The Ramsey Show - App - Are You Dealing With a Debt Problem or an Income Problem?

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Live 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, Ph.D. in counseling, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Network. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jake starts us in Indianapolis. Hi, Jake. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? That's good. So I lost my job back in November. I haven't really been able to recoup on finances between job to job. Up to $13,000 in credit card debt, living paycheck to paycheck.

It's difficult to get out of that. How can I get out of this? What were you making at your old job in November? $80,000 a year. Doing what? I was a truck driver. Why'd you lose your job? I got pulled over

and got a bogus ticket. Got it reduced, but now jobs still see the ticket, and it just won't take me back. Okay. Would that be true if you were driving in city or that just over the road over the road yeah so because a cdl is a pretty valuable thing to have as you

know right and i don't think a single ticket ticket, unless someone was hurt on the occasion that the ticket was issued, a single ticket for speeding or something else is going to keep you from landing anything. Yeah, was it a DUI? No. The cop wrote me for going over 80 miles an hour in my truck. I got it reduced down to improper driving. But companies look at the improper driving as a reckless driving. So they still look at it as a risk.

And they may have some insurance problems. They may not be able to insure you if you work for them. They may even want to hire you. They just can't. Right. What do you make now um i'm barely making a thousand a week now what are you doing truck driving so i was able to get another company but i'm not getting paid well at all okay how long before this thing

bounces on your record or quits counting against you if it's a year old does it matter two years old when does that matter three years it bounces off okay all right because that you know what what you've got what you're describing to me jake is not a debt problem it's an income problem right and so you went from 80 to um 80 a year to a thousand a week you said yes under a thousand a week around about 700 sometimes 600 maybe so you're down to about 50 and um so how much is your car payment so i have no car debt good cars paid off good um rent is 1400 a week a month i'm sorry yes a month i pay life insurance on me my mother grandmother and father so that's around about $350 to $400 total a month.

Phone bill. Are you living with your parents? I'm not. Why are you paying their life insurance? They're older. They don't really have life insurance on themselves. So I just went ahead and took that up on my end. Yeah, you don't really have the money to do that. Okay.

There's no one counting on their income to live, so I don't know that they need life insurance unless it's just a burial policy. And a burial policy shouldn't be $10,000 for my mom, $30,000 for my grandmother, half a million for my dad, and I think I got $50,000 for me. Yeah, okay. I think you need to go to Zander Insurance and call them and do a review of your insurance policies because I think you're getting screwed on your insurance policies and you're buying

policies you don't need. That's one thing we can do. But the second thing is get the big deal here, I think, is probably get on a written plan. Let's get you on the EveryDollar budgeting app. I'll give it to you free for a year, a premium version, so you can get in there and learn how to work these baby steps we talk about because you have to make every single dollar that you make behave. You don't have room for any slack, okay?

And I want you to keep working on this job thing. One of the things you need to do is say, all right, it's not that I can't, it's not that no one will hire me because that's not a true statement what a true statement is is it's difficult to find someone to hire you that's a true statement you follow me okay with I mean if you want to drive if you want to go do something else it's not difficult at all I got lots of speeding tickets I got no issue with this okay so uh but but but i don't drive for a living where i'm someone's trying to insure me or something like that thank god

so uh because it couldn't happen i'm telling you but the um anyway the uh so all that to say you know maybe a different line of work maybe this is your cue to move off into the other career you wanted to go to or maybe um maybe you just it's difficult to find something and you haven't found the one yet. But I think your new part-time job is talking in person to anyone at a trucking company, not sending in an application with Monster.com, going over there with your buddy who's a driver he walks you into the boss's office and you sit down talk to him you tell him what happened and say can you get me on that's the only way that's how you that's how you trump card this thing you follow me yes because if they're just look down and see this on an application they throw the app in

the trash that's what you've been experiencing but i think you trumpet with uh knowing someone inside the company that walks you in there and then if it's not an insurance issue like john brought up and that may very well be true uh then maybe that gets you there so we're going to give you every dollar and i'm going to give you ken coleman's book proximity principle which is how to land a job the way i'm talking about and that's the proper way to get after it. And I want to say this. I was instantly turned off, Jake, by the way he said, I got a bogus ticket. If I'm trying to hire you,

you're trying to come ask me to overlook something and give you a shot, I want to see you take 100% full ownership. So you don't walk in and say, well, I got a bogus ticket. If you walk in and say, I was speeding. I was speeding. I played it down. Here's what it says on here. I was going over the speed limit, and I would like to come work for you.

There's something about that level of, if there's a problem, I'm going to own it, that I'll take a risk on you. That's more attractive. There you go. Than a victim position. That's it. If somebody comes in and their first thing is, I need you to help me because this guy screwed me,

well, I'm probably going to be the next guy in line that you're going to think screwed you. Whether it's true or not, I just want to see someone walk in with their head held high, taking ownership. I messed up. Will you please help me? It's the old thing of the jails are full of innocent people. Always.

That's always, yeah. So lead with your head held high, brother. Yeah, that kind of a thing. And just go, hey, I messed this up. It didn't go down the way maybe it should have, but it's on me. If I hadn't opened the door, then they couldn't have done this. And so I plaited it down. Here's what we got.

It says a weird thing on there, but it's not reckless driving. And I'm a great driver. I'll outwork everybody you have. Give me a shot. Yeah, I'll be here when nobody else will. This is The Ramsey Show. Well, guys, a few weeks ago, our team reached out to both Vice President Harris's camp and President Donald Trump's camp about the opportunity to sit down and do a long-form interview talking about ideas.

With me, that always means particularly the economy because I know that you guys are thinking about ideas. With me, that always means particularly at the economy, because I know that you guys are thinking about that. I'm convinced, it might just be because I'm a hammer and everything looks like a nail, but I'm convinced that's the number one issue is the economy. But I could be wrong, but that's, you know, that's the way it is. So anyway, Harris's camp has our invitation under review, in quotes, and the Trump campaign accepted. We went up last week and I got to sit down with President Trump and ask him some things about what he's going to do. I don't really care about all the I don't like the other side. I get that part.

I don't really care about all the what are you used to do? I don't want all the bragging. What are you what are you going to do? Like in the first 90 days, what are you going to do about this or that? And it was a great conversation, pretty low-key, not exactly flamboyant. I don't think we got anything there that's going to make the news or anything like that, although the news people are kind of looking at this with their heads sideways like a German shepherd.

They're going, Dave, Trump? So, yeah, we talked about issues that matter to you, like $7 eggs, $5 gas, and 7% interest rates, that kind of stuff. Because that comes up in discussions with anyone's group of friends, right? So, anyway, it's available today. The interview popped today on the Ramsey Network app, which is a free app that carries all of our shows in total, video, audio, everything, including the last segment of this show every day, the Ramsey Network app. Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, October the 2nd, for those of you that aren't listening live, the episode will be released to everyone on our YouTube channel and on our podcast channel.

In no case are we charging anything. It's completely free to see all of it, and we'd love for you to see it. And thanks for checking it out. We appreciate that. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Kate is in Grand Rapids. Hi, Kate. How are you? Hi.

I'm good, thank you. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. I've got a question. I am on baby step two, my husband and I, and I'm working hard, gazelle-like, to get out of credit card debt. On the side, I also have a leased car that is, I think, definitely slowing me down, and I don't ever want to lease the car again.

And that will be up in nine payments, nine months from now, what would be the best route to get rid of that quicker while trying to get out of debt? I'm not sure how to prioritize because I don't need the car. I need a car. I don't need that car. I don't think the numbers are going yeah it's a good question and i appreciate your willingness to sacrifice to win that's a good sign for you but i doubt with only nine payments left is it going to make much difference okay well what if my mileage is kind of knocking at the door of maxinelle yeah and i'll be

paying from the mileage yeah so let's go ahead and start talking about how we're going to buy a car so when you turn that car in what do you turn that car in what are you going to do buy a car how a cheaper car um, so we have money. Oh. How much money do we have? I'm just not sure if we should have the money put towards the debt or save to buy a car. How much? Well, my husband is working on the storm team down south right now, making good storm pay. So he'll be bringing in about, I mean, after taxes, maybe $15,000. When? Just for working that when in a couple weeks oh in a month okay a couple of weeks good yeah

yeah well i'm glad he's down there helping that's great um okay so do you have any other money saved um we just have our thousand dollar emergency fund okay so you really don't have any money you just have this potential money that's coming from him doing the storm team okay yeah i got you okay uh what i would do um you can here's what you can do call the car company the lease goes who's the lease with a chevrolet okay call chevy and say all right uh general motors it's probably general motors uh uh leasing company uh gmac and uh just ask what the early buyout on the car is if you wrote him a check today do what i have a quote for that oh what is it 27 000 27 000 what's the car worth is about between 29 and 32 is privately sold okay so you could sell it for enough to

pay it off now yes and do it okay sell it that's unusual but but how do i get the money the the 27 you don't if i buy the car from you and i write you a check for 29 000 you send it to general motors and they send you the title and then you give it to me that's how you do it when i reverse it okay when there's a debt on the car you don't need money the buyer is going to give you the money in most in most states in most states in most states if the seller has debt on the car the way the transaction goes is the buyer gives them the money the seller gives them the car the keys and a bill of sale and then they send the money to the bank and pay off the bank, or in your case, to General Motors and pay off the lease, they send you the title, you sign it over.

