The Ramsey Show - App - Baby Step 1 Isn't Meant to Be Forever (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. The status symbol of choice. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. It's a pleasure to speak with you today. You too. What's up? Well, we're looking at getting rid of the private mortgage insurance that we have on our mortgage. And we feel like our health has gone up enough in value to look at getting that dropped.

So I called the bank, and they said that we have a couple of different options. They said that we could do a full-blown appraisal, which would cost around $550 to see if the value comes in high enough to drop that, or we could do a realtor-broker opinion. So I just wasn't sure, and that's about $200 to do that. I wasn't sure if it was worth it to go ahead and pay for the extra to get a full-blown appraisal done or if a realtor-broker opinion should suffice? If they'll accept the realtor-broker opinion, there's no difference.

Okay. Because all a residential real estate appraiser does is they find the three closest properties in location, on the calendar that have sold recently, and in size and in attributes. And so they find the three best, the most comparable, they call them comps, comparable sales that are recent sales, and they adjust for the differences and come up with a price for yours. It's across those three, in other words. And a broker's opinion is the same exact thing in most cases.

Okay. in other words and a broker's opinion is the same exact thing in most cases okay i wasn't sure if there was any advantage to paying the extra to get that full-blown appraisal done or or not unless unless it matters to the mortgage company and if they're saying they will accept a broker's appraise i have never heard that that they would accept a broker's opinion but if they're telling you that they will accept that um and you know you need to find out what format it needs to be in and all of that kind of a thing, you might even get a, you know, a real estate agent that's a friend of yours just to knock that out for you. Well, it has to be with a company that they choose. Oh, okay. That they use. Well, that makes a little more sense then.

But, yeah, it doesn't matter to me. All I want is rid of the PMI, right? Mm-hmm. Exactly. So $200, $ hundred dollars i'm going with the two hundred dollar option let's get rid of the pmi so hey get after it good job that's cool new information i just learned something colin is in minneapolis hi colin welcome to the dave ramsey show hi it's exciting to talk to you you too sir what's up uh so I just got engaged here about two weeks ago. Congratulations. Thank you. And we are trying to figure out the next step financially. So both of us have no debt. We're both teachers.

And I come into the relationship with about 12 grand. And she comes into the relationship with about 130,000 in savings, 100,000 in a single stock that's through a bank, and then 250,000 in a trust fund that can't be touched until we're 30. Wow. And so obviously we're not going to combine anything until the wedding, which is all set up here for just a couple months from now. Good for you.

So we're trying to figure out what do we do with that single stock that's only making about 2%, and we're renting for about a year, and so what do we do after that? Well, I mean, you can either leave that stock there for a year and then cash it out and use it for your down payment at that time, or you can cash it out now upon getting married, put it into a mutual fund, park it there for a year, and use it at that time to use as a down payment. But I think that's the down payment on your house. You're debt-free.

You've got your emergency fund in place. You guys are in really, really good shape starting out. How old are you two? We're both 25. Wow, awesome. Very cool. Pretty fortunate. Yes, you are.

When we get to that point, I'm guessing before 30 with the money that's here, obviously we'll have a house paid off that's between $250,000 and $300,000. I'm guessing that trust fund will grow to at least around $300,000. Do you think at that point would it make more sense to leave that in there and let it grow and draw from it as needed? Being we'll have, you know, probably about a $90,000 income between the two of us. I would leave it in investments. I wouldn't leave it in a trust fund.

I'd take it out of the trust fund. And you just, guys, just move it to your investment broker that's helping you, you know, your smart investor pro or whoever's helping you with your investing. And I want you to get complete control of it at that point. But obviously, you're being conservative. You're going to have a paid-for house. You've got a great income. You won't need it.

That money will be there to build wealth and, you know, and to create, you know, to further this changing of the family tree that whoever left this trust fund did. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, it comes from a little ways back. So it's cool to see how it will change the future here. Yeah. I mean, let's just pretend you went from age 30 to age 60 and never touched it. That $250,000 is going to be millions and millions of dollars. Sure.

