The Ramsey Show - App - A Proven Plan Beats A Quick Fix Every Time

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

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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. George Camel, number one, bestselling author, host of the George Camel show, a big hit on Ramsey Network YouTube. Be sure and check him out. He's my co-host, AAA 8255-225, is the number here. Laurie is in Oregon. Hi, Lori, how are you?

I am doing very well. Thank you, and thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? well um question my husband's 71 and he owns his own business and still working and he probably always will um i'm 69 and i retired about four years ago after 30 years with a local government agency and i receive a small pension and social security um we have about 500k in savings which would be CDs and high interest, just savings accounts. And we have about $700K in our retirement funds.

And we own our own home, which is worth about $400K. Way to go. Thank you. Look at you retiring a millionaire. I am so proud of both of us. You did really well. I assume you started with nothing and you did not inherit this. that's correct good for you um i only had come across you in the last year but the amazing thing

was i grew up mostly with my grandma who had exactly the same advice as you so i followed her advice and found that you gave the same exact advice gods and grandma's ways of handling money it's called common sense you know i think you've bottled common sense but we've worked really hard. We have one son who is now an attorney. He worked his way through college and law school. We helped him with what he couldn't quite afford. So he graduated several years ago, and he's been an attorney for two years now with no debt also. We're very proud of him. Well, you guys have done a great job, Lori. How can we help today? Well, my question is, We have the 500,000 in CDs that will be coming due here at the end of the year and in the spring.

We're getting about 5% on those certificates. My question is, should we shift those over to the market? Yes. Okay. That's what I was thinking. What should we be keeping in our emergency fund and our liquid fund? Three to six months of expenses plus money for anything you're wanting to buy. Okay.

If you're getting ready to buy a car, you're getting ready to go on that trip you've saved for your whole life. You're getting ready to do something expensive and you need to set aside some money for that plus your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. I want you to sit down with a smart vester pro. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com, click on SmartVestor, if you don't have a good advisor and have someone teach you about the kinds of mutual funds you can park this in. And I want you to do it sooner rather than later. I personally was online with my guy this morning moving some money, making sure I got it into the market because I looked up and I had too much sitting like you did in a money market and high yield and I didn't want to do that. Because here's the thing, if you make four or five percent and you could have been making 12 or 15 percent,

that means you're losing 10%, which on 500,000, is you missed out on 50 grand. That's what I was looking at also. So the one thing, my dream trip, when I turn 70 next year, I would like to go to Australia. You need to go. It's a wonderful trip. And they're wonderful people. I love the Australians. And I was looking at the expenses.

I've never been on a cruise, and I've never been quite that far away from home. My question is, can we afford that? You can't afford not to do it. You have to do this. You've done such a wonderful job. Honey, the difference in this conversation, investing this money versus high yield, will pay for the trip. Oh, okay. I didn't think of it that way.

I did. I mean, 50 grand is a great trip to Australia. You can stay anywhere, do anything. You can have a private butler with you. Yeah, it'll be great. And it won't cost you, but a percentage of a percentage of your net worth. So you're going to be fine. You have done such a good job.

I want you to enjoy your money as well as be generous with your money, as well as continuing to be wise with your money. You've done just, you've just done wonderful. I do not. And, you know, I want you to start planning that trip. today and look at some of the high-end cruise lines don't you cheap out on me girl okay get the nice stuff don't go on the walmart cruise okay i mean we're talking we're talking the big dog the big dog here the northstrom cruise or whatever it is right david has graduated over the years and you've done

nicer nicer and nicer cruise lines and nicer and nicer trips i i got to tell you if you want to travel well you travel with me because i'm not going to go that way anyway i'm not doing it anymore the hard part's getting in it falls under the heading of life is too short and i'm right right behind her in age. So there we go. So, I mean, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. This is the live like no one else. So, I mean, if you're 70 and you've got a couple million dollars or a million and a half dollars, folks, you're okay. And your house is paid for. You're in great shape. And look at it this way. You might have 10 years of good health. You might have 15. You might have 20 years of good health. But so when someone asks you a question like, should you do this? this, the answer is, why wouldn't I? You've done it. You've worked all your life to get here. You lived like no one else, and so now you live like no one else. Why wouldn't I? And I'm hanging on this subject with this caller, George, because I want all of those 23-year-olds that are listening

and watching us to grasp that this is the payoff. This is how it really works. You can't wait on the government to tax billionaires to make you rich. That's called socialism. It's never made anyone rich except the people running the place and so what makes people rich is what she did and what her husband did and there's the payoff okay and you don't even have to wait until you're this old to do it but you know if you do the stuff we teach you're going to be right where they are and more and you get to do this this is the they are the poster children for uh hardly children, but poster children for live like no one else, and later you can live and give like no one else. And I was discussing some generosity with a friend of mine this morning that

we're talking about doing this, kind of outrageous. And it's just a lot of fun, George. Yeah, this is the healthy side of yolo. You only live once. This is what you hear from young people. Well, now, Lori, we're going, Lori, you only live once. Use this wealth now. You've done such a great job building it. Now you're in the de-accumulation where you can enjoy some of it. And after you finish with Australia, you need to try New Zealand. It's neat too. So just while you're down there running around upside down, you might as well hang out or make plans to go back the next summer. I don't care.

You're going to love it. And again, I have gone to all over the world countries that I didn't even know their names when I was growing up. And I find the nicest people everywhere I go. This world is full of wonderful people. There's a lot of great folks out there. I find very few countries that I just go. This place stinks. These people stink.

I don't want to go back. There's very few of those. You know, very few. Good to have you. How can we help? Hey, so I got to call myself down a little bit. I've been listening to the show. pretty much nonstop. I'm a janitor, so I have hours and hours and hours with

the podcast. I've been binging your guys' stuff in the last couple of weeks. Wow. Thank you. My main question, yeah. My main question, we are wanting to potentially sell our house. We're just kind of starting the baby steps, though, so I'm like really into, I want to pay off your debt. I want to get this emergency funds set up and stuff first. But my wife, you know, It's been really emotional kind of with her. We got four kids at home. She's doing all the homeschooling and kind of trying to take care of everything.

And it's not really a house that she wants to be in. So in my mind, I'm very logical trying to think like, hey, we could do this in like the next two years. But I also see our house value has gone up like $100,000. It's probably worth about three, 305. We bought it for like $219. And I've got about just under $200,000 left on it. Um, and, but the other thing is we've also got a lot of new housing being built in the area. So I'm not quite sure how that's going to affect their housing, uh, price and if that's going to go up in the next few years.

And if waiting a little while, she would, um, they're not building houses in your price range. Your house is going to go skyrocketing in the next few years. Okay. Yeah. The new houses are more, the new houses are more expensive. Okay. So it's definitely, we can, we can expect a, uh, uh, uh, increase. Yes. Okay. That's what I was thinking. And that's kind of what I was looking for. And as I've been walking my wife through this and kind of saying like, hey, this is what our budget looks like and this is how much money we've got. We've already stopped their retirement. So I'm bringing in about a thousand, a little extra a month. And then I just started doing

Dolphash on the side. Cool. How much debt have you got? We've got about $31,000. There's about $5,000 in credit card debt. I can have that paid off very easily by the end of the year. And then part of this question also, was that I have $26,000 on our siting on our house. Like, right, when we got in, there was a contractor, door-to-door person was like, hey, we can do your siting, your windows. And I was like, well, there's a couple holes in the siding. It probably hasn't been replaced in the last 20 years.

So, sure, let's do that. So I actually wasn't sure if that would qualify as debt that would be paid off in step two, or if we should. What's your household income? I'm making, for my janitorial job, about $64,000. I bring about $4,000 a month just recently, since I stopped all the extra payments and stuff. Good for you. About $4,000 a month, and then.

I'd love to see you plow through it. The way we decide if something is real estate debt or if it's baby step two is if the second mortgage, in this case, the siting loan, is more than half your annual. income. This is right close, so it's kind of on the bubble. So as far as I'm concerned, you could throw it either direction, but I'd prefer if I were you to be clear of it as soon as possible. I mean, if you can clear, you can clear debt at what, two grand a month? We haven't. We just kind of started messing around with the every dollar budget. I've got the free version. We're just kind of dinking around. And I'm thinking that it'd probably

be closer to 1,000, maybe 1,200. I don't think we could clear the 2,000. Okay. But we might be able to get started. I want to aim that way. And, you know, if you don't clear it before you sell the house, that's fine. If you want to sell the house, you want to move up in-house. That's what you're telling me.

Are you sure you can afford that? Well, actually, my wife is wanting to move down to Oregon. So that's another conversation that we're trying to have right now. That's a completely different twist on what. we were talking about. So are the house going to be more expensive, the same or less? We would probably go down because right now, I think our mortgage, we got a 30-year first-time homebuyers thing. We got P&I. If you're going down in mortgage, there's nothing stopping you from doing it immediately. Okay. Do you mean there's nothing stopping me from selling the house?

Yeah, and moving to Oregon. If you're going down in... I'm sorry? I'm sorry? That's a You wouldn't make the same in a janitorial job over there? Yeah, so I work as a government contract. So the thing that's stopping you is you have to find a job in Oregon. That's the thing that's stopping you. Okay, so if you had that, if you had that lined up, so I'm going to start looking for that and make her dreams come true. Because it also is congruent with, you know, clearing all these debts,

because the sighting will be paid when you sell the house. You pay off the other thing by Christmas, And so it might be spring. You have found the job and you put the house on the market and make your move in the spring. So maybe six months. All right. That's a lot faster than I was expecting. Well, I mean, it's all has to do with you having housing that is the same or less price and you're having a job.