It takes about five weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever for that to happen. Okay. And you can go ahead and get in touch with General Motors and find out exactly how long it's going to take them to get you the title once you send them a check so you can tell a buyer. But that's a normal transaction in most states. and so that's the way that would go down and in the meantime go buy a three thousand dollar car and use the rest of the 15 towards your baby steps okay got it sounds good good and that gets rid of the nine hundred dollars a month which helps that too so what you've told

me is very unusual folks most of the time let's say she had a, we'll make up a number, a thousand dollar car payment, nine payments left, $9,000. Usually she's more than $9,000 upside down. And so you're better off to go ahead and pay the 9,000 out, drive the car out and turn it in at the end of the lease, even if you're a little over on the mileage mathematically. So if you're upside down more than the total of your remaining payments, you don't sell the car and that's where i what i thought i was going to hear it's what i heard is actually a little bit unusual that makes sense yeah um the only thing i think would be hard here is you have to find some way to convince me as a seller if i'm gonna give you 29 000 bucks or as a buyer well you're leaving with the car yeah but i don't want a car without

a title on it right so you have to show me something that says still a sale it's a normal it's a normal transaction i mean you can get it you can get it notarized you can go that's it you know do it don't all very properly and all that kind of stuff but that's a fairly normal i mean i bought a car like that not long ago so so yeah not a big not a big deal open phones at 888-825-5225. Mike is in Indianapolis. Hey, Mike, how are you? Doing good, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? I'm trying to find out with your guys' approach if I can retire from my job because I'm a government contractor and it looks like the contract is ending. Okay. How old are you? I'm a government contractor, and it looks like the contract is ending. Okay. How old are you? I'm 56. Okay. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? We have a hobby farm that we like to work on, and we want to do some traveling.

For 40 years? Amongst other things. okay um i would recommend an encore career that allows you to work on the farm and it's not it's not a greeter at walmart okay that allows you to work on the farm and do some traveling it might be you start a small business but i'm going to play with my farm and travel for 40 years is a long life you're not going to like it you're going to learn to hate you're going to hate these things so because um it's good for people to uh lean into things and do things so i'm going to recommend you do something not just financially but otherwise you notice i haven't even asked if you have any money yet i'm talking about you as a person right now, that you work on something.

It's good for people to work. How much money do you have in your nest egg? About $675,000 in retirement funds. Okay, and what do you make now? Approximately $85,000 from my job and another $80K in military retirement and VA. You'll keep getting that, okay? Correct. Will you get anything from your job at all when you retire?

No, just the $401K that I've been taking. Can you live on $80K plus maybe if you took $50K off the $675K? Yes. Me and the wife can live way under $80K. Yeah, well, then you can retire mathematically. But I got to tell you, I'm 64. I still work. I don't recommend it.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're non-profit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide.

You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. thousand dollars it's easy to join and fairwinds partners with more than 5 000 credit union locations around the country so you can bank in person wherever you live but if you prefer the online experience you can log on to fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location so go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash ramsey dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today phd in counseling if you didn't know we do this show three hours a day monday through friday from one to four central time it's on the glass what that means is you can sit in our lobby and watch the show. I can't promise that that's entertaining, but it is a possibility for you, and it doesn't cost anything.

So if you don't like it, we can just refund half your money or something. But the other thing that we do have that is definitely a plus is Mama's homemade cookies are in there free. So when you walk in this place, you mama's kitchen not corporate america and um free coffee and cookies and so people come and watch the show there's always 50 to 200 folks sitting out here and in the middle of that lobby because it's a tradition around here we built the little debt free stage and if someone's standing on that stage it can only mean one thing nathan and sharon are with us on the Debt Free Stage. Hey, guys, how are you?

Hi. We're great. Welcome. Where do you guys live? We're from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Very nice. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you paid off?

$52,100. Very good. And how long did that take? It took 69 months total. 69? Yes. Okay. And your range of income during that time?

So we started at the beginning when we got married, September 2018. We were at $89,000. And then we closed most recently this year with $78,000. Okay. All right. Cool. And what kind of debt was the $52,000? So it's primarily student loan debt.

About $40,000 of it, I think, was the student loan debt. And then about $5,000 car loans, $5,000 credit cards. All right. So tell me the story. What happened? And why did it take 69 months? So the adjustment in the income was a huge thing there. But I feel like we found our footing and our momentum with the credit cards.

It was an easy win for us to knock out. Although I know for Sharon, it didn't feel like that at the time. I remember the way that she would tell me, she would look at her credit card statement and it would tell the little number on there, like how long, if you just pay the minimums, how long it would take. And that was just like a soul crushing number to see. 17 years. I think the 69 months is, so we started out just kind of regular jobs. And during COVID, we felt like the Lord was calling us to quit our jobs and start working for our church.

And so that was the decrease in income. We also found out we were having our first child and we've had two kids and now we both are in full-time ministry. Ah, okay. All right. That makes more sense now. Yeah. So how did you find us 69 months ago? So it was actually something that the lead pastor of our church was interested in offering a financial peace group. And he was like, Nathan, I feel like you'd be a good person to lead this. And I started learning more because I'd heard a little bit about Ramsey principles and stuff before then um but I learned and was able to dig into them a whole lot more and was like well wow we we should try this out we should live this out we should do something a

little bit different um and it and it proved to to work and it proved to um really really change I feel like we've really changed our family's legacy going forward. As you say, changing our family tree. Like our kids could have a different life now because we're not still stuck under our student loans. We can get ready for them when they're ready to go to school. That sort of thing. Have a whole bunch of people go through the class when you're teaching it? Yeah.

So we're going to be starting our fifth Financial Peace University class in just a week or so. Well, thank you. So that's become a real passion of ours is being able to show people that it is possible. You can do this even with, we've had like several excuses that we could have made throughout the journey. I mean, from 2018 to now, so many things have changed. We've had inflation. We've had the pandemic.

We've had the change in our job. Two kids. But we didn't allow those things to stop us from moving forward. What's the... Let me back up and say it this way. A lot of times people say, I felt called to this thing. And they think that following that call is a big exhale, that life's suddenly going to get pretty easy,

not realizing that, no, no, no, now you just got called into the jungle, right? Yeah. And so what was the hardest part about this journey? Because y'all are both smiling here, you're both free, you've got two kids, it's all partridge in a pear tree. This was hard. Yes.

Like scary, pandemic pandemic loss of income. We're going to work from the church and growing up in the house of a guy who worked for a church. You get to see how the sausage is made and like all that. Tell me about how hard this was. Can I answer this? Sure. Your fingers are so tightly clenched together.

You're like, Oh, this is my question. No, this was super hard for me because I, I I bought into especially as a student and you graduate so I have we both have graduate degrees so you you feel like I'm supposed to live a certain kind of life now because I have these degrees and these I'm kind of expecting a certain kind of job a certain kind of income and so when we were like yeah those degrees may hang on the wall, but we're going to have to live a different way to get out from under this to change, like Nathan was saying, our legacy. So for me, the biggest things that looked like was not really eating out like I was used to and not doing the things I was used to doing and having to say no a lot, which hurt,

you know, to friends and, hey, let's go do this. Hey, let's go do this hey let's go do that i can't do that um and here's why um so i felt a little bit like different i didn't like feeling different at first but kind of got used to the being weird thing and it's fine now and and i do feel like we still had fun along the way you know so it's like a whole new identity yeah yeah um what matters to me now is different than what mattered to me exactly yeah you just said something important they they i've tried it they just don't accept photocopies of your degrees at the electric company like they want actual money it's frustrating yeah i tried to use it in public that's right i showed them hey i've got this

degree can i have these groceries and they're like yes, yes, I have that work. Another piece of our story, I'll say, so the early years, we weren't as gazelle intense with it, I'll say. Since 2022, that really changed because, so I came up with the bright idea, but she gave me the side eye at the time was to sell not my car, but her car. We had actually gotten them paid off. And then it was like, well, what if we sold one of our cars? Because this is kind of at the peak where used car sales were, the values were much higher than they were. And I was like, we could take advantage of this and really knock out a really strong part of our debt. But it wasn't a popular decision. I was like, of course he wants to sell my car, right? Of course it's my car. And so we were a one car family with two small children for a period of time. And that was super inconvenient.

Like, super inconvenient. Yeah, for real. I would not disagree a bit. Have y'all bought you a car now? We have a second car now. Yay. Yes. A minivan.

Yeah. I never would have chosen that life, but it feels like a blessing right now. Minivan life chose me. I love it. That life chooses you. I like it. I like it. You chose two kids. Minivan works. I i mean it works for me well congratulations you guys okay

when you're teaching this next financial peace class and they hear you paid off fifty two thousand dollars in debt as church employees yes that let's just put that in there uh they they kind of go how'd you do that what do you tell them the important thing is they gotta learn when they go through this class making a budget and sticking to it i know it sounds super simple but that but that was not simple for me prior to marrying nathan and kind of getting into this financial peace thing it was not simple it was like oh crap what's due oh can i push this around and pay this later and how can i hide the p under a shell yeah i feel like also getting getting that easy win the being able to pay off the credit cards helped us see like wow that there's still a mountain

ahead of us but we're making progress we can do it the the baby steps work in that way being able to see those little victories like wow we could we can see bigger ones now because of this so the do the debt snowball the right way smallest to largest literally yes as you feel it it changes everything and so yeah well way to go you guys we're very proud of you congratulations thank you very well done very well done. Nathan and Sharon, Virginia Beach, Virginia. $52,000 paid off in 69 months, making 89 down to 78. Job changes, inflation, and two kids in the interim. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

All right. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah, baby! Well, I think they took away your excuses if you're listening, so if this is you listening for the first time, maybe that's something you need to do.