And so what would it make sense to move that into i would just move it into mutual funds that's what i do with it i only buy two kinds of investments colin and i'm not saying that's the only kind you can buy but it's number one you put things in you put money and things you're comfortable with and you understand okay i i understand and i'm really comfortable with mutual funds because of the diversification and the history of the stock market, the track record over time. And so I've got a lot of money in that. I'm even more comfortable with real estate. I grew up in the real estate business.

I've had my real estate license since I was 18. I love rental real estate and making money on real estate. It's one of my side hobbies almost. I've got a degree in real estate. So, you know that all of that so where i in your shoes i'm probably gonna take that 250 at that time or 400 or whatever it is and i'm gonna start looking for some rental property that creates an income but either that or mutual funds either one they're it's still gonna grow uh to a lot of money if you manage it well

by the time you get up in your 60s. I mean, like millions and millions and millions of dollars. That's wonderful. That's so cool. Hey, I'm going to send you a copy of our only book we've written on wealth. It is from a Christian perspective, and it's called The Legacy Journey. And all the other books I have written are about money. This one is about wealth,

and that's some of the questions that you and your fiancé are going to start asking over time because you're going to be in that category. So hold on. We'll send you a copy of that. Way to go, man. That's amazing. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America.

We're glad you're here. Now, the difference in wealth and money. Money is more tactical, what you're going to do with it today, how you're going to pay bills, how you're going to buy a car, how you're going to invest, how you're going to grow something. Wealth is when there's a large sum of money sitting that is creating money for you. And it takes on different spiritual attributes, different effects on your spiritual walk, different effects on your relationships. Wealth is different than just money.

You can manage money, but managing wealth is different. So that's why we wrote The Legacy Journey and why that is the follow-up class to Financial Peace University because if you go through Financial Peace University, you're going to become wealthy. If you do what I teach you to do, that is. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is big news, guys. You need to stop and listen.

The Fed decided not to raise interest rates. That means you've got a small window of time before rates rise again. Here's the deal. Most people are paying too much interest on their largest expense, their home. So you're freaking crazy if you don't take 10 minutes to call Churchill Mortgage right now and see if they can save you money before rates rise again. A mortgage through Churchill could save you thousands, or better yet, reduce the time until you're debt-free. Can you imagine how it would feel to no longer have that payment looming over your head every month? Just go to churchillmortgage.com or call 888-LOAN-200.

Their team of experts will give you more clarity about your options and more peace knowing you're saving significant money in the long run. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-562-6200 or churchillmortgage.com. If you don't know, Financial Peace University, our nine-week class, and it's a one-year online membership, which includes every dollar plus, has now been taught in 50,000 churches across America to about 6 million of you. And the way it is taught is a local coordinator brings the class to their church. And we, of course, do the teaching on DVD or streaming or whatever. But it's me on the videos, Rachel and Chris Hogan on the videos doing the teaching.

But the coordinators are the ones that cause the class to happen. And so millions of people have been helped because of these coordinators. They're our favorite people out there because they just really love people and they cause these classes to happen. And so we've been celebrating the coordinators this week by talking to a few of them. And I've got another couple of them on the line right now. Ron and Alicia are with us from Atlanta. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you?

Better than I deserve. Welcome. Thank you for leading the class. We appreciate it. So tell us about you guys. How many classes have you led? How did you get into it? What baby step are you on?

All that kind of stuff. Yeah, Dave. So right now we are currently on baby steps four, five, and six. We started following your plan in April of 2016, and so far we have led one very successful class. Very good. Good for you. Very cool. Good.

So you guys are married, obviously. You have children? Yes, we have a daughter who just turned two. Okay. What prompted you to actually end up leading a class rather than just attending it? Yeah, there were a couple of things, Dave. You know, first and foremost, you had such an impact on our lives with your plan, and God really moved in our lives through finances and handling money His way.

And so it really, really changed the trajectory of our lives. We were tremendously in debt, and so your plan helped us get out, and we actually had the opportunity to be a part of a church plant. So when we started your plan, we lived in North Carolina, and then our church had an opportunity to plant a new church in Atlanta, and so we took advantage of that opportunity, and one of the immediate ways we knew we could serve our new church was through offering Financial Peace University. And so that's what we decided to do. Very cool.