And you'll have, you know, the fees are associated closing costs, realtor fees, plus you're going to pay down the debt. So you won't have as much to put down on the next as you might think. So that might be another piece of the puzzle to solve. That might mean we're going to delay this for six months. or a year it's not going to happen tomorrow yeah but I and the other thing is right now I hear you very excited about doing this stuff and I'm excited that you're excited she's at home fighting the bear with four kids she ain't excited right now yeah it's been it's been growing on her a little bit and I think she's been asking to have a budget date for a while

yeah so talk about where where this takes us before you talk about how we get there talk about why before you talk about how talk about why until she finally says i agree with why now how do we do that and then we start talking about what the sacrifices look like to get to the winning to go across the finishing line it's a dream day so we get the why and then we go okay what must be true now let's reverse engineer it to figure out how we get there well i need a job making this much yeah but i mean i do stuff like he's doing i and that is i find something and i get on it and I go down the rabbit hole and I binge. You know, I'm going to learn everything there's no about it.

And then I've got 73,000 hours invested in this subject. And my wife has 73 minutes. And then I expect her to understand what I'm saying and why I'm excited. And so I have to go all the way back to the beginning and say, why I got excited about this and then talk about what it means. But oftentimes if you get excited and you start coming, you go, honey, I got this great plan. We're going to sell your car.

That doesn't work. Okay. That doesn't work at all. Coming in a little strong there. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a problem. So, Jordan, thank you for being a new listener. Hang on. We will set you up with the every dollar premium version so you and your wife can accomplish these goals. It sounds like you will do it. Again, it's got to do with a career move as much as anything here and start working on it. Yeah. You know, you can find something. There's no reason you can't get a good job. In today's world, it's very doable.

What are your parameters, Dave, for when someone should sell a house in order to pay off debt? If they like the house, almost never, because unless the house is like a 50% of your take-home pay or something, you can't afford it. So if the mortgage is far too much and there's no... If the mortgage is reasonable and they like the house, usually the house is not the problem. I would prefer to plow through the debt. Now, if you're facing bankruptcy because you've got so much debt and the sale of the house clears up all that debt and you don't have to file bankruptcy, well, obviously. you're going to do that or if the house if you hate the house in her case she hates the house she's trapped in a small house with four kids homeschooling and she wants out of dodge oh

add to that she wants to go to Oregon ah so there's a whole other thing family and all that the draw with the kids and get back to grandma all that kind of stuff so uh that's all tied in so this house is not something they want or at least she wants anyway he's willing to sit there for a minute if it means if it's the best way but the best there's no reason to stay in this house yeah they don't like it and they're ready to move to another state and everything else and so yeah it's not a bad thing it's part of a bigger plan you're doing it for the right reasons not just well because part of it is we see people just sell the house but then no behavior change happens exactly just to get out of jail free card exactly and even if you wanted to sell the

house and it has that effect that's dangerous because you need to build the muscles And the calluses. Because those bad decisions can come back into debt. Yeah. I'll never go. You've got to be pissed about this stuff or you'll go back in debt because it's too prevalent. It's too pervasive. Everybody thinks you're weird when you're dead free because you're not broke anymore like they are.

James is in Atlantic City. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have recently moved to Atlantic City, maybe about seven months ago. I came from a small town, had no casinos, had no access to gambling where else from. And since then, I have picked up a pretty nasty habit of going to casinos. In the past couple of months, I'd say less than two months, maybe six weeks or so.

I've lost about $45,000 to $55,000 of my money, basically everything that I have. It started small, started with little bets, $25 here and there, going out with some of my new friends that I met in town, and then all of a sudden, before I know it, I was going out alone. Betts went up to $100 a night, and then $500 a night, and then next thing, you know, I'm going in $2,000, $5,000 a night, and over the course of maybe a week and a half, I really lost a big chunk and I tried to chase it and then over the past maybe three weeks or so I've lost everything. James, I'm sorry.

How old are you, honey? Just turned 25. Pretty scary to be this out of control, isn't it? Yep. What's really kind of scary for me too is I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do anything at all. I live a fully sober life. I don't do anything else.

I've never had an addiction to anything, never used nicotine, nothing. So first real addiction I think I've ever felt. Yeah. Well, you're feeling one. There's no question. I mean, you have all the symptoms anyway of somebody who's in the throes of that. You mean, you're watching yourself almost an out-of-body experience do life-destroying things and still do them anyway. That's the sign of an addict, right? Yep. And what's really crazy to me is it's like I black out whenever I go. I don't even, it just feels like I'm not even myself. And then the second I leave. the casinos it feels like I'm kind of back and I realize what I did are you are you working yeah I am what do you earn sir about a hundred and twenty a year doing what I own a business okay good good all right um well if I woke up in your shoes is how we answer questions on this show George and I are not PhD in counseling like Dr. John Deloney who's on with us from time

the time. But sadly, for 30 years, I've dealt with addicts and because 100% of addicts eventually have financial trouble. And so I'm afraid I've gotten to know something about this the hard way just by working with a lot of folks struggling with this. So that's the basis I'm answering the question on. So I'm not telling you I'm a clinical expert. I'm not. I'm just a practical expert because I've dealt with so many people in your situation. So if I woke up in your shoes. What would I do? I would do three things immediately as soon as you hang up the phone. Okay. One, I would find gamblers anonymous in your area and contact them. G.A. It's Alcoholics Anonymous for Gamblers, 12-step program. Okay. And they have probably one of the better results of helping

people with this than anybody out there. Number two, I would find a coach or a counselor. a therapist in the area that you can meet with one-on-one, and you make enough money to afford to meet with someone one-on-one, and you need to start meeting with them immediately you are in crisis. Okay? They got to give you language for the way your brain is functioning, so you can learn how both of those places will help you with that, so you can learn how to navigate your way away from this.

Okay. Now, you move to Atlantic City to open this business? No, I've been there for here and there and then I guess you could say yes technically But I didn't move there to open it specifically It just kind of happened that way Okay, what is your business It is electronics

What's that mean? So selling, fixing phones, computers Basically anything If you don't Have success doing those two things and the third one I'm going to tell you is find a good church in your area and start developing relationships with good men that are not hanging out in casinos okay if those three things together gamblers anonymous a therapist and a good church and revitalizing or causing for

the first time your spiritual awakening inside of you that's going to be part of your healing process if you can't get those three things together to work you have to move away from the casinos I live in Nashville there's not any here a big problem I've been really having recently is a like life has just become not fun anymore like daily things or I don't I don't get the level of excitement that I need from anything it's it's a false narrative because the what happens is that anytime you're in an add addictive feedback loop the the addicts mind says the only fun thing is when I'm doing the addiction

and so everything else is boring you're chasing that high and so you always need the newer better crazier high and that's what happened in your situation so you're going to need to replace those habits with other things that are healthier do you have any hobbies currently uh not not anymore i mean i used to be into sports and uh backgrounds from i had a lot of friends but since i've moved up here i don't really know many people yeah you've got to rebuild you got to rebuild a uh a friend group intentionally as a part of this healing that is not going to casinos because you do become who you hang around with you notice that right uh it definitely and then they push me i mean the friends i go with they bet big money so it kind of pushes me to to you know yeah you feel like a wimp when you're

dropping 10 and they're dropping 100 yep or they're dropping 100 or they're dropping a thousand and you're dropping 100 whatever it is but yeah how you feel like a wimp and that the true the opposite is true I'm the biggest wimp of all if that's the case because I can walk through those places and watch other people lose money all day long doesn't bother me a bit I'm not I don't feel pressured at all to join the parade of bodies

created by these things and you know I'll throw out one of a piece of information James will you do those three things for me to take care of James yes and something I've already done as well is Atlantic City has a government funded trying to think of the way to phrase this

It's like a, kind of like a GA almost. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know anything about the inner workings of that or if it's successful, but I'm always suspect when the Fox says, oh, to the hen house, here's how you fix it. You know, it's funded by the gambling people. I mean, I'm not saying it's nefarious. I don't think it is. I think it's well-meaning.

But it's also a reaction to they had to do something because the PR around the number of lives they're destroying is pretty incredible. And so they had to sell, well, if you have a gambling problem, dial 1-800, I've got a gambling problem. And they put that after all the Fanduel ads now. After Fanduel made about $80 billion a minute off of people just like you. And so it just pisses me off. But yeah, I'm, that's a good, that's not a bad move, but it can't be your only move. Yeah. And then on top of that, there might need to be some guardrails around your, your bank accounts and your finances to stop you from doing something rash and spending a lot of money. That might mean putting limits on your bank account so you can't spend over a certain amount

or if you have a trusted friend that can keep you accountable. That's going to really help with this just to remove you. Right now you need more friction stopping you from doing the thing. So as much friction as we can add, removing apps stopping you. I know there's some apps out there that can help with that as well as I was looking this up, Gamban, Bet Blocker. There's all kinds of things out there that can help. But it's the one, which one are you actually going to stick with and do?

That's the question. At the bottom line is, yeah, what's, oh, man, yesterday, scarcity loop. Oh, yeah. Read Scarcity Loop by Michael Yesterday. And it's a good book. It's worth reading. And any of you that are just interested in this subject, it's a full unpacking of how the feedback loop works in the brain on several different things. And Scarcity Brain, Michael Easter?