Yeah, I'm talking to you. Maybe it's time for you to get out of debt and straighten your life up. That's what this show is here for. Help you become wealthy and generous. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession.

Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.

With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Weston is in Philadelphia. Hi, Weston. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure. So I'm 24. I recently got engaged to my college girlfriend.

Congratulations. Thank you. It's about time, Weston. Yeah, seriously. It's been six years. We've been living together in an apartment and just finished our first month's budget on every dollar. So we've been taking a closer look at our finances. We have a combined $40,000 in student loan debt, and we're planning a wedding for April of 26. On top of that, we were introduced to your content by our realtor because we thought, hey, let's buy a house as well. But the problem is I make $76,000 a year. I have $10,000 in stock options that I can exercise in January. I've got $6,000 in bonuses coming in January as well. And my fiance makes about $50,000. On top of that, we love to travel and we're planning to

do a destination wedding. My fiance has some expensive tastes and wants a unique, beautiful wedding. And her initial estimate was around $40,000, not including flights or anything else. Her family was planning to contribute $15,000 as a gift. And my fiance wanted to take a loan out for the rest, but I've insisted we pay cash. So I set a $25,000 budget, which includes that $15,000 gift. And she's pretty upset about that. She doesn't think it's possible for a pretty wedding to have that dollar attached to it. So my question is, what should I prioritize and in what order? Should we try and do our student loan debts first before the wedding?

She's a little concerned that if we wait to the last minute to save for the wedding that we won't have enough in time um hey weston run just kidding totally kidding totally kidding don't run um but you got a lot yeah there's a lot there's a lot going on here okay um you you need to the first money you need to spend is on in-depth pre-marriage counseling. And I'm not making a joke and I'm not making fun of you or her, but a lot of things that you said in that run-on sentence you just gave us for the last few minutes were scary to me as a dad. Gotcha. If my son

called me up and had that exact same conversation, I would be really worried because there's one of two things that's happening here. She's either a young lady who's really excited and a little bit immature

and wants things that she can't afford. And you guys are doing a whole bunch of things out of order and a crazy set of things you put on the table that you need to do and you're broke people. Right. And that could just simply be, she's very young and immature. It could be that you've signed up for a long life with a princess and i don't know which it is talking to you right now but i love you enough to tell both of you i'll tell her too

i don't know which it is but i have i strongly encourage the two of you to sit down for pre-marriage counseling all right okay and then you call to ask so it's our duty to tell you what i would do if i were in your shoes okay and you're not going to do it but i'm going to tell you anyway okay i'll go ahead and pre-warn you um you should never under any circumstance buy a home with someone that you're not married to all kinds of relational economic and legal problems occur because i've been doing this for 35 years so i have talked to the young man whose fiance was in a car wreck and now he owns a home with her mother wow yeah we don't want that um i've talked to the people that have all these wild and willy things happen.

And so it's really sad. So you never buy a house with someone. You should never combine your money or your debts with someone you're not married to. Now, if you sit down with a pre-marriage counseling and they go through and you work through the fact that your wife is demanding or your potential wife is demanding totally unrealistic things given your financial situation. So is this, is she willing to come to terms and grow up during this counseling session or do we need to put an end to this? One of the two. But we need some counseling to be able to determine need to put an end to this, one of the two?

But we need some counseling to be able to determine that. If she comes to terms with the fact that she does not have the money to do the things that she wants to do, then what I would suggest is you get married immediately, and you plan an off-site celebration later. Now, once you're married, you can combine incomes, debts, bank accounts, hard work, together working towards dreams that we agree on. How does that register? You know, it feels um we kind of rushed into combining everything because you know when you marry somebody or or pledge to marry somebody it kind of feels like yep that's it yeah you did it out of order yeah yeah because here's the 100 truth if if like dave called out if she is immature,

I will have a wedding that looks like this, or you and I are not getting married because I'm worth this wedding, blah, blah, blah. I promise you that happens with your first house. That happens with what clothes and car and schools your kid will go to. How we furnish the nursery. Exactly. Which private school they go to. It's a philosophy on

life it's never going to end reality doesn't matter it's a blackmail process it just is and so dave's right sitting down with the counselor and saying we need to come up with a way to talk and discuss things when you have a picture of the way things you want them to be and there's reality right and you have to be able to navigate that and And my guess is, y'all have been dating for six years. This isn't the first time y'all have had to swim upstream against each other, right? Certainly not. Okay. So I think it's clarifying those things out of order.

I am not saying don't marry her. No, not at all. I am saying if you can't get on the same page that two adults together are working towards a goal instead of one of them stamping their feet like a three-year-old on the cereal aisle, then if you can't get to that point, then don't marry her. Okay. And I want to go back to something Dave said. Y'all are recent graduates. This is an exciting time. You make a good salary.

I'm cutting her some slack. I'm not saying she's that girl. But Dave mentioned y'all are broke, and I want you to hear that. You got your first big job out of school it feels good to be making money you're making 70k that's a good salary she's making 50k great y'all are broke you owe uh 40 50 000 and so the idea that we're going to be talking about borrowing money for a party that we're going to be talking about um already buying a house like that's that's several years down the road the first thing is let's get our house in order let's get a foundation right but i'm perfectly cool with a quick wedding in the preacher's office once you guys are on the same page and we have a destination wedding celebration

and if you spend 40k on it and you save up the money together to do that i'm perfectly fine with that okay i mean i'm not i'm not saying that's off the table because you got 15 from her parents and you guys put another 25 with it we're gonna we want to do a big blowout wedding uh that is the quote celebration or whatever you call these things now. Because people live together, get married, and then do the, quote, what would normally have been the wedding. The theatrics, right. They do it later and do a big thing because they can't afford it. And that's, I don't care.

If you want to have a party overseas and pay for it, that's fine. In lieu of what would have been a destination wedding, I've got no issue with that either. But pay for it. You either. But pay for it. You got to pay for it. But the way you presented this, what scared me as a dad, is it sounded like your teenage daughter was having a bit of a meltdown because daddy wouldn't do what she wanted to do. That's kind of how it sounded, the language you were using. And that you may have been overstating because you're nervous on the radio. I'll give you some slack.

I'll give her some slack, but you don't want to marry that. That's a long life. But if you guys can come together and say, Hey, we're two grownups and grownups do math and grownups do math together to have a great life together, then that sets up a whole different thing, doesn't it? Yeah, it's cool to want stuff, but you've got to tether that want to reality. How much money do we have? You're not in Congress. That's right. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live 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. Thanks for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one bestselling author, and a Ph.D. in counseling. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Aaron is in Los Angeles. Hi, Aaron.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm hanging in there. Cool. How can I help? I am being sued by a credit card company, got into some debt, and changed a position that lowered my income. So things kind of go upside down on me, and I'm being sued.

I'm trying to figure out what my options are and what the best way to move forward. Gotcha. Okay. How much is the debt on the credit card? It's $10,000. Okay. And who's it with?

Citibank. And how long has it been since you paid them? About 2022. The year 2022? Yes. So two years. Yes. Okay.

Have you actually been served by the court with a court date? Yes. I was served with paperwork. They said that if I need to put myself on calendar to have my case heard, or they were just going to take action against me. So it did not have a court date on it? No. Okay.

You've not been served. All right. You've been bluffed. Okay. And do you think you're still dealing with Citibank or with a different company that they've sold the debt to? I suspect they've sold the debt. No, it is a different company. Yeah, okay. I thought so. Now, what do you make?

Currently, about $80,000 a year. Okay. And how much other debt do you have, sir? Well, me and my wife combined probably have about $50,000 in debt. Okay. And what does she make? About $30,000. Okay. So you have $110,000 income in Los Angeles.

You have $50,000 in debt, and $10,000 of it has not been paid in two years. Okay. What were you making before you lost that job? Um, well, I just lost the position. It's the same job. So I was making about a hundred and about 130 to 140. What happened? Um, uh, my mom, mom, I went, I had a kind of some mental issues at the end of 2022. What kind of mental issues?

Well, I started having a kind of well, I figured out that I'm bipolar. You figured out you're bipolar? Did you or your psychiatrist? Well, my psychiatrist okay they helped me they helped me with that okay so I got I got um stable on medication and then my mom got sick so she got sick with dementia and I took a different position on my job she started taking care of her. That was last year.

So you took the pressure off your hours. So you had some room, some margin to help her. Yes. Okay. And so when that happened, I started missing more and more work. Yeah. My mom passed away. Oh, I'm sorry.

When did she pass away? February 6th this year. I'm sorry. When did she pass? February 6th this year. I'm sorry. You're a good man to take care of your mom. Yeah. How are you doing with your meds? Are you stable now? Yeah, I'm stable now.

I talk to a counselor. I talk to my psychiatrist all the time. Dude, let me just tell you man like getting getting medded up and getting leveled out right as your mom passes away and you hanging in there i'm proud of you dude it's it's um you should hold your head up high you did some heavy lifting as hard man yeah okay i tried and well no you not only did you try you did it and i'm proud of you and you weren't perfect of course none of us are but you did it, and I'm proud of you. And you weren't perfect. Of course, none of us are, but you did it, man. And let me say this, you're doing it.

