The Ramsey Show - App - Advice for Students During the Coronavirus Crisis (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Anthony ONeal, Financial Literacy Theme Hour Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has definitely taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Joining me this hour on the Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey personality number one, best-selling author Anthony O'Neill is with me because today in this hour we are going to celebrate financial literacy. Anthony, a lot of, there are people that say financial literacy doesn't matter because the problems with the economy are brought on by capitalism and the government and all that kind of a thing. Financial literacy only matters to the extent that you think you control your own destiny.

And you, Dave, you know what? I feel sorry for those people because financial literacy does matter. And we need a lot of financial literacy taught into our, especially our high schools and middle schools, which I'm excited about today. Because, Dave, if I would have had this information that is going on in today's day and time with our school teachers i wouldn't have made the dumb decisions i made going into college bottom line yeah well all of us for that matter yes and there is you know there's a lot of uh social media action right now with uh oh i wish all the adults you know don't you wish you'd done the dave ramsey stuff which is like it in my stuff it's gods and grandmas save money get out of debt right if you had an emergency fund and no debt right now in the middle of all this and and then one of the things that's going along with that is

there's a lot of clicks a lot of people saying gosh we need to make this this time this corona time that we're going through with the shutdown and the virus is um is more reason that we need the Dave Ramsey stuff in the schools, the Ramsey Solutions stuff in the schools. And the good news is it is. Yes, sir. It's in there, and that is what financial literacy is. It's being literate as opposed to being illiterate. Knowing something about finances is not invaluable.

As a matter of fact, it's just a dad-blame necessity out there. So 2003, George W. Bush declared April as National Financial Literacy Month. With the overwhelming support of Congress, both the president and Congress realized this is a very, very important subject. The purpose, of course, is to highlight how important this is. Our team created Foundations in Personal Finance, which is the high school curriculum that's now taught in almost half of the schools in America, high 40 percentile rate. So I think it's 48 percent or something like that. But learn how to handle money, how to save money, how to cash flow, how to be generous, how to become wealthy, how to stay out of debt.

And this is just really, really important stuff right now for us to make sure we get this covered. Yeah, it is. If you know, here's what's the most important part is that really want to help these young people get ahead of the game. So when they hit with the real stuff like this, like a virus or down the road and something else may come, we want to make sure that they have the financial knowledge and the wisdom to make sure that they are prepared for an emergency when it does come and not just an emergency but they can

actually live life and enjoy life you know how to how to what principles work when their times are bad and when times are good those principles are the only ones that are called the truth yes the other ones are illusions yes sir if it only works when times are bad well then it doesn't work because sometimes times are good if it only works when times are bad, well, then it doesn't work because sometimes times are good. If it only works when times are good, then obviously it doesn't work because sometimes times are bad. So you've got to have a principle. You have to have a truth that works for the item that you're looking at regardless of the situation. So what we've done is we've reached out to one of the tens of thousands of schools and teachers that are leading foundations in personal finance and ask them while they're interfacing with their students during the downtime with the corona shutdown

do their students have any questions and so annie is a student no okay okay i have no idea what i'm doing here not on this list okay no not here i know i see that okay um all right well let's go to annie anyway she's in colorado springs hey annie welcome to the dave ramsey show No, I see that. Okay. All right, well, let's go to Annie anyway. She's in Colorado Springs. Hey, Annie, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for having me, Mr. Ramsey.

So you've been teaching the class for how long? About four years. Okay. And how long have you been a teacher? Sixteen. Oh, okay, cool. So how many students have come through foundations in personal finance then um well i work at an alternative high school so our population is a little bit lower than a regular high school so i would say in those six years i have 25

75 a year so right around 400 so they're high risk in what way? At risk of dropping out. So we have, we're mostly like credit recovery. We have, you know, like baby mamas, baby daddies. Just kind of kids who have struggled to get credits for some reason. So most times they have a situational thing that has put them at risk we just leave it at that for graduating it's not necessarily special needs nope nope okay all right cool it's helping me understand very cool well thank you for doing this so your students had a question and the student the question was what for anthony so the question they get asked multiple

times a year um most of my students are going to go straight from high school into the workforce or an internship. So they ask, what is the difference in earning power for a four-year degree versus a two-year degree or a two-year internship with a focus on the associates versus the certification? That's actually a good question. Very good question. I I mean I like that and I think that there are differences but I think the difference comes down to what's their ultimate vision so if your students are listening right now what I would recommend them to do Annie is to ask them one question what is the vision for your life what do you want to do what where do you want to go you