Scarcity Brain, thank you. And I called him yesterday. Sorry, Michael. God, mighty. Familiar. Yeah, Michael Easter, thank you. I know him, and he's been here and been on the show, been on stage with us. And I should have known his name.

I apologize, Michael. Yeah, he's brilliant. My brain couldn't. Scarcity brain. But it talks about this idea that we chase what we think is scarce. And the gambling addict is the primary thing that covers and that he gets, into in this book and it's pretty it's very interesting read yeah the good news is mike uh james is young enough that he's going to recover from this and it'll just be a giant stupid tax hopefully he looks back on yeah yeah

you'll i lost fifty dollars in one night when i was 21 playing a hand of poker i didn't know how to play last time i played wow that was 45 years ago that's the hot stuff once said never again my addiction lasted one night short-lived If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free every dollar trainings. There's new trainings every week this month, and they're always hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities. George, when's your next one?

I think I've got one next week or week after that, and we got Jade and Rachel up in the meantime. All right, depending on one basis of party. That's right. I'm on baby watch. There we go. So depending on that. They may have to fill in for you. So we're going to show you how to stick to a budget.

And typically people find thousands of dollars, around $10,000 worth of margin using every dollar. So you can get out of debt, start building wealth. And you can ask us any question during the live Q&A, and it's really lively. You're going to enjoy it. Sign up for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. Stacey's in Texas. Hi, Stacey. How are you?

Good. How are you? Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question about what to do about my car. I am desperate need to get rid of it. The car payment is astronomical, and the interest rate is astronomical.

And I'm trying to decide if I can do like a voluntary repossession. How bad that would be on my credit? Because I'm about $20,000 upside down. Did you trade negative equity from the other deal into this one? Yes. Okay. because typically a car won't lose that much unless it's a huge expensive car. So, okay, what kind of car is it?

It's a Hyundai Palisade, 2024. Oh, geez, okay. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and what do you owe on it? 57. 57?

5-7. And you think it's worth 37. Yes, if that. Why? More like 34 or 5. Why? Because I've had it appraised, I guess you could say, at different places to see what I could get for it. So you went to dealers and asked them what they would give you for it?

Basically, yeah. Well, I also went to, yeah, to different car laws. That's a wholesale, okay? That means they're going to buy it at a price that they can make money on it. And so that tells me that if you look this up on Kelly Blue Book, KBB.com, and look at private sale. to sell it to an individual, that price is between wholesale and retail. It's between what a dealer will ask for it versus what a dealer will give for it, okay? Yeah.

So my guess is that it was about 42. Yeah, that's more, yeah. And I'm thinking maybe like 43 or 45 is what I was getting ready to say. So I'm making that up, but just based on the percentages of what it usually is. Yeah, I'm seeing 41, 44 on here, just looking them up, what they're actually selling for in the market right now, used. Yeah. Okay. So that leaves you more like, so if you got 44 or 43 for it, that leaves you more like 13,000 in the hall.

Yeah. And what is your interest rate? 8%. 8%. Okay. I know. It's so bad. Okay.

And so do you have any money? Not really. What's not really meant? Not really means. Means you have something you don't want to tell me about. What is it? No. I mean, I have all kinds of debt.

I have all kinds of debt. And I have other, I have other, you know, I have credit card debt. I have student loan debt. How much other debt do you have? About $70,000. I have $10,000 in credit card, $60,000 in student loan debt. Okay. And another $10 and something else?

Yeah, and on negative equity loan. Oh. Well, it's more like an unsecured loan. Okay. All right. And what do you make a year? $60,000. Okay.

And you don't have any money, literally. Well, I mean, I have like $2,000. Okay, that's what I was asking. That's, I was hoping you had something. Okay, good. Yeah. And you're apparently the language you're using, you're single? Actually, I am married, but my husband doesn't, he has, his finances are not with mine.

Okay. And thus we have part of the problem. Yeah. So does he have any money? He has lots of money. Okay. He has all kinds of money. He makes $15,000 a month.

Okay. Then we don't have a money problem. We have a marriage problem. Correct. Okay. So that's how we're going to solve the car problem. We're going to solve the core problem that caused the car problem. The car problem is a symptom.

It's not the problem. The credit card debts and the other loans are a symptom. You're trying to act like you have a rich roommate instead of a husband. He's trying to act like he has a poor roommate, instead of a wife. Right. While you go out here trying to exist and run around doing things that are killing you, he makes plenty of money to have bought a car.

This is ridiculous. Is his name on any of the debts? No, because he had had an affair, and he left for a year. So that's why I'm in so much debt, because he left and he didn't pay for anything while he was gone. So I had to get a car, and I didn't have any credit at the time to speak of. So I just got, and that's why my interest rate was so high. high and so I just was it's kind of like desperate measures and so when he came back but you had

another car at the time you just upgraded during the time he was gone yeah because my other car was breaking down and so was your heart yeah um yeah yeah so he came back you let him come back tell me about so how's the overall relationship thing are y'all seeing a therapist or how you working through that. We were. It's a very shallow relationship. If I try to talk to him about money, he says it's my problem. Um, and I try to ask him about the car and he's like, you got yourself into it. You have to get yourself out of it. So, um, there's really no forward progress on any of that. Um, you guys need to be seeing a therapist and you guys need to be moving towards healing or towards ending this. And then you figure out what you're going to do from this point forward.

because this is um all of this is the backdrop for some really sad bad decisions on your part because you were desperate you were scared you were heartbroken you weren't thinking clearly and a car dealer ate your lunch right and so um that that's the back but the backdrop is is that you're actually better than the person who went in there and let that happen but you were You're at a weakest moment. Yeah. So we've got to get rid of the weakest moments, and that's him. So either this marriage starts healing or he's going away.

Yes. Yeah, that's where we're at. Yeah. But, yeah, and I just don't know, because my card payment is so high, and I just don't, I want so badly to get out of debt, and I just cannot. I don't want to get out of debt bad enough to do a deal with the devil. So he's either coming to the table, we're going to combine our finances, and we're going to dream about living.

living a life together, and that includes him cleaning up the mess that he's partly caused. And he'll have to clean up eventually. I mean, whether it's through a divorce or otherwise, this is going to become his problem. Yeah. How long have you been married? 12 years. Yeah. Well, I think he's going to discover the Texas law is going to give you some of his 15,000 a month.

It's called alimony. Yes. So he's getting ready to learn some things about how things work if this doesn't get fixed. There's a lot of reason here to fix it. For some reason, he came back. So there's some part of him that wants this to go to get better, but part of it getting better is a holistic healing of your overall relationship. And then that fixes your car problem. If that doesn't happen, then, you know, then you've got a car problem that we don't know what to do with.

I will talk about the other parts of it, but I don't want you to, I don't want you to, 2% of this call is your car 98% is your marriage okay okay and that that makes your life good 10 years from today not your car being fixed problem okay so that that I want you to love I want you to hear me loving you that way okay so the um if you're upside down you've got three choices um one is pay it down uh two is borrow the difference and sell it from your credit union or from a credit card and I would rather you have $13,000 in debt than $57,000 in debt and get a hoopty to drive for a while and yeah, if it breaks down, fix it, shut up. Okay. That's probably what's going to happen. The second thing that can happen is you just earn enough by working like

a crazy person to pay it down and get it under control so you can get it sold. And the third thing is a voluntary repo. Don't do that for two reasons. One is it trashes your credit. I'm not all about you building your credit, but it trashes it. And two, you lose control what they sell it for, and they're going to sue you for the difference. So they're going to sell that car for $30,000 and come after you for $30,000 of a deficit with repo fees and everything on there. Instead, you could be $13,000 in the hole. So voluntary repo is a really bad plan.

I wouldn't voluntary repo ever. I would just make them take it if they're going to take it. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, number one bestselling. author Ramsey personality. George Camel is my co-host. Courtney is in New York. Hi, Courtney. How are you? Hi, good afternoon. I'm well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question today is regarding what is the best way to pay down on my debts. Really, they seem big. They seem huge. They seem like it's nothing that I'm ever going to be able to pay down in my life. um the debts that i have and my husband um combined i have my own student loan debt which is around

two hundred thousand dollars we have a house together which is also around 200 000 left that we owe and i also have a car payment that sits at 20 22 000 and like i said it just seems and who's the doctor or the lawyer i'm actually an athletic trainer and my husband is a mechanic you're an athletic trainer, a personal trainer? No, not quite, a little bit different, but more like a physical therapist that works with sports teams. Sports teams, yep, emergency care, emergency response. And you paid $200,000 for that degree?

Yes, I did. And what do you earn? I earn $76,000 a year before investments, and taxes before investments come out yes okay and your husband your husband makes what as a mechanic as a mechanic yep he makes around 66,000 a year all right and um so we're dealing with $140,000 worth of income and um uh 200,000 our house 22,000 our car you said he has debt too he doesn't the only debt he has really is the house that we have together okay so your only debt is a car student loans in your mortgage yes sir okay all right and what part of new york are you in

i've just got new york on my screen yeah um um actually north of syracuse okay okay cool all right thank god you didn't tell me manhattan okay um no uh so good so you got a good income right and um so do you have opportunity to do some side hustles using your degree, your field, like personal training and other things? Absolutely. Okay. How much can you add to your income if you turn that up? If I were to, I mean, at one point right out of college, I was doing an extra 20 hours a week,

and I could bring in an extra $1,500, if not a little bit more. Yeah, okay. So you could bring in $1,500 a week. A week? Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Which is $6,000 a month, which is almost what you make now. Right. So doubling my income. Yeah. And your husband obviously can do some side stuff. Absolutely. How many kids do you have? We don't.