Very cool. Well, thanks for doing that. That's neat. So you said you led one other class that was very successful. What does very successful mean? What made it successful? Well, it was a smaller class. It was a little bit more intimate.

But we really got to know. It was a little bit more intimate, but we really got to know. It was a group of couples and then one single guy, and we really got to know everyone one-on-one, got to know their financial history, how they ended up where they are, their reason why, so why they're doing this crazy plan that everyone will say that they're crazy for doing. Right. And to help them get out from under this debt and start living and giving love it very cool so the it sounds like the class went deep more than wide yes yes

they went deep yeah and those are lifetime friends then you know the very first class i taught i still see those people you know i still see them all over the place the first time i when i was doing it with an overhead projector and a bad suit you know back in the day know i still see them all over the place the first time i when i was doing it with an overhead projector and a bad suit you know back in the day and i still run into those people around the community or sometimes they'll stop into the office and see us and uh they've been friends for 20 years plus you know that kind of thing very cool you guys very cool so as you were doing that what was the the one couple or the one person or the one story that stood out to you when you were leading the class that was like, wow, that happened? Yeah.

So a lot of them are great, but the one that really stuck out to me is that there is a recently married couple. They also have a baby, and the wife had taken FPU before, before they were together, before they were married. She had told her husband about who Dave Ramsey is and about the debt snowball and how to budget and the baby steps, but never really stuck. It didn't really seem like they could get on the same page with it. So when we offered FPU at our church, we encouraged them to take it, and they took it together, and now they are on fire. They found cheaper utilities. They're working side jobs. They're selling stuff on the marketplace.

They are just, they went through the class together, and now that they're on the same page, I mean, they're flying through their debt. It's amazing how much difference that makes when both parties, both members of the marriage, are actually plugged in and doing it. That's amazing. Cool. So if somebody's out there listening and they're thinking about, I kind of always thought about being a financial peace university coordinator,

what advice would you give them? Yeah, I would advise them just to jump right in and go for it. You know, if they're thinking about being a coordinator, obviously they've had impact in their lives from the plan. And so one of the greatest things is seeing what you know and what you've learned and how it's impacted you and being able to share that with other people and seeing how it's changing their lives.

And as we said before, our class was so great. Almost everyone is well on their way out of debt. Of our six family households that we had, two of them are already debt-free, and another one will be debt-free here by the end of August. And so just being able to see people's lives change, especially young couples change, you can't put a price tag on how much that's worth. And the time that you spend is well worth it. So if you're thinking about it, I would advise you to absolutely jump in because it's worth it.

Very cool. Well, thanks, guys. We really appreciate you guys leading the class and taking your time to do that. And obviously the rewards are amazing and uh we we we really are honored that you are uh part of our team part of our extended family and uh ron and alicia atlanta georgia thank you guys for leading a class folks what if you could save someone's marriage or teach someone how to stop living paycheck to paycheck i mean the only thing sweeter than being debt-free is helping others be debt-free um Helping someone change their whole family tree.

That's amazing. That's what Financial Peace University coordinators do all the time. They're everyday, normal folks. We try not to use perfect people, so if you're perfect, we probably can't use you. They've helped millions of people learn how to not only get out of debt and spend wisely, but then build wealth and be outrageously generous. Regardless of where you are in your financial journey, you can help provide hope to others. Financial Peace University leader materials are designed to help you do just that.

To help you create life change in your community, we're offering the Financial Peace University Leader Kit, drastically discounted to only $99. You get all the materials to lead the class, including the DVDs. And all you got to do is just go to DaveRamsey.com or you can text coordinate to be a coordinator, coordinate

to 33 789. That's coordinate to 33 789. That's coordinate to 33-789. John's in Delaware. Hey, John, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Mr. Ramsey, how are you? Hey, how can I help? Hey, quick question for you.