So here's what you got in front of you. You got another challenge. The letter you have in front of you is a threat. It's not a legal action yet, okay? And we're going to be people of integrity. You borrowed the money, and we're going to pay it back, okay? Yeah. So, yeah yeah here's the

here's your here's the thing out of the scope of everything you've told me the ten thousand dollar old debt that you have is a two on a scale of one to ten the other things you've been dealing with are nine on a scale of one to ten so you've already stepped over some big hurdles and once you get the details on this it's not going to be hard for you okay yeah but what what we need to do now is to get the other side of the diagnosis and the other side of the uh the responsibility for taking care of your mom you're still hurting you're still grieving there still is a diagnosis. There still is stabilizing with your meds and all that kind of stuff. However, we need to plunge headlong into the future. And that means the two of you need to sit down, do a detailed budget and get caught up

on your bills and pay off $50,000 in debt. Okay. And we'll help you do that. We'll be part of the next chapter of your victories. Yeah. Okay. So i'm going to put you and your wife through financial peace university i'm going to pay for it and show you how to handle money and how to get on a budget and how to do this now let's go back to your original part of your call here's the tactical part of what you've got to do that debt buyer bought this from Citibank for usually around five to seven cents on the dollar. Okay. That means they paid

less than a thousand dollars for this $10,000 bill. They are now threatening you, but they have not yet sued you. They may never sue you. They may just bark at you until you acquiesce, but you until you acquiesce but you want to clean it up and you need to clean it up it's good information to know that they have less than a thousand

dollars in this so i don't feel badly at all if i'm broke and i have no money offering them three thousand or four thousand dollars to settle this in full So begin a negotiation with them and scrape together a few dollars and give them an offer, lump sum, no payments, settlement in full. Can you remember that phrase? Yeah, settlement in full. And never give them any money until two things occur. One is you have the agreement in writing. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen.

Okay. have the agreement in writing if it's not in writing it didn't happen okay an email is fine but you can tell a credit card collector is lying if their mouth is moving they will lie to you and tell you oh yeah just send in the money and then you'll get a bill the next week for the rest of it okay in writinglement in full for whatever amount you agree to. And then do not give them electronic access to your personal checking account. They'll clean your butt out. Okay. Okay? So instead, you just get a prepaid debit card for the exact amount,

and you let them hit that prepaid debit card one time for that exact amount once you have it in writing. You're not going to get sued. You're going to settle this as a part of getting the rest of your life back together now. It's part of the continuation that are the victories that Aaron is having in his personal life. I'm proud of you. You hang on. Christian will pick up. We'll get you the tools to help you do the learning how to handle money part, and that is exactly, go back and replay this on the podcast, how you handle a bad old debt if you're broke. This is the Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes

up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com.

This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YREFI. Student loan debt is a swamp of thousands of people, and they find it hard to escape. So don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp for distressed private student loans. There's why refi. We trust why refi because they help you with a low fixed rate interest rate that you couldn't

get anywhere else. Nobody else will touch this stuff and they'll help you put together a budget you can actually do and get out of debt. So learn more at why refy.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right, today's question comes from Marissa in Alabama. Marissa asks, how do you tell the difference between having the talent of compassion or discernment

and the compulsion to help as a trauma response is it possible that a quote-unquote talent may have developed as a survival mechanism and another talent not developed well due to trauma um i i mean my gut reaction here is it doesn't matter it's an academic exercise um If you are helping other people to the point that you can't eat or stay whole, or you are in an abusive relationship in order to keep other people from getting mad at you, then that's not healthy. I often say that the skills people learn when they're kids to survive can become some of the greatest skills professionally for them. But if all it says doesn't matter, I don't think it matters.

Am I missing the question, Dave? No, it feels like there's kind of two possible feelings for me. I mean, one is I don't trust a guy that doesn't walk with a limp correct so if uh if you got it all together and you're perfect you're full of crap you scare me if you survived yeah but i went through bankruptcy i lost everything because i was stupid which informs my ability to do this right but i'm not doing it as a uh as a healing mechanism to get over my past trauma i'm utilizing the that experience to give insight to the future that's a healthy way to do it yes i guess if you're doing it as a coping mechanism or you can be a

parasite you can be a vampire using other people so that you feel better. That's a coping mechanism. You're not healed. Correct. Absolutely. So if the trauma, the damage from the trauma, the wound is what's driving this, I think that's a problem, isn't it? Yeah, and that's one of my rules is I don't talk about things. You shouldn't be in the business of trying to sell things or help other people with open wounds, right?

And how do you know the wound's still open can you talk about what happened and your heart rate doesn't take off as though it's happening in real time that's how you know can you talk about your mom passing away from an ugly three-year bout of cancer and you're not overwhelmed with emotion you might still be sad you might still feel heavy but you can have the conversation that's how you know if you're overwhelmed with emotion you're not in a position to help someone else that's right um that's a dr young you should teach us don't bring your chaos to other people's hurting situations so um but here's the thing if you're good at a thing because you've got a scar that's healed god bless you use it yeah get

out there man get out there a scar that's healed is the trick i think yes and i i might be wrong but i know you're 100 right i you know uh and that doesn't mean um i mean i i still think it's okay for people to criticize me and say how can you possibly give financial advice you're the guy that went bankrupt you know and i'm i get it you know i get that but i do have insight because of that that someone who's never been bankrupt doesn't have right so here's here's another way to look at this so let's say you're a child um raised in the home of two uh alcoholics people who struggle with alcohol adult child of an alcoholic and you learned how to get really small and to make sure

the people around you um were. And you just learned that. Is it okay to then go into a job where you are a head of hospitality somewhere where your job is to disappear and to help other people have a great experience? No, it's not a bad thing. If you're doing it out of a compulsion because you have to,

like you were talking about earlier, then it's not healthy because you're never going to become a whole because you're always going to be looking for healing out there. But yes, if you have some talents that you learned while trying to stay safe and survive, that's amazing. That's like our friends who go over and they are Navy SEALs and they come back and they walk with business leaders who are going through challenging times and how to communicate under stress. And that's fantastic.

You learn new talents under duress, and now you're using those to help the rest of us. That's amazing. So, so is, if she says the phrase, the compulsion to help as a trauma response, that would that be functioning out of the wound and not out of a healed wound? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Yes.

So if you, if you feel like it's a compulsion to help out of a trauma response that's wrong but if you got discernment and compassion because of trauma that's a healed wound and that's a scar here's the difference i have to versus i get to uh compulsion if i have to okay like when someone calls and says hey can you come serve at this local church thing? You're like, I've got to do this. That's not a good thing. That's childhood nonsense. If you say, you know what, I get to go help over there.

That's pretty cool. Then that's a gift. Then I would say, you're well. Go get it done. That's interesting. I like that. Great question. Very interesting question.

It's good. You know what? The other thing about a question like that I always think of is old bible teacher used to tell me is you know probably if you ask that question you don't have a problem right or you've recognized a problem and now you have a path to healing yeah but i mean you're wrecking you're seeing things at a proper angle yeah but and i'll tell you my initial that question was i just think the modern mental health ecosystem, universe, whatever, wants us to second guess and deep dive and yada yada on every single thing. And I think there is so much research coming out saying, go do the next right thing.

A lot of navel gazing. Go do the next right thing. And if you can help people based on what happened to your kid, man, that's the gospel, right? That's restoration. That's all things made new. Go use what happened for good if you're healed yes or if you're you know doing it out of a healed place that's right you know so forth so good phone number here is 888-825-5225 david is in grand rapids hi david how are you hi'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up? So my wife and I, we've always refused to go into debt for anything other than a mortgage. Good.

This last week, we just paid off our house. We did a 15-year mortgage, paid it off in four years, four months. You're amazing. Long story short, thank you. How old are you? Long story short, I'm 33. What's the house worth? It's about $ 390 right now.

Way to go. How much in your nest egg, in your 401ks and stuff? Yeah, so our Roth IRAs, between the two of us, we've got about $366,000. Dude, you're going to be a millionaire when you're 35. Way to go. That's the goal. Then we have mutual funds also that's about 118 000 118 wow good good for you our our total annual income between the two of us is approximately

120 000 um the question i have long story short my in-laws own some hunting property my father-in-law passed away this past may my mother-in-law's ready to sell the property she wants to keep it in the family if possible we would love to buy it she's she's willing to sell it to us for 122 000 and she's willing to do a zero percent land contract no and the terms absolutely not you have the money right or a check okay cash out your mutual fund cash out mutual funds absolutely you don't want to be in debt to your mother-in-law it changes the way thanksgiving dinner tastes i'm not kidding borrower slave to the lender the air in the room changes when you sit down

with your master right don't do it you know how free you felt when you paid off that mortgage yes don't screw that up yeah okay especially on a hierarchy i'd rather owe a bank than my mother-in-law and my mother-in-law is And my mother-in-law is awesome, but man. Yeah, this is bad juju right here. And you got the money. Would it be dumb of me to buy the property? No, you got the money. I would.

I'd buy it. For $100,000, you got $180,000 in your mutual fund? How big is the property? It's about 55 acres. I mean, if the value is right, I don't think it's a problem um but pay cash for it or don't do it if you can't pay cash for it don't do it and never do a land contract you'll get screwed over six ways from sunday on that oh i could do a whole segment on land contracts this is the ramsey show hey you guys Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.

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Yeah, who's it with, by the way? What? Amy! There she is. Good. Okay, Amy, we can't hear you. Amy, how are you? Now we can hear you.