know for an example if you're good with your hands and you want to build houses or if you want to be be a welder or a carpenter, for an example, no, you don't need to go to a four-year school for that. You can go straight into the welding industry, Dave, and you can make anywhere from $80,000 to $110,000 out of welding school, and you could be 18, 19 years old. So I think we are normally teaching our young people to go into a four-year traditional school. I know Dave's kids went into a four-year traditional school, but I don't believe everyone has to go that route. I think at the end of the day, we have to start teaching our young people, what do you want to do, and let's find out what's the best process to do what you want to do. Yeah. I think it's really important to not pick something because it's going to make you money.

Yes. You pick something that's going to have a sense of causes your heart to skip a beat. You get a little bit excited about it. Because if you just pick on money, the rate of return on going to trade school for two years is higher on a whole bunch of degrees, especially in the first decade of work. But the difference in increases over time in a white-collar position versus a blue-collar position might be huge in the second, third, and fourth decade if you studied something that's usable.

So the answer is there's not a set thing. Is trade school better than four-year? No. Is four-year better than trade school? No. But you look at the particular industry that they're going into and say, what does that industry require and what does it pay? And so if you're going to go into one of the trades, blue collar carpentry, that kind of thing, maybe you're going to go into IT. You can go get

some of your Microsoft certs and a two-year will do you just fine if you're a good programmer. You don't have to have a four-year degree in information systems to be a programmer. You might need that four-year degree if you want to be the chief technical officer, the CTO, running all the programmers. But if you just want to be a top-shelf programmer, you can do that with a cert. And, yeah, but, I mean, you could go get a bad degree in a four-year college and make a lot less than a good field of study in a two-year. So it's trade dependent, career dependent. You know we're living in unprecedented times and everyone is being challenged just with daily life

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this is when your relationship with your insurance agency counts. Zander is here to be a guide and to serve through these challenging times. Call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. It's just the literacy month in the month of April. Celebrating that, talking to some of our favorite teachers out there that are teaching foundations and personal finance in their high schools. Ask them to get with their students and give us some of the questions that their students have right now for Anthony O'Neill and me.

Anthony joining me for this hour on the show. Also, we are in the middle of Financial Literacy Month when we do our teacher appreciation giveaway. We love teachers, and teachers, the right kinds of teachers, just change people's lives. The ones that are like we're talking to today, they're not the ones that mail it in, you know. And Jackson Charitable Foundation came along, sponsored this, and we've got several $1,000 gift cards and a Ramsey professional, Ramsey Ed professional development class and an incredible grand prize. One lucky teacher will win $5,000 cash to use any way they want to use it.

That's pretty cool. And, of course, there's no purchase necessary, teachers. And we're not going to check up on you. If you're a teacher, you're a teacher. It's that simple. Just go to DaveRamsey.com slash teacher and make sure you enter. There is no purchase necessary. The giveaway ends April the 30th.

Matt is with us. Matt is a teacher in Pennsylvania. Hi, Matt. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. So thanks for calling in, man.

So you've been teaching for how long? This is my 19th year at my current school. I've been teaching your course for five years oh wow so you've had a bunch of students go through the in five years throughout through our curriculum i sure have uh in fact our school has probably been teaching your curriculum for about 10 years there was a teacher that brought it there five years uh before i started teaching it okay very cool well good for you, man. Thank you for doing this.

And what do the kids say when they go through the class? I'm interested. Oh, they love it. I have so many cool stories of kids that's come through. It really, it changes their life. And it's just awesome seeing their eyes light up and seeing how the world works. Matt, I've got a quick question for you. Matt, what is one thing as a teacher that you're seeing that's making a huge,

huge impact in these young people, teaching them financial literacy through this curriculum? What I really like is it's teaching them to stay out of debt. There's so many people that just believe that that's just the way to go for everything and for um for them to see that there are other ways of doing it and what's really neat to me is whenever a kid says to me doesn't everybody know this like this is just common sense stuff and i have to explain to them no no, it's not. And we often will watch your show on, like, Friday or whatever as a reward for the kids working so hard. And I'll say to them, do you see how everybody gets themselves in trouble? Like, this is not just made-up stuff. Yeah, wow.