We have a dog. Okay. Great. Bad news for the dog. Nobody's going to be home for a while. Leave some food and toys out. So the bad news is you've got this hole, the good news is you're trying to shovel it with a shovel half the size that you've owned. You have another shovel the same size in the closet.

And so you're going to, both of you have the ability to double your household income for a short period of time and use that to clean the mess up. I mean, if we start throwing $100,000 a year at debt, I think your debt's going to go away, don't you? Yes. And that just means that for the next two years, you're going to work all the time, and you'll be debt-free. Right. It doesn't seem that simple, but I guess it is. There's another part to it, and that part is living on a written budget, a detailed plan that helps you execute tactically the concept of living on nothing, making a big extra pile of money, and throwing everything in the house after we buy some food. food, some basic food. We're not eating out. We ain't got time to eat out. We're working all the

time. And we're not going on vacation. We ain't got time to go on vacation. We're working all the time until we get this mess cleaned up. You've been out of college, what, five years? Yep. Yeah, good guess, Dave, like you've done this before. And so I don't want you to go another five years and still be sitting here because you didn't address this. Right. I want you to get after it. Like, in your work, world, your world, the good news about your world is you have been formally trained in systems and processes that create transformation. Right.

And that's what I'm giving you. So your brain already functions the way we teach. And one of the things you know, if you have an athlete come in or a doughboy come in with a dad bod off the street, you, you, you, you have. know that the best thing you can do is to shock the system not to try to do this gradually over 10 years right and that's what I'm giving you shock the system and get it over with rip the band-aid off don't pull it off one hair at a time yeah and that means all guns are pointed to the debt which means no investing we're going to pause all the investments stop all

anything a hundred percent focus like your freaking life depends on it on this debt and that's the formula that we have seen transform people's lives when they buy into that and the weird thing is the more progress you start making the more excited you get the more hopeful you are much like if you were coaching someone and they started dropping weight and they started seeing their bench press go up they started seeing their endurance on the treadmill go up they started seeing the results of their hard work, then they lean in even harder. You know what the kind I'm talking about? Mm-hmm.

Same thing. Same thing's going to happen to you. But it comes from the singular focus. You can't sort of kind of do it. You tried that for five years. Right. And I think that's where, like my husband and I have been really talking about it recently. And his thought on it, I'm with you on the approach of ripping a bandit off, taking care of it and getting rid of it.

I think the way his thought process is that we'll be in debt forever and we're doing okay. Yeah, he's wrong on both counts. You're not doing okay and you're not going to be in debt forever. I'm not going to let you. It's silly. Don't live like that. That life's too short. That's a hopeless.

That's a fatalistic, hopeless thing. I'll always be fat, so I'm going to keep eating donuts. Right. It's the same thing. Of course you're always going to be fat because you keep eating donuts. Jeez. Come on. You know, this is me talking to me now, right?

A little self-counseling here. But yeah, that's it. I mean, quickly. No, that's how it works, though. The parallels in your world to our world because it's personal finance is 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. So hope, which is the opposite of your husband's statements, he probably has more hope than his negative statements. But hope is one of the equations in transformation because we have to change behavior.

We don't change behaviors unless we think that they're going to result in a positive result. That's intelligence. So you would never go do the hard work if you didn't think it was going to work. The difference is I'm 100% sure what I'm telling you to do will work if you guys will go do it. Guns are blazing. The simple part is the math. I mean, you throw $6,000 a month of the debt, it's gone on 37 months. That's the math of it.

The hard part is going to work. Exactly. So that would be the game plan. Let's get out of debt in two years instead of, Well, I guess we'll just always have a payment in our life. That's no way to live. Come on, let's set Eeyore out in the backyard and let him graze. If Eeyore is your spirit animal, people, you go trouble.

Dave is in Long Island. Hi, Dave. Welcome to the show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right.

Right now, I'm considering taking money out of my 401k to pay off my total debt. Right now, I have a total of $35,000 and $20 in total debt. And it's really the credit card that I have that's killing me. It has a 27.8% APR on it, which is ridiculous. And it's just, you know, what is the 35? Give me the breakdown on the 35,000 of debt. Okay. I have $13,323 owed to the federal government from taxes.

I have $13,250 owed to Chase, that's the credit card. I have $4,909 owed to my car, and then I have an additional $1,138 owed to a TG to another TD credit card. Okay, and what do you make, sure? I make my household income is $205,000 Wow It's a great income

Why do you owe taxes? So when my wife and I were My wife and I have been married for nine years We went through a really rough cash So probably like two to three years At some point we were separated And we were just Not on the same page

We used to be really Really intense about our budget meetings And we'll meet every day We actually paid up. We actually were a graduate from F to you. Honey, why do you owe taxes? Oh, because it was, I changed my tax. I changed my tax to having, to being single on my taxes.

And then when I tried to change it back, you don't have a formal HR department. So they, I was making changes, but there was a glitch in the system that kept reverting back to a single state. So there was not being enough withheld. How long have you owed the IRS? Like a year and a half. That interest rate makes a credit card look cheap. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right. The great news is you only owed, you make $205,000. So you can clean this up real quickly on your own. But you're telling us you want to go borrow more money to pay off the other debt. at the tune of 30, 40% interest, which is effectively what you're doing

from robbing the 401k early. Oh, I don't think they were saying that the interest rate was only like 5%. Oh, you're talking about borrowing on your 401k, not cash in. Yeah, borrowing. Okay, borrowing. Yeah, borrowing on it.

So you're going to try to borrow your way out of debt. You make $205,000. Dude, why don't you just get on a budget and cut it and pay off $35,000 in like eight months? I make $200,000. So the thing is, I'm like talking to my wife and she still wants to keep like putting money aside for our daughter. And then her life insurance is also pretty very high.

She has a existing condition that we didn't find out until she was giving birth. So her life insurance is like around $200 a month. And then, you know, the rent we pay is like $3,050 a month. Okay, you're not doing math well. You make $205,000, and you said she pays $200 for life insurance as if that was a problem. That's $2,400. That's 1% of your income. That is not the problem, honey.

The problem is you guys are not on a plan. You're not working together, and you're spending like you're in freaking Congress. You've got to stop all investments temporarily, and that includes saving for the kids temporarily. And I want you to clean this up in under a year. You make $205,000. That's true. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, let's do it.

Let me help you. 205 minus 35 is 170. Yeah. You've still got $170,000 minus taxes to live on. Cry me a river. Seriously, cleanness, mess up. Quit trying to find a hack. The hack is in your mirror, dude.

You fix the guy in your mirror, and that woman standing beside him, and the two of us are working together because we want to get out of debt so we can build an emergency fund so we can build our retirement so we can save for our kids, and we can become wealthy and change our family tree. Now we've got something to live for. It's time to get dialed in and focused. Y'all just been disorganized and lazy and distracted by the rough patch. that you went through. Now it's time to get on the game, man. And the good news is that you call the

right people that loved you enough to tell you the truth. And the math on this is real simple when you make this kind of money. I mean, if you guys are bringing home 11 or 12,000, could you throw $4,300 a month of the debt? Because that's eight months. You're all the debt's gone. You can still live on, you know, $7,000. $3,000 a month is 12 months and you're done, man. So I think you can do this even sooner, but you and your wife got to get on the same page, get on a written budget, and go, all right, spitshake, we're going to make this work. We're only going to cover the necessary expenses. Every other dollar is going to go towards this debt, and I would start with that IRS debt.

For a short period of time. Start with the IRS and then list the rest of the debts, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one, and attack the little one. And let me help you with this. The interest rate on $13,000 worth of credit cards, when you pay it off in eight or nine months, is irrelevant. The amount of math on that, the actual. dollars that math creates is irrelevant. It's not the problem. If you're going to keep the credit

card for 15 years, the 27% interest rates a problem. But we're going to keep it for 15 minutes. You need to cut them all up. A TV credit card? Come on. Was that, I don't know, TD? Maybe TD Bank? Maybe that was it. I couldn't hear it. Oh, I thought he bought something off the television. Oh, gosh. I hope not. Yeah, like shopping channel. People still doing that? Yeah. That's what I thought. But yeah. Maybe I misunderstand. But anyway, the great news is you have a small amount of debt and ratio to your income and you can clean this up really quickly once you guys decide that that's what you want to do.

If you wanted to work a different plan, you called the wrong place because we're going to get you out of debt so that you can build wealth, so that you can change your family tree and be outrageously generous. You live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. Stevens in Wisconsin. Hey, Stephen, what's up? Hey, Dave, I've got to hear from you. How are you doing today, sir? Better than I deserve. How can we help? You made my day, sir. You made my day.

So I'm not sure if I'm being too intense or if I'm just being intentional. I'm trying to pay off my mortgage, but I have a burgeoning tax problem. 53 years old, I'm 41 months away from paying from us, my wife and my partner and I paying off our mortgage. But when we do that 800,000, TSP that I have right now is going to keep growing, and I don't want to eat a huge tax bill when it comes to retirement, and I don't want to pass this burden on to my kids. I think I know the answer, and I know people call to get a swift kick in their pants. Don't worry, Dave, I got thick britches.

If I need this quick... You're done great. How much is in your TSP? 800,000. Oh, you said that. I'm sorry. My God, son. You're a millionaire.

Way to go. Well, and we also have 1.3-3 total in return. retirement, so 800 that's TSP. The rest is all rock. Okay, so 800 is TSP 500 is in other retirement? Correct, sir, yes, sir. Man, way to go, dude. How old are you? 53, sir. Oh, again, you said that. I'm sorry, my God, this is great.