We're going to eventually do a radio show here. Who knew? All right, so where are you from, Amy? I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. Cool. cool yeah and how much debt have you paid off i paid two hundred and nine thousand five hundred and seventy five dollars i love it and how long did that take two years good for you yeah and your range of income during that time 180 000 to 220 very good way to go easy wow what do you do for a living i am a medical sales rep ah yes ding ding ding ding ding you're killing it too good for you thank you well done what kind of debt was this it was my mortgage wow paid for house i know yeah what is this house worth? It's about $675,000. And how much in your 401ks in Nesdick?

$1.2 million. So you're worth a couple million dollars. It's kind of awesome. You're pretty incredible. How old are you? I am 52. Wow. Wow. Look at you, a multi-millionaire with a paid-for house in St. Louis, killing it with the income. Proud of you. Thank you. What an incredible accomplishment. Thank you. Tell us about this journey. What in the world and how did you get tied up with the Ramsey Bunch? Well, I had a friend who really hooked me up about eight years ago with you guys and I just love the podcast because it's always so positive. Like, no matter what the situation is, everybody can always get themselves out of it. So I think for

the most part, I was pretty debt free. You know, I probably didn't have the same opinion about the mortgage and those type of things. But like, I really like during COVID, as a sales rep, it obviously wasn't that good because it's really hard to see your customers when you can't go out. So I started getting nervous. I have three kids and I was like, you know, my mortgage is my biggest payment. Like what happens if I lose my job? So I wanted to kind of go down that road. So that's kind of what started it. And really, when I started, I was like, I think I can do this in like four years, but my kids are triplets and they're 17, they're seniors. And kind of the idea of sending them off to college, like we have money saved for them, but it's still

kind of, it kind of gives me heart palpitations not to lie about it. So I was like, you know, if I can get my mortgage paid off, that frees up so much money. Like I won't be eating beans and rice while they're at college, you know, trying to figure out how I can get it. Cause I don't want them to have student loans. Like if they can come out debt free, I think that would be absolutely amazing and such a great gift to them. So that's why I was like was like okay I need to kind of rethink things so what I really did is like I started putting more money down every month and like I did the every dollar app which really it kind of slows you down on things like food like my kids always laugh they're like why don't you buy brand name and I'm like no the Aldi's brand name is fine for

you guys like we'll be okay and you know teenagers you're not gonna taste it anyway you're gonna eat it all right like yes so like being able to do that just adding more money to it and then like changing just my perspective like I've always been a good saver and I wanted like that big cushion, like just in case something was going to happen. And as I got closer, I'm like, you know, I don't really need to have as much in my emergency budget if my mortgage is paid off, right? Like I just don't need it as much. So I did that. I cashed in a mutual fund because I think it's more important to have it paid off. Like it just takes all the stress out of the monthly budget. Can I ask you a for real question?

As opposed to a fake question. Dave's going to ask you a bunch of fake questions. I won't ask you a for real one, not really. Because I get that a lot, especially from people who are high performers and who fancy themselves as as i'm pretty smart i think this stuff through i'm not just willy-nilly right right you didn't just watch a few tiktok um things and thank you you think you know everything right has your anxiousness the have you felt that come down with the realization that no one can take your home away because i get

that conversation you know i get like well the apr and here and i got a good mortgage i got a good interest rate here and i but i'm watching your body language as you tell the story in reverse and it is no i'm about to send my kids off and now i have the ability to just be sad yeah instead of sad and stressed correct or when everyone starts to say, well, it looks like the economy is going to slow down in Q4 and you know about sales and you go, that stings for you guys. You know what I mean? Because no one can take your house. Am I right? It's absolutely right. Like the moment I paid it off, I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually truly an asset now. And I don't have to worry about it. Like if something truly happened to me,

I can go to Walmart and make my monthly payments, you know, like not payments, but monthly bills. Like I can do this no matter what, like I don't have to worry about it crushing me. And I think like I'm kind of always the worst case scenario person, but it took off, it just takes off so much. And now I know like the money

that I was using for my mortgage, I can, you know, help my kids and, you know, the money that I was using for my mortgage I can you know help my kids and you know pay for all the other stuff so it really just takes so much stress off wow yeah you know you're but you're you really physically do feel the release yeah absolutely and people don't get that and that's why I talk about take your shoes off walk through the backyard the grass feels different under your feet trying to give you some kind of an emotional touch point that says this is really happening there's a level of peace here called financial peace two words that don't go together like airline service and you know all this stuff there's a real thing there yeah and

that's uh congratulations thank you can i give you one more thing that you've done? Absolutely. You could tell your kids all day long about money and saving money. They've got to live next to their mom reviewing things and doing budgets and saying no. That's in their nervous system now. Yeah. They watched Warrior Princess. I mean, they've watched it. They can't undo that. If you've got daughters, their confidence level personally is up thank you i mean you've just changed everything

it's amazing that's a big deal it's a very big deal proud of you congratulations what uh what would you tell somebody that's thinking about whether they ought to pay off their mortgage or not i would say like when you really look at it because I know like people play a lot of games with the mortgage. It just feels so good when it's out of the way. Like it's totally worth it and like nobody can take it away from you. Like you accomplish something really really big by paying that off. So when you look back on it, are you divorced or widowed? I'm divorced. Okay so when you look back on it um are you divorced or widowed i'm divorced okay so when you look back on it from that moment to now you're now worth almost two million dollars

you make 220 000 a year um and i mean i i think there's somebody back there a few years ago you 15 years ago you you 20 years ago, I don't know when it was, that's wondering if they can do it or not. Yeah. And I appreciate you coming on here showing them that they can. Talk to them for a second. I think you can do anything that you set your mind to. And the real thing is being able to say no to certain things.

I don't regret any of those things that I said no to. Like this is so much more like fulfillment and those type of things. And like you can set your mind to do anything. Like by doing the budgets and those type of things, you have so much more extra money than what we actually think we do. Yeah. Wow. And I don't know about you

but in sales uh it gives me motivation just to tick those things off yes i want to go make a sale so i can knock another thing off the list absolutely just to keep going yeah how long have you had your mortgage paid off um i paid it off at the end of june way to go. So cool. Amy, you're a hero from St. Louis. $210,000 paid off in two years, making $180,000 to $220,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. I'm debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken

are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills I'm going to eat next week yeah in the middle of all that grief like it's just it is it's terrible so life insurance is the one thing especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance and it

doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You've got to say it out loud, and you've got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of a stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282.

That's 800-356-4282. Or go to zander.com. Well, we just launched a new virtual event, Money and Marriage Date Night. This two-hour event hosted by Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney sitting to my right, will feature a lot of the incredible parts of our money and marriage getaway. And they're going to be getting into real topics like goal setting, budgeting, and working through every season of life as a team. This is October 29th, just around the corner.

It includes a Q&A with Rachel and John, who answer your questions live. John, I guarantee you folks one thing. Rachel and John, when they get together, off screen, on mic, off mic, regardless, are hilarious. They're just problem children both of them and they're funny as crud and they're dealing with some really subjects money and marriage that lend itself to some humor so you guys i can promise you the 29th of october will be fun won't it yes and i think specifically we'll be talking about uh thanksgiving and christmas and the

election are coming up and how do you stay sane with your family during those times and so it'll be it'll be a good time for oh it's a pre-election it's a pre-marriage counseling Thanksgiving pre-Christmas there we go yeah it'll be good how do you know because the great news is we get to go to Thanksgiving and see the family the bad news is we get to go to Thanksgiving and see the family so. And nothing says, you know what, we should have family time and talk politics. That'll be good. After the election. Ah!

After, you know, oh, man. This quarter brought to you by Preparation H for all of the hemorrhoids we're all going to have. RamseySolutions.com slash events. Money and Marriage Date Night, a virtual event, October the 29th. John Deloney, Rachel Cruz. Get your tickets at RamseySolutions.com slash events. Jocelyn is in Chicago.

Hi, Jocelyn. How are you? Hi, Mr. Ramsey. I'm honored to be here with you guys. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just started watching your show, and I honored to be here with you guys. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just started watching your show and I wanted to ask, as someone who one day hopes to be a parent,

is it the responsibility of a parent who doesn't let their kids work in high school and who values them to focus on their studies? Is it their responsibility to pay for most of college or the entirety, or is it the responsibility of the child who is now an adult, even though they have never worked when they got out of high school? Well, I think the way you formed the sentences, you've already decided. Yes, I have. I assumed it's kind of the parent's responsibility. I think it's fine if mom and dad want to pay for college.

I don't think it is a moral or ethical requirement. If someone chooses not to pay for their kid's college, they are not a horrible parent. They're not an abuser. But I paid for my kid's college. John will pay for his. You're going to pay for yours. And that's fine.

I did have a lot of requirements on mine to be eligible for the Ramsey scholarship. You know, we're not going to graduate in beer pong. Yeah, we're going to be living on a budget. We're going to be walking with God. We're going to be part of the Ramsey family. I don't pay for people who I'm estranged from, whatever the flip that means. We're hillbillies.

We just get mad. We don't get estranged. But anyway. And Jocelyn, I'm looking here at the National Center for Educational Statistics. Can I tell you that high school students who worked a moderate amount of hours, 10 to 15 hours in high school, actually have slightly better than average GPAs? Yeah. There's something important about learning grit. Would you suggest pushing your child?