So what were your kids' questions for the day? Kids' questions for the day. The best one that I had, they asked, what is the best way to budget and save during this current crisis? That's a good question from a teenager, Dave. You know, here's the key thing that I'm telling young people. With them living at home, Matt, is whatever commission that they're getting from doing chores around the house or doing some work around the house just to stick to a budget you know we teach every zero base budget so list all their income minus their expenses and their expenses should be low right now but still be saving towards you know purchasing their first car purchasing you know getting ready for prom next year because

we know we're not going to have it this year and start saving for college but right now is a key time to where they can honestly take up some odd jobs, walk some dogs, cut a lot of grass out there, and save up a lot of money to go towards their future. But that's one thing I would recommend right now. Take advantage of this time and really save as much as you possibly can. Yeah, I agree. You really shouldn't be having a crisis as a result of coronavirus as a teenager, not in a financial crisis anyway.

Meaning your parents should be providing for your food, your shelter, your clothing. That's a normal parent function. Some kids are in different situations, unusual situations, but if a typical teen in that situation, their parents are going to take care of that. So it really doesn't change for that reason. The crisis doesn't change their, you know, what they actually would do. Now, it may change what their parents are doing. It may mean that some of their spending, the money that they get from their parents isn't going to be coming.

Right. And they're going to have to go earn their own. That kind of stuff could be real. And so if you've got that kind of a thing in your household, you may want to save towards that or work extra. But there's all kinds of opportunity to make money for a teen right now in the middle of this and do it safely. There's lots of ways to do it. I paid a teen, Dave, just the other day to pull up all the weeds from my grass. I said, how much are you going to charge me? He said, well, since these are special times, I got to double my price.

I was like, double it. So he went from $25 to $50 because he wanted to pull up all the bad grass and the weeds from my yard. Were the weeds coronavirus infected? Why did he charge you double? Because he said nobody wants to get out here and work. So he's like, hey, I got to charge you. And I was like, I ain't mad at your hustle i like the hustle i would have paid him but i'm just like this kid's got his kid he's

got he's got backbone man he did a good job too dave i said wow well he should have for 50 dollars hey man i ain't mad at him so me i'm just saying i'm echoing what you're saying dave like young people uh this is not a financial crisis for you. This is honestly an opportunity for you. Yeah, it should be, especially if you're working for Anthony. All right. Jason is with us. Jason is a teacher in Frankfort, Illinois. Hi, Jason.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Anthony. Thank you guys for having me on. Let me talk about some financial literacy. Hey, man, we appreciate it. We appreciate you teaching our high school curriculum. And tell us about that. How long have you been doing it? Oh, I've been I like to tell people that I've been creating awkward family dinner conversations since 2009 because these kids go home and tell their parents about all the things they're doing wrong, and all you're hearing is the fork clinking on the plate, and the dad's mad, the mom's mad.

And, yeah, that's about 11 years. Wow. Wow. That's very cool. I bet it does. We have heard over the years lots of stories of parents' lives getting transformed because the kid respectfully, not belligerently, took some of the ideas

that he was learning or she was learning in class home. And that sounds like that's what you were specialized in. Oh, absolutely. You know what? You get to teach the students in the classroom, but one of the amazing things is when they actually take it home and then they teach their parents. And a lot of times parents don't like to hear the message, but when we bring them home with such facts and knowledge, we change some parents' minds and perspectives on debt and car

payments and investing. So it's been amazing, not only for my students, but they're changing their families as well. Yeah. Very, very cool. All right, Jason, what's your guys' question for the day? Yeah. So we've got a whole lot of my students, and one of the ones that comes up the most is they're looking for ideas. My students are starting to believe that you can be a student without student loans, and so we're looking for some ideas on things that they could do to help them cash flow their college education. Oh, man, that's good.

I like your student saying we can be a student without student loans. How many students are in your class? I've got over 200 students this year. So I've got six classes worth of personal finance students. I wonder how much student loan debt we can keep from happening right now. Ready, set, go, Anthony. Oh, man, we can keep a lot. Here's the number one thing is you've got to apply for scholarships and grants right now. And here's another thing, too,

is they can actually go to community college. I really I have to echo that and say that loud community college. Davidson cost you anywhere between zero, depending on the state you're in, up to about four thousand dollars. If you work 20 hours a week, you can start off going that route. Yeah, absolutely. So there's several things, Jason, that Anthony wrote about in Debt-Free Degree and that we've been saying around here as well in different ways for some time. We really honed the message in when he did the book. But the number one mathematical thing that moves the needle for most people is simply college selection. That's it.