A couple months ago, I left the company that I worked for, moved to a different company, did an exact same job, but the company I moved to was more of a family-owned business, a little less corporate, and I wanted to take that opportunity to be in that type of environment. I'm having trouble hearing you. Can you speak directly into your phone, please? Yes, sir. Okay, so, yeah, it's a family-owned business, and you wanted to try out that environment, and then what?

And when I left, the company I was working for offered me $15,000 to stay, but I turned it down because I really wanted to try the family-owned type of business. Since I've came to this business, I've since found out I will be spending about $6,000 more per year in health insurance. So really, it's like I'm getting paid $21,000 less with this company. And it feels like it's at the point where it's just not worth that amount of pay to stay with this company. Is the environment good? It's good. It's not drastically better than the company I left.

Okay. How long have you been there? Just a couple months. Yeah. How many people work at the company you're working at now? A couple hundred. Okay. I'd sit down with the owner then or the leader that you're working with and just tell them what you're looking at and going,

you're going to have to help me make this make sense because it's getting out of hand. Help me. Can you help me with the money side of this so I stay? We'll be right back. Brietta is with us in Oklahoma City. Hi, Brietta. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? Well, my husband and I are considering selling both of our cars, and we just want to get your opinion on it and see if we're going to make the right decision. Okay. And why are you selling both of your cars? Well, I am anticipating starting a nursing program in January. It's about 10 months, and we've taken a break from maybe step two to save that money and cash flow the program. So we have that built up and now his car has decided to break down and we're looking at a pretty big expense to fix it. And I'm upside down in my car about four to four thousand or so. So we thought if we were to sell mine and pay off the difference, and then we could use the sale of his truck to buy us two beater cars.

Okay. So you'd be moving down in vehicle, and that would get rid of a bunch of debt for you plus a problem car. Exactly. And my car payment is ridiculous, so our thought is it would also free up money while i was in the nursing program since we'll also be going down on income during that time because on i'll probably have to quit my job to do the accelerated program that i've applied for

yes i'm in do it get rid of the cars awesome i just wanted to check and make sure. Hey, thank you. All right. Felicia is in Alexandria, California. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Felicia. Hi. Thank you, Dave. Hey, what's up? So my mom has a lot of small insurance policies that total to maybe about $8,000. And these are, you know, cash value policies

that I don't get the face value for anyway. So I'm trying to figure out since she is 83 and she does have Parkinson's, I'm trying to figure out the best way I should handle these policies. Should I cash them in

and maybe put them into a CD so that they can grow more money? Because as it stands now, I wouldn't even really be able to give her the best burial, and I just really don't know what my next move should be. Okay, so the face value or the cash value is $8,000, which? The face value is less, but the actual cash value of the policies, they're running like she has one that's like $1,000, one that's like $4,000, that type of thing.

But I know when she cashed one in before, she didn't even get close to that amount. And she's had these policies for a long time. No, no, no, no. The cash value is what you get when you cash it in. Okay, so then I mean, yeah, well, that's what I'm talking about. The cash value. So what is the total what i'm talking about the cash value so what is the total of all the policies the cash value she would get if you cash them all in if i cash them all in now probably would get more about maybe around five thousand or so got it and if you wait until she

dies they will pay how much if you held them all what's the face value total if you wait until she dies, they will pay how much if you held them all? What's the face value total? If I weighed it, she would get about $8,000. Okay, so the face value total of all the policies is $8,000. The cash value is $5,000. I had it backwards. So in a sense, the $3,000 difference is the only insurance you have, because her savings is actually covering it because they keep the cash value when she dies. Okay.

So they only pay the eight. They only pay the insurance amount and the amount that she paid extra to get cash value. So does she have any other money? Nope. She does she have any other money nope she doesn't have any other money she has what is the uh you said she's got parkinson's yeah she has parkinson's disease and she's 83 yeah so how i mean what is the prognosis of you know i'm just going to be cold for a second i know this is your mom but it's a math thing obviously if you cashed it in and got five thousand dollars and then she died two days later you lost three thousand dollars right right but if you cash in the five thousand dollars and invest it well um and she lives two

more years you're going to come out ahead right so the question you know what you're trying to do is estimate how long she's going to live yeah and trying to put myself in a position so that you know when something happens either way right now i i really would struggle giving her the burial that i would want to give her eight thousand dollars is what you've got. You've got $8,000 to do a burial. Right. And you can do it for that. That's just a budget. I can, but then there are other bills that she does have.