Do what? Would you suggest pushing your child then to kind of work and allowing them to work? Absolutely. Not allowing them, I would require them to work. Yeah, you need to have some sort of work because they them to work absolutely not allowing i would require them yeah you need to have some sort of of work because they've got to learn where money comes from and they got to learn how to manage time because you're going to send them off um i i received your kid at the university level for 20 years a kid that had never had to manage time never had to manage the money never had to manage workload and i'll tell you what you you turn a student

loose into the wild, into the university system without knowing how to balance their life. That's a recipe for all sorts of challenges. John and I have a friend whose job is to teach the executive functioning skills to, like we're talking about, to college students because they can't get through. They're brilliant. They can graduate on top of their class and don't have the executive function skills to manage their money, time, and relationships. So let me just put it this way. My high school son, he works.

Yeah. He works. All of my kids work. Now, not a ton. He doesn't work 50 hours a week or anything like that. And right now, his job is to be a full-time athlete and a student. And then he'll be in theater, but he will work, and he does work. None of mine were sent to the salt mines.

Daniel Ramsey, who's the president of Ramsey Solutions today in his 30s, while I'm the CEO, when he was 14, painted the stairwell because he wasn't a good enough painter to paint out where we could see it. So we put him in the stairwell and my son shovels horse cha-cha at a local horse ranch and he spreads it over the property with a manure spreader he's learned more how to do stuff but people ask your kids shoveling horse cha-cha yep and he just knows how to work and it's hot and you know what i promise you he'll want to get an education so otherwise he won't have to do that the rest of his life. Whatever he says.

I want to hire people to do the shoveling and the chop-chop. And the air conditioning, he does not mind that at all. That's it. I'm going to find a way to not have to do that. Yes. Jesus is with us in California. Hi, Jesus. How are you?

Hey, good. Thank you, Dave and John. Long-time listener, first-time caller, so thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Hey, so my wife and I, we're extremely blessed and humbled with our stewardship that we've been given. Just in July, we paid off our home, and we're debt-free. Yay! Baby step seven, and we're, like I said, extremely blessed and very humbled with what God has given us in this place that

we're currently in. We have a hard time making purchases like what we want right now. We need actually is a brand new vehicle. We have two kids and we want a $50,000 vehicle. We have a net worth of $1.7 million. What's your household income? $136,000. What are you thinking about paying for the vehicle cash cash but how much yeah 50 000 what car is it uh it's a kia telluride it's uh you know top of the modelide, it's, you know, top of the model. You know, it's top trim.

That's a millionaire car. Extremely fancy. That's fine. Okay. You got 50 grand. You're worth a million, too. You make 130. You pay cash for it.

I'd buy that car. I'd buy a Highlander, but, yeah, go buy that car. Now we're getting into car arguments. But, yeah, you can afford it, Jesus. You can afford it. The thing that Sharon and I do is we allocate a percentage of our income, we're Baby Step 7 for many, many years, to enjoyment, which is lifestyle, including vehicle purchases, to generosity,

and a percentage also to further investing, so that we can increase our generosity and our enjoyment both. Okay? So you make sure you're putting something on the generosity side and make sure you're putting something on the investing side and then pay cash for a nice car. You've earned the right. Way to go.

Congratulations. Hey, for all of you listening to the show on YouTube or on a podcast, the show's about to end. If you want to hear the rest of the show, you can always get that on the ramsey network app and finish the show in a distraction free experience and you can get all kinds of other goodies on there for instance we posted the interview i did with president trump today on the ramsey app uh a day before we put it out on the podcast and on youtube, which is tomorrow.

So you can get that tomorrow on YouTube, October the 2nd. For those of you just catching this, it'll be on YouTube and podcast. But on October the 1st, it was on the Ramsey Network app. So you want to download the Ramsey Network app and get all things Ramsey, audio and video, and it's completely free. We don't charge you a thing not a dollar not nothing so be sure and get signed up for that and um for those of you hearing this live or uh early on the first it's a good way to get an advance we'll put other things on there in advance too i just did another

long form interview uh with a different character not a political character but another one that you'll want to hear and i'll probably do the same thing with it. I'll probably drop it on a day early on the Ramsey Network app. And so you kind of get like premiere or previews or whatever, that kind of stuff on there. And it's searchable. And you can even leave email questions on there. And we answer them sometimes here on the air so be sure and check that out for those of you in talk radio you'll continue to get the show the way you always have and if you want to see the trump interview you'll need to jump over to the podcast or to youtube or the ramsay network app this is the ramsay show live 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one best-selling author and PhD in counseling. He's my co-host today. Sam starts this hour in Columbus, Georgia. Hi, Sam. How are you? I'm doing good, gentlemen. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I'm 34 years old. My wife and I were debt-free, and the rest of my family on my side is, is not. And on three separate occasions, my parents have asked for me to donate money to help out my siblings who are all, uh, probably in their forties at the moment. Um, I've not, I've, I've refused every

time. Um, but then I get accused of like, you know, worshiping money and, uh, not wanting to help and not wanting to be part of the family, things like that. Um, am I out of line for, for not contributing? Like they have a, I feel like they have a spending addiction with the amount of money they have in and they can't manage it properly. Um, me being the youngest, um, I, I feel like, I just feel like it's not right. But am I out of line for thinking that way? And how do I set boundaries? I would stay out of the diagnostic world with them. And no, you're not out of line at all. Meaning you don't need to diagnose their problems. You simply can look at you and say, I'm not worshiping money.

Okay, I'm not. They're wrong. They don't get a vote on my spiritual life. Okay, I don't worship money. I do choose not to give under the compulsion of guilt. Mom, you're a travel agent for guilt trips. Okay. I'm not taking one.

You don't have to say that, but that's what could go through your mind, right? Oh, it absolutely does. Yeah. It's pretty infuriating, honestly. Oh, really? It's insulting as hell by people that are supposed to love you. Yes. Yeah, it's completely out of line.

It's completely out of line. Okay. You know, it's like, you know, and now here's the interesting part. You want to know who's really worshiping money here? Them. Thank you. I have been thinking that for several weeks now. That's exactly what's going on because they're now putting money ahead of their relationship with their youngest son.

Right. You can only have a quality relationship with us if you pay for it. People that pay for relationships, we have a name for that. It's called prostitution. Yep, that is true. Sam, I want you to hear both of us say you're not crazy. You're not. You're not out of line, and I'm kind of mad for you right now.

I'm getting a little madder as I talk about it. Yeah. It's been troubling. It just drives a wedge to all of us. It does. But listen to me. You didn't drive the wedge. It's not your fault. You're not the one making an unreasonable request and using unreasonable language and so forth.

Just because you were born into a family does not require you support them. The extended family. It's not a requirement. Ethically, morally, spiritually, nothing. Nowhere in there. So it's not a requirement that you send money to people for them to love you. It's ridiculous. It's abusive behavior.

Now, having said that john the next time they call and start the guilt trip language what is something even-handed not dave-esque but john is that he could say to his parents that doesn't escalate this hopefully maybe de-escalates it but then then just walk away. Sam, how does that call come to you? It'll be either through like an email or a call. It'll just be like, hey, times are tough. Can you send $500 to $1,000 to help the family out? Okay, I'm going to give you the secret right here.

Say less than you think you need to by 80 there is no explanation you can give in this moment because the ask is madhouse okay nothing you say is going to work in other words so there's not a way to explain your way out of this so the answer is i can't help at this time i or you're right times are tough i can't help at this time thanks for thinking of me send that's it because what you want to do because you're a caring compassionate guy is you want to explain to them why you can't and a by the way why you shouldn't even be at they don't want to hear any of that they don't care about any of that because if they did, they wouldn't be asking in the first place. Or they would come to you with a need and they would sit down and say, what we're about to ask you is bananas and this is where it's come to and I'm sorry. Can you help us out? And I've got

deep compassion for those moments. I don't have compassion for the ATM drips, the guilt trips, the, oh, you owe me. I carried you for nine months, so you're my ATM machine for the rest of it. I don't like that. Yeah, that's what it's gotten to. So as least amount as possible. They call you and say, well, honey, you know times. I know, I know, I know, I know. Before you even say anything, I know times are real tough.

I'm reading the news. I'm experiencing it too in the world. I'm not able to help anymore. I'm not able to help right now. What else is going on? How are things? Okay. And what we're going to do is everyone likes to talk about themselves.

Give them an opportunity to hand the baton right back and say, tell me about your life. How about that football game with Alabama? That's right. Hey, it's going to be infuriating because they don't want your relationship they want your money yeah yeah and that and that hurts when you're 33 years old it hurts when you're 53 it just hurts okay so now here's the other thing your wife is on our side isn't she oh 100 like her and i that's what that's what you lean into that's what you lean into and just go this makes you you know when you hang up the phone you say this really hurts me and it makes me mad and she can

hear that from you and she admires you and respects you for doing the right thing and standing up. Here's the magic phrase. Choose guilt over resentment. Choose to feel guilty that you're not going to just be a blank check for your mom and for your brothers and sisters who aren't doing anything. And choose that over hating your family members every time they call you. Because that's not fair to them either because you don't have any boundaries, and now you hate them when they call you. Yeah, if you keep giving them money against your will because of the guilt trips,

you're going to resent them. That's what he's saying. Right. Okay, that makes sense. So choose to feel guilty or have a guilt trip put on you instead of choosing to be bitter and angry with them because you caved. So, you know, just be kind and strong and gentle and know. And say less.