Simply go to a school you can afford and you can't you can't you don't need to be shopping on the bentley lot if you have uh chevrolet money or hyundai money or whatever it is yeah so you know go to a school you can afford and you know the entry point of that is community college what he was talking about and then get the scholarships don't be afraid to work an extra job a a non-traditional job, by the way. You make more money working for yourself, some kind of side hustle, than you do flopping whoppers. And so that's the thing.

So working, picking the right school, getting scholarships, that's the biggest three things that move the needle. Hey, Jason, again, we appreciate you teaching, man. God bless you folks i love telling you about well-made well-thought-out products today i'm talking about grip six belts i don't know about you but i'm not a fan of traditional belts they never fit right and they're uncomfortable grip Grip 6 belts are unique. Owner BJ designed a truly modern minimalist belt made of high quality materials with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. And the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable.

I personally own these belts in different styles and talk about affordability grip six belts come with a lifetime guarantee and that means if you no longer like or fit the style of your belt you can replace them for free plus i like the way these guys do business grip six is determined to help build and modernize american manufacturing to learn more and get this month's dave ramsey special visit grip6.com that's grip6.com It's a financial literacy theme hour during National Financial Literacy Month here on The Dave Ramsey Show. We are doing a teacher appreciation giveaway sponsored by Jackson Charitable Foundation. And each, well, the winner will receive in the drawing $5,000 cash.

And you just go to DaveRamsey.com slash teacher, and it's a free entry, no purchase necessary. Someone will win $5,000 cash that's a teacher. We love teachers, and Jackson Charitable loves teachers, and they wanted to say thank you. Jackson Charitable also, for three years, has sponsored the high school curriculum, Financial Foundations in Personal Finance, in hundreds of schools across America, and a lot of the teachers we're talking with today are teaching the class because it was given to them as a result of Jackson Charitable Foundation's gift to cover the cost of it. And so it's pretty incredible. They've been doing this for three years with us, and they've generously now provided for over 600 high schools across America. That's a big deal, Anthony. That's a huge deal, Dave. I forgot to cut on the mic there. But that's a huge

deal, Dave, and I'm so grateful for what they're doing, especially with this being their third year partnering with us to help spread this message out to 600 high school students, which equals nearly thousands and thousands of young people that their futures will be changed because of the wisdom and knowledge that they received in high school and in middle school. Yeah, that's a big deal. Teachers are game changers when they're doing their job and they're doing it right. And, I mean, I'm 60 years old,

and I can still name teachers from my grade school, my middle school, my high school that were the impactful ones, that were the good ones. I don't like my teachers from back in the days, man. You don't? I wonder what the common denominator was. I know. That's why I don't like them, because I know they don't like me. No, I'm just playing.

You're a hero when you go back to those schools, man. I am. I am. I have one, Ms. Clint Denning, who's listening now. She was really that life-changing teacher of mine, and I told her she needs to apply for this, because she's still teaching to today, Dave. Wow. That's cool. All right.

Mary Jo is with us. Mary Jo is a teacher at Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And Mary Jo, thanks for teaching the class. We appreciate it. So how long have you been teaching overall? I've been a teacher on and off for about 15 years. I was a former engineer and then became a math teacher. But this is my first year teaching personal finance. I'm really grateful to Jackson because they are the ones that

sponsor our school and they've been able to get your curriculum into our school this year. So this is our first year with about 60 kids this year. Oh, cool. Cool. So you're kind of watching for the first time how the kids are reacting to this. Because I would have been the kid that trashed Dave Ramsey on Twitter if I was having to watch him in class. I would have been that kid. Yeah, no, lots of our kids are really excited to get to the day. We have videos. We don't watch them every day.

And we have a lot of your fans in my class. Very cool. So questions that you're getting from your students for Anthony. Well, we had a question about your envelope system. When we did savings and budgeting last fall, and I teach the class half a year and then repeat this fall, we do this like online simulation game that the kids simulate getting a paycheck and putting into budgets and whatnot.

