether to do a simple a solo

um i know you can't do a simple and a solo because they're both 401ks okay so you do one of the other it's probably the solo is going to be best for you if you can get 19 000 in that way plus put money into the sep that'd be rowdy because you got that much more going in and that would be rowdy because you've got that much more going in, and that would be very fun, very fun. So just click SmartVestor at DaveRamsey.com. It'll drop down a list of the SmartVestor pros that we recommend. They don't work for me, but they're people that we have vetted to have the heart of a teacher. Sit down with them and see if you learn something.

That means they've got the heart of a teacher if you learn something when you met with them. And if you learn something that's valuable to you, then you're going to see the advantage of having an advisor in your life as well, which I have an advisor in my life, and I teach this stuff. So it's not a shameful thing to do that. So check all that out, and I think you can probably do both, and I would look into that.

If not, then you would just compare the benefits of each one, which one you can get the most money into in Baby Step 7 is where I would probably go. Hey, neat question, and congratulations on your success. You've done very well. John's with us in Michigan. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, Mr. Ramsey. I appreciate you taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So long story short, we were in month 15 of baby step two. We paid off about $83,000 so far and about $30,000 left. So, there's finally some light at the end of the tunnel. The reason I wanted to call you today, while I was doing some cleaning this past weekend, I found some old savings bonds that my wife's grandfather gave her when she was young. We tucked them away and completely forgot about them.

Wondered if I should cash those in early before they hit their final maturity date. Okay, there we go. The deal is they are accruing interest at whatever the savings bond, whichever version of savings bond that is at that rate, and every one of those rates suck. And so you're talking about a very low interest rate that it's accruing interest between now and maturity and the only reason maturity is there is you finally got there you know that's all it is and so you know you've got whatever money and

so in a sense you're loaning money out at three percent while you have 18 credit card debt right and that's what the savings bonds are. I hate savings bonds. I mean, they used to be called patriotic back in the day and all that. But, yeah, who wants to finance the stuff this government does? Give me a break, you know. So, I mean, we're not supporting World War II anymore, you know. So it's not there, and I don't really need to.

The government doesn't need my money. They need to take less of my money is what they need to do. So, yeah, I'd cash those things out in a heartbeat. Also, I don't like them because of what happened with you guys. People forget they have them, and they lose them. And then they find them in a lockbox 60 years later, and they made a whole 3% for 60 years. Because it's not top of mind. It's not in front of you, and it's not a financial instrument that causes you to be responsible with it people completely lose them and the money's just gone forever because they forgot

they even had them now if you have lost them you can jump online and there's a dot gov site that really helps you you know pick them out and you can actually get them recovered that way or get new ones printed off or whatever because they've got the records of your ownership if they've not yet been cashed in but most people just forget them they're just gone they buried them in the backyard they put them in a shoebox in the back of the closet and just like you did it takes you a while to find them yes cash them in that's the answer christy's with us in texas hey christy how are you i'm doing just fine how are you doing better than i deserve how can i help well i have an unusual question for you.

My son is 18 years old, and he's determined to do the debt-free thing. We were trying the other day to go on to Equifax TransUnion, and I forget the other one right now, and freeze his accounts. But the good thing is he doesn't have accounts. The bad thing is because he doesn't have accounts, they said there's no way to freeze him. So what does he do in this case to protect himself from someone else using his name and ID? Well, it's a catch-22, okay? You can actually open an account with these goobs without having credit.

You just give them your name, information, social security number, and they show you up as no credit score, indeterminable credit score. The bad news is then you have an account with them, and they sell your names to people, and they do all this, and you have to put all these marketing blocks on it and freeze it and everything else. So if you want to freeze it, it's okay to do that. The thing is this.

Freezing it only stops identity theft if the organization that is going to do the lending actually checks credit. So let me give you an example. Three out of ten credit card acceptances actually check credit the other seven are approved and we're not even sure you're alive or not sure you're not a dog they approve them carte blanche so only three out of times would they check it if they check it and they found it froze with an identity thief using your information that's fine if they don't check it they're going froze with an identity thief using your information, that's fine. If they don't check it, they're going to issue the identity thief the card, even if your credit was frozen. And they do it all the time.

That's where all this crap comes from. And that's what these thieves are counting on is the inefficiency and incompetence of the credit card industry. Oh, don't get me started. Oh, please don't get me started. Oh, please do get me started. I could take a whole segment on that. But yeah, so I don't get me started. Oh, please don't get me started. Oh, please do get me started. I could take a whole segment on that. But, yeah, so I don't know.

It's a catch-22. I might just stay off the grid if I was him. I kind of like being off the grid. It's kind of a hillbilly redneck thing. I like being off the grid. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Jessica's with us in Florida. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I was hoping to get some of your feedback. My husband and I feel that it's been put on our heart to relocate and move to a different state. Some people think that we may be a little too gazelle intense because we are self-employed, and we were hoping

that you could advise us. Okay why where would you be moving and why? Well we would like to move to Tennessee just to kind of have a different lifestyle change and slow down and that sort of thing. Okay. And so you're self-employed. What kind of business do you own? We do pressure cleaning. Okay. And so you would come to Tennessee and start a business from the scratch doing that? We possibly could. My husband's starting to get older,

so we were going to look into a different line of work as well.'s starting to get what a little bit older oh okay how old is he uh he's almost 40 oh god i don't know how he makes it um okay the older i get the younger that sounds. Let's see. So he's thinking about changing his career and moving, and how will you all eat while you're doing all that? Well, we're working on baby step three at this point, and then we've done some research as far as what our house would sell for down here. So we could basically sell easily anywhere from $425 to $450,

and then we could go up there and buy something outright in the, say, like $250 range, and then it would launch us pretty much through the steps. Okay. And where do you live in Florida? Boca Raton. Okay. All right do you live in Florida? Boca Raton. Okay. All right. And is your home paid for? It's not. We have $104 left on the mortgage. Okay. So you would have some money to survive after you paid cash for a house in Tennessee,

but you don't yet have figured out exactly what you're going to do after that money runs out. Yes. It's kind of scary because we do have an established business down here. We make pretty good money with a lot of commercial accounts. Yeah, what's he make? Well, our business last year pulled in about $205,000. A lot of pressure. We definitely increased that this year.