Well done. Very well done. A 53-year-old multimillionaire. What's the house worth? So the house is worth, we owe $349,410,49,97. And you and your wife are in agreement on the level of intensity to pay that off in 41 months. Is that what you're saying? Correct. We are. She's my partner, Nathan.

What is making you think you're too intense? I see that $800,000. I don't think we're ever going to touch that if we don't have to. We're going to live well. I mean, we make $310,000 a year. A bunch of that is my military. What makes you think you're going to touch? paying off your house too intensely?

Just because I'm giving up one to the other and I don't want to step over dollars to pick up nickels and I feel like... Oh, you've stopped adding to the 800? I have, yes, sir. Okay. No, I would not do that. I would continue to put 15% of my income away in retirement in Baby Step 4 while we're working on Baby Step 6 and if it takes 49 months to pay off the house instead of 41, whoopty-d-du-ty.

I'd still add to it. buying or selling a home is a big deal there's a lot of drama out there right now and you can cut through the drama you know how you cut through drama and trauma dr john deloney says it all the time when you're in the middle of drama and trauma use facts facts are your friends if you want facts on what's really going on in the real estate world not what your broke brother-in-law's opinion was because he believes in socialism he learned from his college professor but instead you want to know what's really going on in the real estate world,

just go to our website, we'll show you, Ramsey Solutions.com slash market, or you can click the link in the show notes, and the actual interest rates that are being charged are out there, the actual volume of homes that are listed is out there, and the actual median price, and the changes in median price of house prices are there. The actual facts are that today we've got a million, one hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and 87,

houses on the market in America. That's the actual number of listings today. To put that in perspective, which is the only way that number has any value, it's the largest inventory of homes for sale since 2019 prior to COVID-19. Hmm, more houses for sale. Oh, wait. More people are looking at houses at any time since 2019. There are more buyers than there are inventory.

Anytime there's more buyers for something than there is something for sale, it causes prices to go up, not down. And we've seen prices hold steady and slightly increase in the last 12 months. So we're not seeing a housing bubble. We're not seeing a correction that some of you predicted. And I told you four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and one year ago. There wasn't going to be one. It's the slowest crash of all time.

And I continue. It's just been six years. When is it coming? It's crash already if you're going to do it. It's a slow-mo crash. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. If you keep predicting the other world long enough, eventually you'll be right, but that's not good economics.

Okay, so. I change my prediction every year. Yeah, no matter what, economists and weather forecasters, the only people that can be wrong all the time and still keep their jobs. So, yeah, there we go. So if you want to learn more about the facts, Ramsey Solutions.com or click the link in the show notes. We've got the U.S. housing market trends, facts, the data for you to look at, and that'll help you make better decisions.

Kate's in Delaware. Hey, Kate, how are you? Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you both? Better than we deserve. How can we help? I will give you a bit of background. My husband and I have been married for 53 years.

He's 79. I'm 74. He has just within the last five months been designated as 100% disabled veteran from his time served in Vietnam. Wow. Yeah. So he is receiving now a, our monthly income normally is 5686 combined,

our retirement income. He is now going to be, well, is receiving now 5,300 extra a month. So now, Now you've got $10,000 a month to work with. Correct. 11. But there we go.

Yeah, wow. Pretty much, yes. Wow. How's he doing? What a blessing. Well, he has Parkinson's, he has coronary artery disease, and he has severe dementia. I'm sorry, honey. I have been designated his judiciary, and I am designated as his primary care provider.

and it's all good it's just a different season in our life and we are trying desperately to handle it with dignity and grace and most of all humor and so what how can we best help you get

what I want to know Dave is how do I best put into savings this VA money that's coming into us because it will be have to be used for his long-term care eventually but I need it to be in something that is giving me more than just my stupid savings account

which it's in now do you have immediate access to do you guys have debt I have worked our debt down to a little less of $8,000, which is two credit cards. Wonderful. Okay. First thing we're going to do is pay those off. Second thing we're going to do is build an emergency fund. Do you have any savings? I have $23,000 in savings.

Okay. All right. So do I take, and that is what I've been putting in. from his $5,000 he's getting. Yeah, okay. I want you to take some of that money and pay off the $8,000 as soon as you can, okay? Not the 23, maybe the 23, I don't care, but some of the, in the next couple months, use these checks to pay off the $8,000 for me, okay?

Now you don't have any credit cards, and you cut them up, okay? Now you just build the savings up as high as you can build it, and, yeah, because I... What kind of vehicle should I have it in? probably a high-yield savings account. And do you guys have a mortgage? We do. Our mortgage is about, it is 230. Our house is worth $8.50.

Okay. So we do still have a mortgage. Our monthly mortgage is $1940. Is there any life insurance that has added with this military package that he just received interesting you should ask I just checked into that yesterday they are offering him whole life no I'll pass at a regular at a pretty steep monthly no I think we'll pass and I've listened to you long enough to know that that's not where to go it's not the it's not the military

that's offering that it's a company that's that milks the military that's offering that. But what I was asking is they're not furnishing him any kind of federal program with the disability that includes life insurance that they pay for. That is correct. Okay. I was afraid of that. Okay.

All right. So we've got two goals. Okay. Goal number one is we're piling up cash in a high yield savings account to take care of him and his care. Okay. And I want you to keep that in home. I want you to keep that in home as long as you can by hiring people to have.

help you in the house using some of this money that's going to be your least expensive route and your highest quality of care route because you can be the advocate and manage the situation but don't be afraid to use some of the money to hire somebody to help you okay that's exactly what the money is for good perfect and then our second goal is um you're you're going to outlive him that's statistical and um so then what how are we going to set you uh later and get rid of this mortgage and that's our second goal okay so and how do I do that um there's not any any magic wands on this but I just want to be thinking towards those things because the best thing I can do is get rid of that mortgage long term

short term I'm more concerned about you taking care of him and you um and using your 11,000 dollars a month because you guys don't spend anywhere near 11,000 live on We spend our monthly expenses excluding groceries and gas is 4,800. Okay. Well, with groceries and gas, you can make it on your first number, and your second number has been going in the bank. That's what you're telling me. Yep.

Yeah, okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. Here's what we're going to do. Okay, I'm going to set you up with a Ramsey coach that's been trained by us as our gift. No, no cost, okay? So that somebody can walk with you because you need somebody in your corner. You have been an amazing 53-year wife, and he served his country, and they waited until he was 79 to bless him with a disability that was deserved probably 20 years ago.

And so we're going to take care of y'all, okay, as best we can. Again, Kate, we don't have any magic wands, but we're going to set you up with the Ramsey coach to do what I can't do in the, setting which is continue to stay with you and make sure that you're cared for and you got all the answers and do the very best we can with this extra money now wow thank you thank you for being who you are miss kate today's ramsie show question is brought to you by why refi if you've been turned down for refinancing your defaulted private student loans, you're not alone, and you're not out of luck. Y-R-R-E-Fi exists to give people like you another shot.

Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Adam in New Jersey. Dave frequently mentions that teaching is one of the top occupations of those who achieve millionaire status. I have three children in high school, and I want to present teaching as an option for them. My question is, how do they become millionaires on a teenager? teacher's salary. Great question. So he's referring to our millionaire study we did of over

10,000 millionaires, and we ranked the careers, and the first one was engineer, followed by accountant, followed by teacher, which was the third career in there. Yeah, followed by business executive, followed by lawyer. MDs didn't make the top five. They were number six, just as a thing. So the answer is interesting, Adam. You're falling for the classic belief that income creates wealth. More is that the only way you become wealthy is have a huge income. And as we studied, George told you the over 10,000 millionaires, one third of them, 33% never made over $100,000. So the secret to becoming a millionaire is apparently not just having a larger income.

Now, it doesn't hurt to have a larger income. It's not a bad thing, but it's not the only way to get there because one third of America's millionaires did not become millionaires because of a high income. And that apparently is the teacher answer, right? So what does work? What does work is time and consistency. $100 a month, $100 invested from age 25 to age 65 at the S&P 500, which is the average of the stock market, rates, is $1,176,000. $100 per month from age 25 to age 65.

so the secret there is they didn't miss a stinking month for 40 freaking years and a hundred dollars makes you a millionaire so the answer is not the amount the answer is the consistency the steadiness the predictability the discipline they stick with it time and consistency not dollar amount not dollar amount are the primary indicator. So if you want to be a teacher and you want to start saving at age 55, you're going to have a hard time getting there. You want to be whatever in making under $100,000 a year and you want to be a millionaire starting at age 55, you're going to have a hard time getting there. But these teachers did not start then.

Most of these teachers started teaching straight out of college and they immediately signed up for their retirement programs and started putting money in every month and it was more than $100. even back then and they're teaching freaking seventh grade social studies and they put money in every single month and they have a 30 year career and it's more than a hundred dollars and they've got more than a million dollars in there oh and by the way they got married and their husband or wife was doing the same thing so it's not about you know we always hear these ridiculous people like you're crazy that's impossible teachers can you can't make it out of teachers i listen you can get mad about it

But it's data. We didn't make these freaking numbers up. It's not a philosophical argument, you idiot. It's a math thing. You argue with math. You end up looking stupid. And so these people wailing and gnashing of teeth on TikTok that somehow, we need to tax the billionaires.