And one of my students really took your advice to heart and kept all his money in his cash account. And then as part of the simulation, he got robbed, lost income. And then that happened to a couple of kids this semester as well. So one of my students wants to know, you know, is it smart to make as many purchases as you can using cash and not use a debit or a credit card? That's a good question.

Yeah. Real good question. But so you're saying that he actually had money actually. No, he didn't literally get robbed. That's part of the simulation you're saying. Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah.

Cool. So, I mean, here's the thing with the envelope system. You have the practical cash, and then we also had a digital envelope system with every dollar. I do believe in purchasing things with cash as much as you possibly can. So for an example, if you're trying to save up and pay cash for a car, we're not saying walk in there and put, you know, $10,000 on the table for car, 5,000 for a kid. And what we're saying just makes sure that you're purchasing everything cash, debit card, no credit, no debt, and stick to a budget using the every dollar budget. And so the envelope cash

system, I would say, I keep a little bit of cash on me, but I don't keep a lot on me, Dave. Right. So what we're seeing, Mary Jo, among adults is that they're largely using the debit card and every dollar of the budget. The problem in the old days was when people would use a debit card and a traditional checking account with no budgeting tool in their pocket would be that they would overspend a category. Gotcha. Because with a debit card, there was no bell to ring. If you had $50 in your clothing envelope and the shirt was $60, there's a bell rings that says you can't buy it because there's no money in there. There's not enough money in your clothing envelope.

And the purpose of the envelope system was to do two things. One is for a bell to ring, so to speak, to keep you from going over. Now, you've got that if you're running with the every dollar budget, and most people in their 20s, 30s are not carrying big wads of cash, even in Financial Peace University. Now, I do recommend carrying cash, especially for things you purchase away from home. I'll give you an example. Groceries is a really good one for adults to purchase your envelopes or to use envelopes

and pay cash because groceries are the best merchandisers on the planet. They know how to sell with their shelf position lighting aisle design everything and it's all laid out to cause you to buy more and if you don't have a physical structure to keep you from overspending on that and you don't have those green presidents looking up at you as you go through the checkout line saying why are you why are you putting me out for adoption um then you're going to have a tendency to overspend. So mainly things with adults that you're purchasing away from home. Like if you're sitting and paying a bill, well, you would do that with a debit card or an account or a draft or a check or a bill pay system or whatever, sitting at your desk

or your kitchen table at home. But if you're going out on a date as a a teenager that might be a good one just to pay cash because that might be a time that uh you would overspend to look cool yes and uh you don't want to overspend to look cool you need something that rings a bell and the running out of cash and the envelope system does that and i like that dave you said a date you know i had a bad experience with having a budget on date we won't talk about it here, but that's a good one, Dave. Well, and you went to, like, Red Lobster and took a girl when you were going broke before you were homeless. I remember this because I'm ragged on you about this to no end.

But you're hitting that on, Dave. I agree. You bought flowers. You bought all this stuff, and the girl don't even know your name. And it wasn't cash. But if I would have had cash looking at me, I wouldn't have done it. Green President's Faces or Jane. There we go.

I bet her name was Jane. I bet that's what it was. Jane sounds like somebody who would take the red lobster. That's good. That was a good one. I'm not going to say nothing to you. Good job, Mary Jo. Thank you so much for leading the class.

We very, very much appreciate it. But, again, here's the lesson I want the going to say nothing to you. Good job, Mary Jo. Thank you so much for leading the class. We very, very much appreciate it. But again, here's the lesson I want the kids to hear, and I want adults to hear too. Do something in the management of your money, even if there's a risk of theft, to cause you to manage it better. Mismanagement gives you a 100% chance of theft. Managing it well and losing your envelope or having someone steal your envelope physically,

it does not have 100% chance. As a matter of fact, it has almost a 0% chance of you actually being mugged and losing your envelope to a thief. I mean, because they don't have x-ray vision. They can't look in your pocket and go, oh, he's not got three over-the-limit credit cards. He's got cash. They can't see that in your pocket. They don't know what you've got in your pocket. So, you know, you can lose it by just being irresponsible. Now, that's possible. I

have lost an envelope with cash in it, but I lost a lot more to mismanagement than I did theft or just being irresponsible with the loss of an actual cash. Here's the weird thing. You take care of that cash when you're tearing it around. You really do. You know where your wallet is. You know where your checkbook is. You know whatever you're carrying, and you know where that envelope is.