How many guys do you have working for him? We are a team of four. Yeah, okay. So, well, I mean, I don't care if you move. I'm still not figuring out what the difference in pace of life in Tennessee and in Florida is. You could have a slow pace of life in Florida if you just chose it okay so I don't mind I like Tennessee I live here it's my home state I

love Tennessee but I I you know uh what is it you're looking for we uh what we we don't know that you can actually do pressure washing for very long. I don't care. Hire somebody else. You're making $200,000. Quit pressure washing. Let people that work for you do the pressure washing and point at it and go, hit that. Yes, sir.

It's actually pretty hard to get reliable people down here. It's hard to get reliable people anywhere. It's part of business okay yes i mean there's not that listen there's no difference in tennessee in that i can just tell you i mean there's people that that aren't smart enough to follow through and do what you tell them to do anywhere and there's people that care deeply and are wonderful people and have great character and big hearts anywhere the the goal in business and one of the most time-consuming thing in business is getting the thoroughbreds on your team and the donkeys off

and it's just it's a full i don't care if you're publishing books or you're pressure washing it's still the same thing and so um i work on it every day here. So, I mean, okay, I don't mind you moving into Tennessee. I'm still not telling you not to. I still don't know what is benefiting you except that you're walking away from a business because he's tired of actually doing the work, and all he needs to do is hire one more person and not do the physical work anymore and actually be the leader and the business owner and delegate all the actual physical labor and quit doing it you might make a little less profit but all of a sudden you kind of got a better life and you could actually build you could actually build up i'm sorry you could build up two or three

squads of guys and gals going out and pressure washing once you learn how to lead squads rather than actually doing the work you're learning to work on your business rather than just in your business either way if you don't want to do the business anymore that's fine but i don't know how coming to tennessee slows you down that's not a state issue does that make sense yes it does Boca Raton cost of real estate versus most areas of Tennessee, not the county I live in, but the rest of them, you probably could make the move you're talking about. But the, you know, so I'm okay if you want to make the move. Again, I'm a big proponent of the state of Tennessee.

I love it here. So that's fine. I just want you to think through exactly what you're going to get. And the thing I don't like about your plan is you don't have a plan for a career. And you need to fill that – you need to color that page in before you tear that page out of the coloring book and go. So before we come to Tennessee, we need to know what it is we're going to be doing in Tennessee. And I don't care if you open another pressure washing place and you hire all the labor to do the hard work and you stand back and watch and lead, which is what I think the answer to your equation is probably.

But if you want to start some other kind of business, that's fine. But coming up here and burning through your equity because you don't have an income-producing idea in place before you made the move and you said it was on my heart to move to Tennessee. That's a good way to lose $100,000. So, no, you need something to be doing when you come here. Don't run from something. Run to something. And that will make this okay.

But I think you guys need to dig deep, because you still – I talked to you for six minutes now, and you still can't tell me why. You know why? Because you don't know why. You don't know what it is that the problem is. You guys really need to get out on the back porch with a cup of coffee and an open Bible in your lap and start praying and talking to God and talking to each other and going, why is it that we are unsettled here?

And what is it we're hoping to find in Tennessee, the land of milk and honey, when we get there? And, you know, how are we going to be better? And is it just the equity in the house? The only positive thing I heard in the whole story was the equity in the house deal. Expensive real estate to less expensive real estate move. Both states don't have an income tax. Both states have a good economy.

Both states are fairly low tax base in general. So in terms of operating financially, reasonable cost of living, Boca is more expensive than most any area of Tennessee, with the exception of Williamson County. The county that we're in south of Nashville is the 11th wealthiest county in the United States right now. And the cost of real estate is nuts. So other than that, the rest of the area is fairly reasonable.

Downtown Nashville has lost its mind, too, because it's gotten all hipster and popular and all this stuff. And so people are paying outrageous prices for that. And you can't get around down there anyway. The traffic's so bad. But anyway, yeah, the rest of the thing, it's all good. I mean, you move to Knoxville, you're going to have no trouble with your plan you move that you know outskirts of memphis you have no trouble with your plan and that kind of stuff you certainly move into a rural area in tennessee no trouble with your plan except you need a freaking income when you get here

and that's the trouble with your plan hope that helps just trying to think through it with you but that's that's what's happening here open phones at 888-825-5225 charlie on twitter does baby step one double for a couple or stay the same no it stays the same it's a thousand dollars it's a temporary thing charlie you're going to get out of the baby step one's a thousand dollars say baby step two is pay off all your debt except your home 90 of the people working our plan are debt-free except their home inside of two years. And then you go on to baby step three and build your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. So this is a 12 to a 24-month play that we're dealing with here. And if it's a little scary, that's good.

It makes it go go that's how it goes you know it makes you a little bit of fear that goes with that makes you run hard and get yourself out of debt which is the plan here that puts us out of the dave ramsey show in the books This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration, subscribe today.