So I'm trying to make sure that I'm not in the hole if something should happen to her. You're not in the hole. You're not in the hole. You would take the $8,000 and use it to pay for her her funeral and whatever bills she has don't get paid okay you're not liable for her bills okay but don't spend fifteen thousand dollars on a burial you have eight no no nope go on down there go you can head on over to the funeral home and plan it right now you don't have to prepay it but you can plan it and go okay my budget is eight it's not eight thousand and one dollar it's eight and i think i keep these policies in place they're rip off they're a bad deal but this lady is um elderly she's you know she's got parkinson's i think the eight thousand is better than the five5,000 in this case, and you're going to need it. Right, and there's no guarantee that I could grow the money.

I mean, like you said, if she passed two days later, then I'm still short. Yeah, so it's not, you know, if we had 10 years to play with or something here, which we don't most likely, then we might might play this game but i think you just keep these policies in place it's the way we're going to take care of her final expenses her burial and you go ahead and go down to the funeral home and do a eight thousand dollar budget funeral today and go ahead and lay it out and um that'll give you and her both peace that the money's there to take care of it and um that's there. And there's nothing substandard about that. That's a fine process and a fine amount of money.

You'll do just fine. And, you know, she'll be taking care of it with that amount of money. So, hey, thanks for the call. Open phone is at 888-825-5225 kevin is on facebook he says dave what's your position on car rentals if people don't have credit cards what do we do you go to dollar car rental that's why i'm sitting in the dollar Car Rental studios because Dollar approached us about a year and a half ago, and we have been working with them, and they have put in place the ability to take debit cards and treat you just like a credit card user.

You're not a second-class citizen at Dollar Car Rental if you use a debit card. You've just got to be 20 years old and have $200 in the bank, and you can run a car at Dollar Car Rental with your debit card, not your credit card. And you ought to go down there at dollar.com slash Ramsey and go ahead and join the Dollar Express Rewards Program. It doesn't cost anything to join it. You get rewards, obviously. One of the big

rewards is when you walk off the plane, you walk straight to your car and get in it with your debit card and drive away. So, you know, that's the deal. Go see my friends at Dollar Car Rental. They're an incredible company. We've thoroughly enjoyed working with them they're got great cars and uh their people all around the country are fired up about helping dave ramsey listeners so finally a company that gets it that doesn't mistreat you or treat you like a substandard citizen because you have a debit card and uh that's the deal kevin that's what you do you know i've been so excited about this relationship with these guys because they've taken such great care of you i mean there's been i mean tens of thousands of you have already gone and become uh dollar express rewards members so that you've got all the

benefits and you just walk straight to your car and a bazillion of you have already done business with dollar and used your debit card and we've had almost no complaints. I mean, one or two little glitches here or there, but by and large, man, it has been a great experience for the Dave Ramsey tribe. So thank you guys for supporting Dollar, and thank you, Dollar, for caring about Dave Ramsey listeners and treating us, all of us debit card carriers, like we're regular people. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Jeremy's with us in Fort Myers, Florida. Hi, Jeremy. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. I started listening to you because of the Bobby Bones Show. And what both of your organizations do, I just can't thank you guys enough. You guys are blessings. Well, thank you very much. We're big Bobby Bones fans around here, too. How can I help? Well, my wife and I, we sold our house and the real estate when we purchased was at rock bottom.

We got a college. We got our own houses, our own jobs. We stayed in there for about 10 years or just recently sold it and we made a ton of money. My question is, if you were in my position, would you purchase a condo with HOA fees or would you purchase a single family home and then finance the rest? So you can buy a condo debt-free? Yeah. But if you buy a home, you're going to spend more? Correct.

In my area, yeah. Okay. Well, no, it's the size of home you're looking at. It's a different scenario. I mean, I love the idea of being debt-free, obviously. That's what I'm all about is to get you to that point. If you were to finance some on the home, how much would you finance? Well, in my area, about, I mean, just the small, small, I'd probably be financing about $60,000.