Because there's this emotional thing you're activating that's causing you to not overspend. And, Dave, it's good accountability for yourself. If you go in there and you see you don't have the money in there and you got to rob to pay it from the light bills, you're not going to do it because now you're holding yourself accountable. But if a teen has a bill that they need to pay regularly, that's fine if it's not with cash. Yes, sir. But stuff like a date or car gas keeps you from going over your limit. You need something that ding, ding, ding, keeps you from going over your budgeted amount.

That's the big deal with it. And if you can just get that concept down, I don't care whether you do it with an envelope or whether you do it with a debit card and every dollar plus. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders make your life easier with FreshBooks. Whether you're starting a business or you've been at it a long time, FreshBooks is one of the smartest decisions you'll make this year.

FreshBooks is an accounting software designed for people like you that lets you do the things like automate your invoicing and your online payments so you get more time to work on your business try fresh books for 30 days free at freshbooks.com slash dave ramsey financial literacy theme hour april is national financial literacy month and uh if you don't believe that knowing something about your marriage will make your marriage better then you think that someone else is controlling your marriage other than you. If you don't believe that knowing something about nutrition and fitness will cause your body to be in better shape,

then you think that you are a victim only of your DNA. If you don't think that knowing something about your money will cause your money to be better and have more of it, then you think someone else controls your whole life, that you have no control over your own life, and you apparently weren't raised on a farm where they teach you that the way you get a crop is you have to sow seed. If you don't put seed in the ground, no crop grows. And we believe that outside forces do impact your personal finances but a whole lot

more of it is affected by you you control your own destiny and by the way of the 93 percent millionaires of the millionaires that we studied the largest study of millionaires ever done 93 percent of them started with nothing or close to nothing and got there they did not inherit their money and 96 percent of them that's all of them of millionaires believe that the way you become a millionaire is you control the variables you control the controllables you know something about saving you know something about investing you know something about investing you know to avoid debt you know to work with your spouse you know to be on a budget financial literacy so so millionaires say that started with nothing and became millionaires that the best way to do that

is financial literacy so if you believe that financial literacy is a waste of time that it is a hoax that makes you a socialist that believes that the government has to fix your life, not you fix your own life. I'm not one of those. I'm a capitalist pig. Proud of it. And Anthony O'Neill joins me, and he's right there with me. So here's the thing.

You want to get out of your student loan debt? Yeah. No one's going to do it for you. You've got to do it. And you wrote this new quick read, 64-page little book called destroy your student loan debt and we just launched it a couple weeks ago it's going like crazy it's already going like crazy dave and here's the reason why i wrote this quick read is because exactly what you said the socialist mentality that we're waiting for the government to forgive our student loans oh wait wait wait, wait. Bernie's not going to be in.

Wait, wait, wait for it. Elizabeth's not going to be in. Oh, wait for it. Biden's not for forgiving student loans. Oh, wait for it. Trump's not for forgiving student loans. Oh, wait for it. You're going to have to pay them off.

Come on, man, Dave. And that's it. And here's the thing. I'm all for it. Let me take control of my life. I'm not going to worry about the White House. I'm worried about my house. And this is why I wrote this quick read, Destroy Your Student Loan Debt, where we literally just take a deep dive into baby step number two, something that God and grandma gave you, which is paying off all your

debt using the debt snowball, excluding your mortgage. And so I really talk about everything from my thoughts on student loan forgiveness, I really talk about everything from my thoughts on student loan forgiveness, why I disagree with it, my thoughts on when is the right time to re-five your student loan if refinancing is a good option for you. And then three, here's how you're going to pay off your student loans quick, fast, and in a hurry. It's only 64 pages long. I don't like reading out loud. it took me two hours to read it out loud so the average person should be able to read it within an hour and a half to two hours the best two hours you can do uh to get ahead of the game especially right now dave you did an audiobook on it too

right i did okay that's the two-hour read that's the two-hour read yeah so um i sound good on there and so if you want to hear a good voice you're no hogan but you sound good i sound good the humility just comes through hey man listen you know hey i spent two hours reading i better sound good your teachers are proud of you on this financial literacy mark i love it very cool the book is called destroy your student loan debt you can get it at davramsey.com we're running a ten dollar sale on all of our books and this is ten dollars at dayramsey.com slash hope if you want to go to the hope page where all the stuff is for the coronavirus shutdown. We're running all kinds of things there to help you, give you something to learn.