And know. Say as little as possible. Know. And this is the pot talking to the kettle. I always want to over-explain everything. You can't. I'm in talk radio, for God's sake. I over-explain everything.

Just say no. Just say, hey, I can't help you this time. Thank you for asking. And I'll recommend my, our friend, Dr. Henry Cloud's book, Boundaries. It's only sold about 20 million copies to every family because out there, folks, if you didn't know, there's crazy in every family. And if you don't think there's crazy in your family, it's you. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Austin is with us in Iowa, Des Moines to be exact. Hey, Austin, how are you? Good, how are you good how are you better than i deserve what's up i am contemplating switching careers um in the same field but right now my current salary is at 120 000

uh and the position that i want to take or i'm contemplating taking will be 60 000 why in the world would you do that? Well, so morally I'm kind of struggling with my career and my wife has mentioned to me more of like my mental health seems to be declining

since I took this job. What do you do? That's so horrible. Well, so I do HVAC sales. What is morally wrong with selling a heat and air unit? It's more what I'm struggling with is selling people stuff that they don't need and catching a lot of heat for not doing it. What do you mean they don't need it?

You're lying to them? So they need a furnace and an air conditioner, but they don't need the $5,000 in upgrades. Or sometimes they really don't need a furnace and air conditioner, but the way they set everything up is to get me in the door to sell them one. So you work for an immoral boss. As a salesperson and what you're doing, selling HVAC is not the problem. It's just who you happen to be working for.

Yeah, that's part of it. I just, the other part of it is I got a permit. This was a promotion in my field. You started the tech, you know your way up and i was excited because of you know the pay raise and the salary and everything but i am not really built to sell to people i get weird around money and um it's just something let me ask you something you're a tech you're a tech by trade yep all right um i've got a lake house that has uh four units on it they're 12 years old i just sent my guy over there who i trust and like and he gave me a bid uh to to replace two of the units i may go ahead and replace all four of them because i don't want to screw with it they're getting, and I don't want to be hot when I'm in the lake house. You follow me?

And I got the money, right? Yep. Okay. If that guy signs me up and sells me and he gets a commission, do you think he served me or screwed me? Well, in my opinion, I think he screwed you if you're doing it for a 12-year unit. But if you don't want to mess with it and you got the money,'s fine wait a minute i own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate the chances that i that a that a heat and air unit residential is going to make it 15 years i i have no desire to put up with that crap i asked him to do this

yep okay what he's doing is not immoral you're wrong he's serving me he's not screwing me now he did tell me dave you could do this or this or this if you want to if you want to go a cheaper route he showed me some other options but the whole process with this guy is not about him taking money from me that he doesn't need to take from me it's about him taking care of me good sales people are servants everyone in sales is not screwing people, Austin. If you redo that mindset, it might change what you do for a living. Because if you think the only person that's serving around there is the tech, you're wrong. The sales guy is serving also as long as he's doing it with integrity.

Now, in your case, you've got a boss that doesn't have integrity. So it skewed you. But you've got this thing stuck in your head that anything having to do with money is dirty or anything having to do with sales is dirty. It's not dirty at all, son. So I think you're wrong. I'm going to challenge you to rethink that. I do think you need to work somewhere else, but going back to $60,000 to escape you facing the realities that salespeople

are servants, the good ones, I think it's wimping out. So I think you do need to work somewhere else because you don't trust your boss. You said something else there that I want to double-click on. You said being around money makes you nervous it makes you uncomfortable i want you to head directly into that yeah that's the problem because you got to get okay with that because you're going to fight this the rest of your life and somebody's told you the only holy people are poor people and that's a bunch of asinine hogwash yeah you got to head right into that and deal with your own heart on that deal because it's not true um and if you grew

up with money was a problem you grew up um with money stress or whatever you can create all kind of narratives um and that's my world dude that's my world and you create all kind of false realities about helping people out. A good salesman is a gift. It's a gift. And when you find one that's trustworthy, dude, you never, ever, ever go anywhere else. Because I got a guy. I just got a guy. When I sat down, Sharon and I went out to eat the other night in a fine dining experience. Very expensive.

Sat down, white tablecloth the first thing they do is bring them unsolicited unasked for two glasses of champagne that go on my bill by the way of course without even asking right and then the server proceeds to educate us did you hear what i called him i called him a server you know he what he did? He educated us. I said, which of these two things? He said, oh, stay away from that one. This is the one you want. And it wasn't the higher priced one.

It was the lower priced one he sent me to between the two options because he truly had eaten both of them and thinks that I might enjoy the other one more. After asking me a couple of questions. The best salespeople on the planet is a server in a fine dining restaurant. They are serving. We call them, we don't call them salespeople. We call them servants.

And by the way, he's also not dumb financially. He knows if I give this guy a great experience, he'll come back four more times. Oh, and by the way, the tip is in there too. It's in the equation as well. Right. So hello. Yeah. So I think sales with integrity where you're telling the truth and you're helping someone

have the experience and or solve the problem that they have, that it's one of the highest paid, best professions on the planet. And anyone who's in marketing or sales that has integrity should be very proud of themselves. I have zero guilt selling you a total money makeover book, and I've already sold 12 million of them. I don't need to sell any more of them. But 100% of the people that read that book get something out of it and some people get so

much out of it that it changes their whole family tree well and I'll tell you this this is my story here at Ramsey I wrote own your past change your future and they kept saying hey we need to make a social video we need to put it out to your whatever list and I kept saying no I don't want to I feel I don't feel comfortable and finally one person one of your team members dave one of my team members said do you want people to be well yeah did you tell the truth in this book yeah then your arrogance and your awe is in between people getting the help they need that's not fair and i remember going dude we'll make as many videos as we need to that's true and if 20 bucks can help free up then 20 bucks help free you. And that became my arrogance that I had to deal with

or my insecurity, really. Yeah. Well, I mean, I had a friend bring a book in that she had written and she said, God showed me how to write this book. But I'm struggling with marketing it. And I said, wait a minute, if God told you to write it, don't you think he wants it sold? You're probably all right. Yes. I mean, come on. What kind of capricious God do you to write it, don't you think he wants it sold? You're probably all right. Yes. I mean, come on. What kind of capricious God do you serve? What is the deal here? So that's what you're facing, Austin, is what a lot of us have faced and a lot of people face.

And that's why you got me up on a soapbox. So if I were in your shoes, sir, I would learn the nobility of serving through selling heating and air. And I would do it at a different company because you think your boss does not have integrity. Maybe you think no one that sells has integrity. If that's the case, it's not your boss's problem, it's yours. And you shouldn't be a tech for him either then. This is The Ramsey show the best way to win at anything is to do it with intentionality no one accidentally wins

oops look what happened said no one successful ever yeah that's not how that works so the best way to make your money win is to do it on purpose and make the most of your money is create a monthly plan. That's called a budget. Every dollar is the world's best budgeting app. Tens of millions of people are using it to make their money behave and go towards their goals. You can work the baby steps. You can do paycheck planning. We have an entire floor of software nerds iterating and fixing and adding features to this thing every single month, working on it every day.

It is getting better and better and better and better and better and better. It's amazing. It is what we call robust in the app world. Now, free, you can download every dollar for free in the App Store or at Google Play. And if you're listening on a podcast or YouTube, you can just click in the description there, click the link, and it'll take you right straight to it. Ashton's with us in Jefferson City, Missouri. Hi, Ashton. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, John. I'm so excited that you're taking my call today. Thank you. How can we help? So I am a longtime follower and listener, and I coordinate classes for you guys, and my husband and I are Christians. And one thing that I feel like we struggle with is as we get more and more gazelle intent in the plan and paying off our debt, it sort of feels like it becomes all-consuming, and it feels like I'm making the idea of becoming debt-free and money and idol in our lives. So an idol is something that you worship instead of worshiping God. As you were saying, that's what's happening? Well, it just feels like we're prioritizing it more than anything else.

Prioritizing is different than idol worship. You can prioritize your health or your training. If you're training for a marathon, that's different than worshiping your health and training for a marathon. And I've seen people do both. It's possible to do both. You can be in financial peace university and it become an idol. That's possible.

But the, the, what you need to do is to have the differentiation and make sure you're not crossing that line because we certainly don't want you to worship money or even the ramsey process or anything else that we're teaching instead of worshiping god right what's underneath this are you exhausted yeah it sounds like you're tired i sure am and that that so this discussion is an escape mechanism yeah yeah like how close are you to being done not close enough well when will you be done on your current schedule baby step two we are probably not until april of 2026 18 months

how long you been at it well i started it in 2016 but didn't complete it before we got married then you know everything you've not been gazelle intense since 2016. Okay, gazelle intense probably since last May. Six months ago. Yeah, and we paid off $25,000 last year. Wait a minute, last May, May of 23 or May of 24? 23, so sorry.

Oh, so 18 months, you've been at it and you got 18 months to go you had a lot of debt yeah um my husband is a youth pastor and you don't have a lot of income okay okay so yeah okay so, what is your household income? Um, we make about 75,000 or 7,500 a month on average. What do you do? I am a communications manager for the state of Missouri. So you're the majority of that. Yes. Okay. All right. And you're working 40 hours, and he's working youth pastor hours, which is more than 40, for less money. How many children do you have? Three.

What ages? Four, two, and 10 months. Okay. Yeah, you're tired. Yeah. All of it. Why? Because you're a human being. Everything you described to me described exhaustion.