What you need to do is get off your own little butt and get out of your mother's basement. That's what you need to do. And then you can go be somebody, honey. That's the difference. And so this is how teachers do it. steady, time, and consistency. And it's magical. You know, the first time I saw that, I was like 21, I was 20, 21 years old. When you saw a compound growth, when I saw that you could be, have $1,176,000 at $100 a month from age 25. And I was 21. And I thought, I got four years

on this. I can do this. I can do this. You know what I did? I didn't do it. It sounded cool. Instead, I went and tried to get rich in real estate and, you know, flipping houses before there's cable TV to tell you how, and I went broke trying to get rich quick because I was too stupid to do time and consistency. But the thing that we did discover Adam, and I think I always, because I was a little bit shocked too. When we got the data in, we had several aha moments from the data on this research that we did not see coming.

And one of them was, teacher is in the top three, didn't see that coming. I would not have predicted that. So you got engineer, accountant, teacher, business executive, lawyer. We could not figure out what was driving. And MD is not there. They're number six. Medical doctors number six. Now, medical doctors get there generally because they out-earned their stupidity.

They're not generally good with money, stereotypically, okay? There's plenty of them that are good with money, but a lot of docs are just straight-up stupid with money. It's not unusual at all. But the other five categories, what we did finally figure it out as we sat and brainstormed through, what in the world is happening here? All of, what are they all share in common? They're all processed people. Okay, there's one way to build a bridge if you're an engineer that it doesn't fall down.

There's a set of mathematical calculations that span that beam that keep the building from falling in. If you put that size beam up, it doesn't fall, you put that size beam up, it does fall. Engineering is not art. it is science you have to follow the process or people die you have to follow the process or the building falls down the bridge falls down okay accounting there's not an artistic element to accounting there's generally accepted accounting principles you either follow them or you're wrong it's called gap okay in the accounting world gap generally accepted accounting principles you either do accounting properly or you get the wrong answer it's a it's a math

think it's a process so find the rules and follow the rules if you're an engineer find the rules and follow the rules process driven people if you are an accountant if you're a teacher you have a lesson plan there's a process you lay out exactly how we're going to handle this classroom we don't make it up as we go mrs doubtfire is not your teacher okay that's not how this works teachers are process people now some of you think they're they're otherwise and they're loving and they're kind and they are the good ones are those things but they're also driving toward an end result of you actually getting an A on the exam because you freaking learn something while you sat in their classroom.

That's what teachers do. They drive a process. They're project driven and the kid is the project. Guess what? If you're a business executive, same thing. Business acumen demands certain principles be followed. If you're a lawyer, try going before the judge and making up things in the law. The judge will throw you out, maybe put you in jail for contempt.

They will sit you down, counselor, right? There's one way to be in front of a judge. There's one way to do litigation. Follow the law. Follow the system. It's a process. And so you submit yourselves in all five of these career paths. You submit yourself to a proven set of truths.

The law of gravity is this. If you jump off a building, you hit the sidewalk. And guess what? Personal finance is the same thing. You're either going to live on less than you. you make are you going to be broke you're either going to live on a plan called a budget or you're going to be broke you're either going to invest money or you're going to be broke there's really no options here and the more you stay out of debt mathematically the more money you've got to

invest the steadier you invest the more money you're going to have over the longer period of time period it's a process the stuff we teach is very the baby steps we don't let you violate the baby steps why it's just like accounting you don't violate it it's a process follow follow it, it works. It's called common sense in our world. We call it a lot of different things. We laugh about it around here. But that's the reason these teachers do so well is their process people. And they're not trying to flex either. They're not trying to impress anyone. They're trying to survive running a chaotic classroom. So it's that simple. You make 50 grand, invest 15% of that. That's 625 a month. You'll have $4 million from 25 to 65. And that's if you never get

a raise. And so if you're half wrong, they only got two million and never got a raise. Because it's the mean old school board. And people don't love teachers. And it's horrible out there in society. We pay athletes more than we pay teachers. Oh, my God! But keep investing. Welcome back to the Ramsey show.

George Camel, number one best-selling author. Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Nick is with us in California. Hi, Nick. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's a lot of you? up. Oh, so I've been listening to a lot of your staff, went to a part of a course of the church for you about 10 years ago, finally started out toward the goal of working the baby steps here. And hurdle number one arose, which was my wife didn't really want to participate in that. And so I've been going it somewhat alone. And I've worked baby step one and two and started into baby step three. And each time I get my emergency fund built up, crisis ensues. And a lot of the crisis really isn't crisis at all by definition.

It's self-inflicted because one of us isn't on board. Okay. That makes sense. So we have 11 kids. Four are grown and out of the house. nine dogs, seven cats, and a tortoise. Most of those were kind of brought in against my will by my wife and my kids. But here we are.

You have how many dogs? Nine dogs. With 11 kids and a tortoise. And seven cats? And seven cats, yeah. What circle of hell have you created? How do they even coexist? What is your house smell?

The only one that's got a chance is the tortoise. Right. Because it sleeps for six months out of the year. I mean, that one has the easy life. Is this real? Are you punking us? No, no, this is real. So your wife started a petting zoo just for the family.

Everyone's got their own animal. That's good. Everybody's got two. Yeah, plus we have some alternates, absolutely. And you have 11 children, children, like humans? Human beings, yeah. Okay. Four are grown.

and out of the house so we're down to seven in the house now seven nine seven and one i got you okay yep yep so how can we help today pray to so so recently two of my dogs were incarcerated for biting a neighbor dog and shocking yeah i know and uh you know i mindy jerk reaction was to surrender the dogs uh which is an awful outcome because they're probably going to be euthanized and And it's not because I don't love them. It's because in the end of the day, I knew this was going to be an expensive endeavor. We are now to where we know what that endeavor looks like, and it's about $4,500. So the dogs earn a pound because they bit the neighbor dog.

And they want $4,500 to get them out? Is this bail? Kind of. So about 2,000 of it is fees, but they also want this. this very elaborate housing situation with concrete and attachments and roofs and all of this stuff. So that part of the endeavor be about $2,500 of those dollars. Or they will not release the dogs out on parole if you don't build them a proper home

to suit the dictates of the county in California. Correct. So you're going to get them out of prison to create your own prison. in your backyard for them to live in. Ironically. This doesn't sound like a good life either way. Oh, man. And is there a chance they'll bite again?

Oh, yeah. Wouldn't you? If you were in that situation? I want to go bite the neighbor's dog myself now at this point. Man, I would move if I was your neighbor. I don't know if I could live next to a petting zoo. That's a lot of barking. Yeah, and the problem is,

is that at this point they don't have to bite the neighbor's dog. All they have to do is get out and they're gone. Yeah. Yeah. So you're wondering, do you have $4,500? Yes, I do. And you're wondering, should I spend this to solve this problem because I would hate to see them potentially get euthanized?

Okay. Yes. It's sad that the dogs are caught in the whirlwind hurricane that Israel's lives. And so, as you said, that you all have created. And so the thing is, I don't mind spending money on something if, especially my dogs, I love dogs, if I create a sustainable situation. Okay. And if I'm not kidding myself, in other words. So, I mean, there's a thousand percent chance that these dogs are going to have a problem again.

no matter what you do and that they're going to be taken away this is not a sustainable environment do you agree yes absolutely yeah so you're throwing good money after bad at that point but what you do need what you do owe those dogs is to create a better environment you and your wife have to be more responsible about how you're handling all these decisions and um that's just it's not fair to the animals it's not fair to your kids it's not fair to the neighbors I mean you've created an environment here that's not that's not manageable it's so the chaos with the numbers you gave us we can joke and say the tortoises the only one's got a chance but it's the tortoises the only one's got

a chance and so yeah this is not a healthy situation and I think the local authorities are telling you that in so many words with their with their mandate to you it sounds very bureaucratic It sounds like they've overstepped bounds, but it is California. So it wouldn't be shocking or anything for them to be out of control with regulations. Shock. But, you know, there are, I got to tell you, there's people in rural settings all across America right now, listening to this, shaking their head going, puppy ain't going to make it.

That's what they're saying. because no matter where you, what you do with puppy here, puppy's in a problem, and puppy's going to cause a problem. And so it's, you know, it's your all's job to maintain control over these situations and you haven't because you've created an untenable situation. Man, I'm sorry. It's also a big liability. I mean, if that dog bits bit a human, well, there's a lawsuit on your hands that could crush you guys.

It's heartbreaking. Man. Yeah, and, well, I mean, yeah, it's real. yeah um so i i don't know what to tell you nick i think the the sad thing is is that the whole thing is so bizarre and so out of control that the dogs being in the pound is it's a minor thing compared to all the rest of things you guys got to deal with that's just um man i'm sorry sorry for the dogs but they're they were put in a situation they couldn't win yeah and um and they were put there by you guys because you will

allowed it and your wife encouraged it. And you guys ought to fix that. You really should. It's not fair to the humans involved. It's not fair to the animals that are involved. And so, yeah, what to do with the particular puppies? I don't know. But maybe get some clarity on what the next steps would be. Maybe you can find someone to adopt them and take them out to an area where they can thrive. If they're rehomed on a farm somewhere where they're not going to hurt anybody. Exactly. And where they're not put in a situation where they feel like they have to hurt somebody that changes everything so wow

those dogs got to be on edge Kelly is with us in Canada hi Kelly how are you hi Dave, hi George thank you for taking my call sure what's up hey I want to know the best way I've had my head buried in sand for a number of years.

I want to know the best way to reestablish trust with my wife after a gambling addiction and recombine our finances after a number of years. How long have you been clean? About six and a half years. Okay. Well, that's substantial. You know, to continue to hold something against you from a decade ago, that she's agreed to continue to live with is not logical.