So when we come out of our caves after the nuclear winter is over and resume our lives, you're going to be much smarter this time around, and that's what we want for you. We believe in financial literacy for teens. We believe in it for adults. And so let's talk to some of the teachers that are teaching our financial peace, our foundation's personal finance curriculum. I can't get it out. It's not financial peace. I said it wrong.

All right. And Joe is up next. Joe is not on that line. Can you hang that line up for me, please? I can't seem to get it to hang up. I don't know. Okay. I don't know what I did. Anyway, my bad. Let's see. Where is he? He's on two. All right. There we go. Hey, Joe, my fault. How can I help? So you're calling in your teacher in Pennsylvania, right? Yes, sir. Very cool. How long have you been teaching? I've been teaching 19

years, been teaching the course 11. Wow, thank you. My goodness gracious. How many kids have you taught through the foundations class? Between 11 and 1200. Wow. What's a couple of the best stories you've ever gotten out of doing that?

I have a kid at 22 that bought a house outright with no debt. Wait, wait, wait. Joe, Joe, Joe, say that one more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe, a 22-year-old bought a house cash? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we have the natural gas industry. Yeah. Running through the state. So we have kids that are making over $100,000 a year, kids that are running line, and they don't spend the money. So he went into the trades and just piled up the cash because you taught him this stuff in high school. Wow. I like to believe that.

Well, I'm sure he came back to brag to you, didn't he? Yes, I got a couple of mentions on Facebook facebook and it's actually with all this going on by the coronavirus it's one of the things uh people have been saying um how comes you don't have money set back because mr logan said you needed to have three to six months for your salary saved up i love it already on it i love it very cool yeah mr logan anthony on the on dave ramsey i like it that's a good team right there, man. Very cool, Joe. I like it. Very neat.

Very neat. So, you guys, you got together with some of your existing students now, and I got a question for Anthony. Yes. So, one of the biggest issues that I run into every year is that student or the couple of students who tell me that mom and dad told me I should get a loaner credit card to start building credit. What suggestions do you have to combat that? Man, this is a question I'm asked all the time when I go into high schools. And it's a hard question. And let's be real here,

Joe, because you do not want to be disrespectful to the parents, but then you do want to teach truth and facts to the kids. And so one thing that I'm always doing is staying true to my teachings. Hey, here's why I believe credit score, taking out loans, taking on debt is completely wrong. I totally respectfully disagree with your parents. As a matter of fact, I'll even be willing to have a conversation with you and your parents at the same time. But for me, I'm always trying to be the respectful route to the parents by letting them know I respectfully but firmly disagree. And here's why I disagree. And then here's some other content to go read with your parents so

they can understand why I disagree with that. Yeah. Send them a link to one of the videos home and let them watch through it and say, this is what I'm learning at school, Mom and Dad. It doesn't, and because of that, I really don't want to do this, but I also don't want to be disobedient. We never want to teach a teen to be belligerent. They have that gene by themselves. Come on, Dave. I did. Not all teens.

I mean, you know, so you don't want to teach them to pop off at Mom and Dad. And I know you're not doing that, Joe. But we would never do that. We want you to be obedient to your mom and dad. But if your mom and dad were asking you to do something else that was harmful, just because they asked, you would respectfully disagree and try to present a case that, no, I really don't want to do cocaine just because you all are. You know, it's like if there was something else that was bizarre like that, you would just say, no, I think I'm going to pass on that, mom and dad.

And the older the student is, the better their track record is in other behavior areas, the more weight they probably have with their mom and dad. Yeah. And you know what, Dave? One thing a student came up to me, she said, I went to my mom and my dad and say, listen, I know you're saying take out a student loan to go to this school, but what will it hurt me to just go to a community college, work, and I will not touch any student loans? How does that hurt?

How does that hurt me at all? Yeah. Yeah. And how does it hurt me to not go into debt? Exactly. You know, use this debt, this whole process. So, hey, Joe, thank you again for being one of the teachers out there, man. We appreciate you.

Folks, teachers, you need to go to DaveRamsey.com slash teacher and enter to win some of these $1,000 gift cards or the $5,000 cash giveaway that we're doing. As a teacher appreciation thing, the giveaway ends April the 30th. No purchase necessary. DaveRamsey.com slash teacher. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope.

For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.