Little babies, you're working hours, he's working a lot of hours, and we're making a little bit of progress, but not huge progress, and we've still got 18 months to go. I don't blame you for burning out of gas. But that's different than idol worship, okay? Okay. So let's just call it what it is. I'm tired.

We may need to push pause on this for 30 days and get our breath and then push play again. Or we may need to do something else to let a little of the air out of this balloon because I'm afraid it's going to pop. My brains are about to scramble here. Yeah. Okay. That's okay to say.

There's no shame in that. Or if you need to have some conversations now that your life is different, you'll have three kids. The marriage you once had is over. You've got three kids. You'll get to design something new. But if you haven't had that conversation yet, or if you need some help, or if you're not okay

you got to put those things on the table yeah and so when he goes and works with a teenager at eight o'clock at night and you have a baby and you're exhausted the and it makes absolutely no more money for your household but that's the nature of being a youth pastor, right? Yep. Yeah, that's aggravating as hell to you right now. Does he know that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Is he in a position where he can pause being a youth minister for a while? It's not a bad thing. What? Is he in a position where he can pause being a youth minister right now and go make some more money? I don't think so, not really. I think he needs to talk to the pastor about some boundaries because he has a young family,

and I don't want him burning out as a youth pastor, regardless of whether he's doing financial peace or not. Yeah, yeah. And I don't want his wife stabbing him in his sleep. And you've thought about it. We're not've thought about it yeah but you're close you've planned him you put the knife away you've already planned it hear me and dave tell you you're not crazy you're you're you're you're we completely get it and it's not about idol worship it's about being tired and stressed and you guys are getting pulled from

16 different ways and one of the ways is gazelle intensity let's just lay that layer on top of babies and youth pastor hours and blown up marriage and no money and tired and yada and all of it yeah so what you need to do is kind of make a list and start saying, all right, priorities. Priority one, God, and that's not church and that's not youth pastor. It's God. Priority two, marriage. That's not kids. That's not gazelle intensity.

That's not youth pastoring. That's marriage priority three little baby isn't sleeping driving us nuts if we didn't have nothing else to do but that we'd already be tired fair enough fair enough and when you start going down those it you notice i still haven't gotten to gazelle intensity yet it's going to be a while before I get there on this list. And so then you put down there, okay, then the youth pastor hours are going to have to slow down because he has a baby at home.

And gazelle intensity is probably not going to be quite as intense because we've got a few other intense things going on in this household right now. And I need to finish the race more importantly than i need to finish first okay okay so slow your pace down he slows his roll down we concentrate on god your marriage and the baby will get to the financial piece and the eighth grader will make it because the eighth grader has parents but the eighth grader is make it because the eighth grader has parents. But the eighth grader is a secondary responsibility for him. His primary is at home.

And that's a pastor talking to you. Okay? If his pastor isn't in agreement with that, he needs to go somewhere else to youth pastor. That's right. Because if he doesn't take care of the home front, he's not qualified to be a youth pastor by Scripture so that's what we got to do and he's not a bad guy you guys are wonderful people but you just got to line that stuff up again because you can't breathe and i don't blame you i really like you guys i think you're cool

this is the ramsey show show. Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 7 and 12. The protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. Bob Hope said, a bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. Darren is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Darren. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? All right. So I am 45. I only make about 40 grand a year. I feel like I'm highly skilled. I used to work several jobs that made a little bit of money, but a year ago I kind of had a heart attack,

and I can only basically work one job, and I'm trying to get a better job, but I feel like I've topped out, and I'm just having issues trying to make more money. Yeah. So it's like. How's your heart? Yeah. Issues. You don't kind of have a heart attack.

What happened? It was half hereditary presupposition. The other half, I did treat my body like garbage. So I was a smoker for 30 years. I was eating garbage, all this stuff. But I was always working very hard. My health is kind of getting better, but my energy levels are nothing but they were before that.

Did your actual heart itself recover? I actually have now four stents in my heart. I've had two different operations did you have open heart surgery alive uh no it actually went through okay one of my arteries where what were you doing what kind of a what is your skills were you in the trades i am i am blue collar yes um. Okay. I tell people I know a little bit about a lot of things. I've done all kinds of things. I've done welding.

I've done construction. I'm currently doing gate operators where it's half fabrication, half wiring. How much weight have you lost? Actually, I've gained weight, to be honest with you. Were you overweight before? Yeah, I've been overweight most of my life. And so you're bigger than you were before the heart attack? Yeah.

Okay, so what part of that is your health is getting better? Well, my doctor is happy with where my cholesterol levels were at the time of my heart attack um versus now like my cholesterol levels are middle of the parameters that they want me to be in whereas before they were also charged bad um okay my dad i just had a doctor's visit a month ago and he's relegated me to yearly doctor visits because he's happy with my progress and everything so but he's happy with your weight gain he's not too concerned about it i Okay, let me rephrase. I was at 200 pounds around the pandemic because I had time, and I used to go walk a lot, and then I gained a little bit.

What do you weigh now? I'm about 260 right now. Okay, all right. I think we found your energy problem. I'm not a medical doctor. I'm just a dude. But anyway, I'm not going to diagnose because I'm not qualified. But yeah, during the pandemic, I went the other way.

I ate every donut in a 50-mile radius, and I got fat as a pig. So I had to give up donuts, and I had to pick up walking. I walked and a half miles this morning and I'm down some 30 40 pounds since then and so and I still got about another 10 or 15 I need to go so much I can't seem to do but I'll get there so I'm one to talk I'm the you know the kettle here so anyway but I'm just trying to talk this through with you because I I know my energy and what happens when i do that okay so and i'm older than you but the um so your your energy level is going to affect anything you do as a career that's why i'm asking all these questions i'm not just being nosy um because it does sound like that your days of heavy lifting and your days of uh you know hoisting aing a gate into place and welding it are over,

you might be the supervisor that shows kids how to do that. And it might be that you train people in the trades or that you run projects where there's a bunch of people doing things that you know how to do, but you're not physically going to do anymore. And that's okay. That's called delegation, and you're moving into leadership versus the actual physical doing of it. If you can find a trade that is not physically strenuous,

or a type of welding that's not going to be physically strenuous then that's fine i don't care but i think what you've got to do is you've got to say all right i have a new what is it you always say i need a new picture right yeah and i'm saying this to you because i love you man you can't expect a future employer to see something in you that you don't even see in yourself. And, man, I want that heart attack. I want this phone call to be a wake-up call that's like, hey, I want to get my energy back. I want to get my life back. And, in fact, I want to gain a level of health I've never had in my life because I'm halfway done with this rodeo.

I'm in my mid-40s, halfway done with the rodeo. And I get to choose what the back half of the rodeo is like. And I'm not going to walk up to an employer and say, hey, I want to make some more money. I don't think I'm worth being healthy. I don't think I'm worth doing much of stuff, but I hope you do. Will you pay me more? That's not how that works. I want you to walk in with your head held high, 60 pounds down, because you think you're worth waking up every morning

feeling better with your knees not hurting, your back not hurting, and you're not snoring all night. I want you to walk into somebody's office with your head held high and say, I got 40 years of work I can do, and also I can train young people how to do this stuff. I'll be the best supervisor this yard's ever had. I want you to walk in in that way but you can't walk in expecting them to love you more than you love yourself so turn it like man let this be the call that that shakes that from you brother because i want you to want it more so that they want to be a part of your life not desperately we can you please see something in me i don't see yeah that and but you and you develop a new picture okay i used to be a blue collar guy who can do anything i can lift anything i can work like a

crazy man i can work three jobs i've got an incredible work ethic and i can work right through the junk food and now i'm the best teacher ever and now i am 44 years old and i've graduated from the guy who does things to the guy who does a certain thing a different way or the guy who leads people that does things that's right because i now know more and i'm going to move i'm going to use that um to run projects and uh develop some other skills to go with that. And this is the next stage of your career evolution. It's not, and it's kind of been forced upon you, but it's actually a good thing because you may end up making more money

than you ever made in your life. Right. And you may get to impact people in a way that you weren't impacted, and that's about changing not only your family tree, but changing your community tree. And it's pretty remarkable, man. But you get to choose what happens next.

I want you to leave the call with that. You choose what happens after today. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. But, John, one of the things, hey, hold on. We're going to give you a copy of John's book, Building a Non-Anxious Life.

That's got the six drivers. Yeah, the six choices, yeah. And one of those is taking care of your body. You got to you got to and and you know if you want to choose a quality life that's what you're going to end up doing and um for these blue collar guys a lot of my buddies who are perfect at it no no no i'm not either um but some of these blue collar buddies of mine they take better care of their trucks than they do their bodies right and man i want you to honor yourself for sure the toolbox exactly i want you to honor yourself for sure the toolbox exactly i want you to honor yourself and by the way that doesn't mean be perfect um this weekend

my daughter and i had a daddy daughter trip um were gummy bears involved john dave i i mean i was i spent half my weekend in a diabetic coma john yes i had a lot of gummy candies god i did like to the point that my name is john and i ate too many guns i have a problem but listen um i don't believe in falling off the wagon i do believe in getting off the wagon and roll around in the mud sometimes you got to get back on the wagon right muddy we did that but here's the deal gummy on the wagon honor yourself as much as you honor your tools and your equipment so that you can keep doing this thing down the road because the world needs you man the ultimate tool and the ultimate equipment, for sure.

Ah, that puts us out 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 daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you. I'll see you next time.