So you begin to prove and prove yourself. The way you rebuild trust is consistency over time. Okay? You become trust worthy, worthy of trust. And it sounds like you've done that. Is there some other thing you're doing that's giving her, causing her to be insecure? So I think for the most part it's just me, just not knowing how to approach this. I just kind of started listening to your podcast, got your YouTube channel, all that stuff,

kind of binge watching it, and I just, like, I've become scared. And I just, I don't, I think she, I think it's more about how to initiate this, and what's the best way, like, do we just start combining our friends in and say now, just go into it head on, or do we just do that slowly? So let me ask you this. I think I'm hearing you say maybe I'm not if I'm reading between the lines incorrectly

tell me because I'm not positive okay it sounds like that you may still be dealing with shame from six and a half years ago there's a little bit of that yes okay that's fair a little bit would be fair I deal with a little bit of shame from having lost everything

and filed bankruptcy in 1988 so that's you know that's real it's back there but the further in the rear view mirror it is the smaller it is agreed agreed and that's you know so I don't have the same hesitation 30 years later that I did three days after filing bankruptcy discussing something and expecting my wife to trust me and just trust my judgment I'm an idiot but trust my judgment Right? You know, and that's where we started. And then now from there, we've become, we went through a phase where a lot of America was listening to me, but she wasn't. And then we finally, she caught up, you know. But that happens to everybody. But, but yeah, that's, and that's, that's just fair is what I'm saying. When you make a mistake, I think, I'm thinking of atomic habits that James Clear wrote. And he talks a lot in there about forming habits. And the way you change a habit is not a forced discipline. and gritting your teeth and white knuckling it, it's changing your identity by saying,

I am not a gambling addict. I'm a person who used to gamble six and a half years ago and doesn't anymore. I used to be irresponsible with money. I'm not a person that's irresponsible with money anymore. I used to be a person that was overweight and ate outrageous amounts of volumes of food. And now I'm not a person that does that anymore. I'm a fit person now. Now I'm a person who eats reasonable amounts of food.

Now I'm a person who's responsible with money. And you change your vernacular around it, which kind of is a shame dealing with mechanism. I thought that was really interesting. I filtered that through my own experience with a shame of filing bankruptcy. So that helped me. So anyway, all that to say, a good way to approach a relational conversation of any kind, whether it's at work or your spouse or your kids, is if something's awkward or feels weird. just say this is awkward and it feels weird i still feel honey i still feel a little bit of shame from six and a half years ago i may be more worried about me than you are at this point

but i'm also learning all this stuff about how important it is that we combine finances and i and i i don't even know how to ask you to trust in this situation but i think we ought to talk about it because it's weird for me to say it out loud and it makes my stomach hurt to have this conversation. And if you said that, she's probably going to go, I'm not worried about it, let's do it. Or she's going to tell you the truth and tell you what's going on. And maybe say, hey, can you help me brainstorm some ideas of things we could do, some next steps we could take that would help us get back to a place where we do have unity with our finances. Yeah. I would not recommend if it was six and a half days ago, not six and a half years ago, that she do

combine finances with you. I'd recommend that she manage all the household finances. and keep your hands off of money until you've proven that you've broken a gambling addiction. That's exactly what she did. We did start off with Combined Finances, and she had to. She had to manage them all. Yeah. That's the way you handle an addiction if you're going to stay together. It's the only way that works.

So, but now I really think six and a half years, from a practical standpoint, I'm not a counselor, but I'm fine with you combining finances wholesale. If you've really been dry and you're really responsible in other areas of your life and the fruit of your life, your behaviors make a statement about where your character is, and then I think you should do it. Now, if you want a way to edge into it, a way to do it is keep everything exactly the way it is, but just start doing a budget together. And every dollar has an assignment and you can assign the separate accounts. And let's do that for 90 days. And then we're going to combine the accounts if that works. Okay.

And that's a way to ease into it. I don't know that you need to do that, though, unless she's resistant. No, it's more about me, I think. What has the latest conversation been like with her around this? Or has there been nothing for six years? No, the latest conversation is, okay, like, through all the turmoil, we actually separated for about a year, got back together due to the financial reasons we couldn't really afford two separate positions.

And then just recently, I just said, hey, do we want to do this for the rest of the lives, or do we actually want to separate? And we actually started talking about staying together for the rest of our lives. And the finances weren't part of that. So in terms of the finances, though, it's more about, okay, we just kind of handle our own things separately, but we're not doing, like, proper budgeting, in my opinion. Yeah, you're losing some synergies, and you're losing some of the umph, the umph forward that you could get where you to completely combine them. So I think it's worth talking about

and probably worth doing. Um, and I'm going to recommend you guys just walk head on into it. Um, but I get that there's a tender place. Uh, there's scars. And, you know, uh, again, I, I, it was a little different scenario but we lost everything the water got cut off the electricity got cut off there's babies in the house she would have left but she didn't have a car i mean that's that's where we were and so um you know so when we do anything with money that makes her that triggers those old wounds i can see her the shape of her eyes change i start to see that that that terror look like two tours in Vietnam look come back over her kind of type of thing and it ain't good and so I go whoa whoa whoa whoa we just went somewhere we don't need to go let's push pause right here and let's talk

this back through again and let's just wait a minute we don't have to do anything and by the way you understand that there's 83 times that amount of money over here in this other account so calm down it's like okay okay okay okay I can breathe again had a little panic attack there and look at the facts But that's normal. I mean, if he did anything that looked like a gambling action, it would activate all that pain in her. So any kind of scheme he comes up with, whether it's, I'm going to do this real estate thing over here.

I'm going to do. If it sounds like he's playing blackjack, you know, if it sounds like he's throwing the slots, if it sounds like he's playing craps in the way he's handling his vernacular. He's not doing that, by the way. Everything he said to us was real sober, very so. Clearheaded. He had sobriety language all over him. It was really good.

But, yeah, that's what you're facing, guys, when you want to rebuild trust. By the way, great book on trust. You're trying to build rebuild trust. A lot of relationships working on that for different reasons. Henry Cloud's book called Trust, How to Regain Trust, how to build trust, how to reclaim trust, all of those kinds of things. And it's excellent, excellent book on that. Well, it's here. I'm amazed at how I shouldn't be amazed.

It's always one of the prettiest products that we do, one of the best looking products we do. The 2026 Ramsey Gold Planner is here. And this thing is, we always kind of just turn the creatives loose and let them play in the sandbox. And they do an incredible job building this thing out. It sells out every year. We only print 10 or 15,000 of them, and they sell out really, really quickly. It's an expensive item. Usually our stuff is, you know, $20 books or something.

This is like a $50 item, but we do the pre-sale on it starting right now, the 2026 Gold Planner, 3597 for a limited time. After Labor Day, it's going to go up. So if you want it now, now this thing consists of each month starts with a devotional from either Rachel Cruz, Jade Wausha, or John Deloney. You're not in here, right? No, no, no, no, no. It can only fit so much in there.

You don't want to cram it to be a 500-page goal-player. And you're kind of wordy that way. Yeah. All right, so then each month has a two-page thing when it's open to the month, and then after that, each week has two pages, and you go through the week, and then you start a new month with a new devotional, and it helps you track every single thing in your daily goals. It is extremely well-designed.

This has many, many years we've been doing this thing, and it continues to be a huge seller. So if you have an interest, we'd love to have you. Again, go ahead and grab your pre-sale before Labor Day because they're going to go way up. It is an expensive product for us to produce, as you can imagine. It's a beast, and it's not only gorgeous, but there's a lot to it. So the Ramsey Gold Planner for 2026 on sale until Labor Day, 3597, click the link in the description, or go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash store. Devin is in Richmond, Virginia.

Hi, Devin. How are you? I'm well. I'm well. Thank you. Good. How can I help? So I have a kind of unique question here. I work for a company and I've had a lot of success and, you know, making a good income. But I want your opinion on what I should do about a vehicle. So they are offering, you know, they've offered me a vehicle that I essentially have have to rent from them. It's $300 a month that they take of my paycheck. So I'm wondering,

should I go along with that and, you know, essentially lease this vehicle into perpetuity or should I buy a vehicle? You need the vehicle to do the job? I do. So I have two cars. I'm in sales. okay and so you're you have to have like a van to sell the stuff out of or what are we saying no no you know it's just a fair amount of driving and you might have to go look at customers sites it's business to business sales okay but you don't that you don't have to have the car the vehicle's not particularly equipped it's just transportation to get to the job no

no right yeah it's just a vehicle you could drive anything you can drive anything on it You can drive anything. It's a Toyota, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Will they give you the money regardless? They're charging you 300 bucks? They're charging him 300 bucks for the use of one of their vehicles. This is a bad deal, man.

They should be first. What all does it include? Unlimited fuel. So, you know, I can drive it on vacation. My wife is allowed to drive it. You know, we can use it for, like, you know, any kind of personal use. They're covering all maintenance, tires, fuel, insurance, depreciation, everything. Yes.

And there's no boundaries like a normal lease would have? Right, yeah. There's no, you know, limited miles or anything. That's all in writing. I can't drive it. Yes. Okay. That is a benefit because it costs you more than $300 a month to drive a car.

Because they're covering insurance, too, as part of that $300? insurance, repairs, tires, fuel, loss in value during putting miles on it. It's costing you a lot more than $300 to drop. They're basically subsidizing it and charging you a portion. Yeah. They're losing money on this transaction. No, listen to me. They're losing money on the transaction.

Yeah. It is that it is a small car, right? That's the only car that they offer. and, you know, if I did buy my own vehicle, I'd get a slightly larger one for my family. You know, I've got a wife and two kids and one that's due here at the end of the week. But you have a car for your family, right? We do. We have a paid off World Explorer.

Yeah. It's older. I'll put your family on that. That's miles on it. Or save up some money and buy a car for your family because you only need one. one car because you're getting one car from work you said you had two cars right now right i do my other one is kind of a more of a farm use it's an old 2004 totaled tacoma okay i mean you could sell it in the explorer use the money piled up to get a better car for the family

right farm use are you in farming my only um just as a hobby i have i have a few cows and pigs okay you probably need a pickup yeah okay okay My only dilemma is that if I decline the car, if I turn the car back in, they will pay me 70 cents a mile up to 7,200 miles a year. So that's, you know, $5,000 a year. Which is $400 a month? That's that $300 that I would essentially get back in my paycheck. Oh, so, yeah, that's true. So there's a $700 swing.

Okay, well, the way you do the calculation is this, all right? You figure out what car you would drive, and how many miles are you putting on it a year? You know? With work and personal altogether, I'd be putting probably close to $18,000. Okay, all right. That's not too much, really. I mean, that's about average, actually. So, yeah, so for $700 a month.

month, how much value can you lose in a car? Because whatever you buy is going down in value, right? So how much is about a $20,000 car? And, you know, in four years it's going to be worth $10,000. So we got to say, all right, $2,500 a year, $200 a month and lost value. That's about what you're going to have, something like that, okay? And you pay cash for the car, whatever it is, and it's the minimum car that will get the job done because you're, you know, a little bit bigger maybe but other than that it's just reliable and then can i buy insurance repairs tires and gas for the remaining 500 bucks a month i don't know if you can or not not sure you can i'm not sure you're going to break even on this so um but if you it it doesn't you know you're right there's a

seven hundred dollar swing so how much i know you can't drive an expensive car and i know you can't drive a car with debt the numbers don't work right okay so whatever you drive you have to pay cash for and it's probably 10 to $20,000 car for the numbers to work and then you've got to run some numbers do some calculations and figure out what the repairs are what the insurance is and then divide it out and go seven or bucks a month what I got to work with 72 hundred bucks a year can I operate this vehicle for that I don't know if you can I mean with with three $350, $4 gas. I mean, I don't know if you can or not.

I started doing research on cars with the lowest insurance costs, cars with the lowest maintenance, and start from there and see what they're actually going for. And the lowest depreciation. Because you're just going to destroy this car. So you don't want anything that's, you know, brand new that's going to go down to value. I'd get it used where someone else pay the depreciation and you can maintain it at a reasonable cost if you're going to go that route. Yeah.

Yeah. The $300 is not a horrible deal. I can promise you that. It's not a horrible deal. But if you want to buy something and go the other route, take the mileage and save the $300. That gives you a $700 swing, as you said. Then, you know, you've got to make the numbers work in $700.

If the numbers come out to be $1,000, you're losing $300 a month to drive your own car rather than drive theirs because you want a little bit bigger car. And wouldn't do that. Wouldn't do that. That's like having a car payment. I'll pass. Yeah, I wouldn't combine your personal goals with this. Just see it as utility for work.

What makes the most financial sense? Good point. Very good point. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 119, 114, you're my place of quiet retreat. I wait for your word to renew me. Ronald Reagan said, peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. Ooh, pretty good there. I like that.

Curtis is with us in Texas. Hi, Curtis. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yes, I have a question about my car.

I have a $26,000 Tesla, and I wrecked it. I didn't have insurance, and the fixed on is $13,000. I currently have $6,000 saved, and I just, you. I don't know what to do. What does it take to repair the Tesla? $13,000. And I found another place that said they could do it for $9,000 without fixing the front bumper. If the front bumper don't need to be repaired.

Why did the front bumper need to be repaired at the other place? Because Tesla themselves, they don't, they fix everything. They can't just fix one problem. Okay. So they want to restore it 100%. have it a body shop check it, and you had Tesla dealership check it? Yes. Okay.

All right. So you can fix it for 9K and you've got 6K. Why were you not carrying insurance, Curtis? Isn't that the law in Texas? No, not, not collision, not collision. You have liability only? Yes, I only had liability because at the time, I make a decent amount of money, but at the time I had just got out of jail and I had to pay all that, best stuff.

and I was just getting back on my feet, and the insurance was the bill that I chose not to pay. Ouch. So note to self, don't drive $26,000 car with no insurance. Yes. When you're broke. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Okay.

Because, I mean, obviously it killed you, right? I mean, you buy a lot of insurance for this nine grand. So, what do you make? I make about $7,000 a month. Okay. and how much was your insurance? 4.50. Okay.

All right. Was it a DUI you were in for? No. It was a drug charge I was in the jail for. Okay. So that didn't affect your insurance then. That's what I was asking. All right.

Oh, no. Okay. All right. So your question is whether to fix the car or not? Yeah. I don't know what to do. I was thinking about just going to buy a cash car and sending their car back, but I don't know how that works, that process works at all.

No, that's called repossession. No, we don't want to do that. What do you owe on the Tesla? About 24,000. Okay. No, you need to fix it, hon. And you're going to scratch up the other $3,000 to do it because you don't have the money right now. Is it drivable?

No, it's not. not driveable. What are you driving? I'm driving a rental car. When's your wrecked? I wrecked it about two months ago. So I've been in and run for about two months. Wow.

That's expensive. And how long is it going to take to repair it? Because I've heard some stories about Tesla's taking a long time to get fixed up. They said about four weeks. So even when, can you start the repair now and pay it in four weeks? Yes. I mean, would you have the other $3,000 to go with your $6,000 so you had nine in four weeks? Because I have enough that I don't know if I do take, because I get paid monthly for my VA check, I get a housing lounge and I also work.

And if I take my VA check to add on to it, there will be some bills not paid. No, you got to pay all your bills first. Yeah. But can you scratch up $3,000 out of the seven you make in the next 30 days? I think I'd create it. I would make it my life mission to do so and start the repair now. Well, don't start the repair until you know you're going to have the money, okay? Okay.

Because you can't, you can't, and you've got a car sitting over there. You can't pay the bill that you promised to pay. We don't want to create another problem. All right. So I want you to have your hands almost on the $3,000. You need $9,000 in your account are very close to being in your account before you start the repair. and then you need to start the repair as soon as possible. And then get the repair done, then get the Tesla sold.

Okay, so fix it and then sell the car. Yeah, because that gets you out of it. You can't get out of it right now. You're stuck. Now, if you didn't fix the front bumper, what do you think you can sell it for? That's nine. He can fix it for nine. He won't get the front bumper fixed for nine.

Yes, no, he said 13 if he takes it to Tesla, nine without the bumper at the other place. So nine fixes it, and you got six in the bank, right? Yes. And the front bumper is not really that much damage. Only the reason they know that the front bumper was hit at all because just they got the candle to it. Okay. I'm just making sure it's not going to decrease the value when you go to sell it.

Now, you've got to get it sold for 24 so you can get out of it at the end of the story and get your life back, okay? Okay. And then never drive a car without insurance again. When you're broke, it makes you broker. So everything compounds then. And you get in a bigger miss and a bigger miss. Mary's in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi, Mary. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. Thanks for talking with me today. Sure. How can we help? Pretty big life decision in my mind that I'm hoping to get your input on. I have the opportunity to go from a self-employed government contractor to a full-time

employee with the lead agency that the grant that I work for is supported. reporting. And the big thing that I think is keeping me on the fence is my age. I'm 59. We are on baby Step 5. Ideally, I plan to have the house paid off in the next four years. Good. Yes, thank you. Thanks to you all. What are you making as a contractor? So my gross is 87 right now annually, which includes a 30% fringe. So that is built into that 87 for me to self-incorporate, pay my own taxes, my own insurance, all of that. Okay.

So 87 minus you pay your own expenses. Correct. Okay, gotcha. And so the full-time gig that's not contract, what are they offering? So 30% less of that. So my gross would be 60. 63 and change. Okay.

And are you, you're not, you're not coming out of pocket for that much. I'm sorry, Dave. Okay, you're not, your fringe is not costing you that. 30,000 bucks?

$24,000. You're buying your what? Your own health insurance, right? My own health insurance. I am self-funding, my own retirement, So I'm putting 20% about 18,000 a year. You're going to be doing that anyway.

I think 15 I can do at the new, at the new gig. They're going to give you some match there, but they're not doing it for you. Correct. So retirement, you've got to do anyway. That's not, you're not saving that. That's not a fringe you're saving. So what's the health insurance cost? so for employee only they pick that up no no honey i mean your current current cost right now it's

600 a month okay so you're not on your husband's plan now he is retired on medicare okay so 600 a month so seven grand all right and the um what else is the fringe half your tax on it is 765 tax because you got self-employment tax versus there are covering the W-2 tax, right? That's right. Yeah, so 7% would be another 7K. That's 14. All right.

What else? I think the big thing is frustration right now with the whole marketplace. Well, I mean, it's a $10,000 pay cut. It is. That's a lot of frustration. And you are right, and that's why I'm wanting somebody to kind of walk me through that. Math says stay.

Yeah, math says stay on contract. You know, unless you think that the risk is so high with the frustrating marketplace that it's not going to be there anyway, so then we're not comparing apples to apples anymore. So I'm a big self-employed guy. Sorry, I'm always going to lean that way unless there's a math reason not to. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's

to walk day. with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.