It would be $120,000 total. I have about $70,000 cash. And your household income is what? $80,000. Okay. So if you borrowed $60,000, you could pay that off in like two years, right? Possibly, yes. 30,000 a year out of 80?

That's true. Yeah, you're right. That would be a no-brainer. You're right. Yeah. I'm probably doing that. Okay. And the reason is, single family, number one one you don't have the hoa fees probably

unless you buy a home that has a in a neighborhood that has an hoa but um the the reason is if you put a identical pricing which is not what we're talking about but if you said okay we're talking about 120 000 house or 120 000 condo which one's going to go up more in value? If they are identical in neighborhood and in appeal overall, the single family will appreciate more than the condo. Now, they're never identical, so that's a theoretical thing I'm saying. If the condo's in a better area, it could appreciate more, you know, if it's a more desirable condo than a less desirable single family. But all things being equal, single families will do better than condos or zero lot lines or, you know, duplexes, those kinds of things. So I'm going to go towards a single family.

It's still a very conservative purchase on your part, and you can still pay it off very, very quickly. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you answering that. Absolutely. My honor. Thank you for being a new listener, and thanks for calling in.

Jared is with us in New York. Hi, Jared. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

All right. So just a quick question. You know, my wife and I, we've done FPU. You know, I'm in, I guess, a fortunate situation compared to some of your listeners that call in with, you know, an abundance of debt. I mean, we only have about $24,000 in debt, and we make collectively about $180,000 a year. And I just had a question about the baby steps where my wife and I have a bit of a disagreement. Okay. Do you know what the baby steps are?

I'm sorry? Do you know what the baby steps are? Yes. Baby step one is what? Is save $1,000 for an emergency fund. And everything above that goes on personal debt until personal debt is paid off. Right. So the disagreement is, you know, my wife is arguing about the fact, oh, we live in New York, $1,000 for emergency.

That's not enough. I want to put more. And we have about, you know, give or take $12,000 in savings. And I would love to put $11,000, you know, just to get half of that debt away, clear it all out. Well, she's right. It's not enough. It wasn't designed to be enough. And we're not talking about having a $1,000 emergency fund for 10 years.

We're talking about doing it for 10 months. For God's sakes, you make $180,000. How fast are you going to pay off the other 12? Right. And that's that's that's my argument is i feel like i could be done with all of this in you know four months give or take yeah um especially putting 11 000 in and you know that's kind of the roadblock that i've hit i guess i just need some advice how to talk or you know you know what to kind of

figure out well we're not arguing about $1,000 being enough. We're all three in agreement it's not enough. Right. Okay, so that's not the argument that you or I have with her. And the point is that you guys have been making a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. So you do need to radically change some things. That's point number one. and you're in the process

you are in the process of doing that she's not yet okay okay that's that's fair yeah and so we can't keep doing what we've been doing we'll keep getting what we've been getting and so we have to try something new and this is not a long thing this This is like, I mean, $12,000, yeah, you ought to be done in three months. Three months, not four. And then immediately following that, we're going to start chunking thousands of dollars a month into the emergency fund until we get it built up to a proper emergency fund, which around your house is probably $30,000. Give or take, yeah. i'd prefer 50 okay that's the number that i've been eyeing yeah that's fine and and so you know what you start talking about

is not the thousand dollars you start talking about the thousand dollars is only for four months and then we're going to be at 50 by this date right and so i don't know what that date is it's probably not a whole lot more than a year though um yeah no you're probably not so 18 months by this date we should have 50 000 in the bank and have no debt and we will have learned how to live on 180 000 and actually make progress with it which we have not ever done to this point which um if that's me talking to my wife it would sound like you know honey which is kind of absurd that we're this dumb you know and um and you would she has to agree with that i mean it's like you know you're not in congress here this is you got to make this work and so um uh but what she's focusing on is the 1000 as if it's going to be

that way forever and it's not it's it's one part of the equation the other parts are the dramatic behavior change by you two the fact that you're talking about money and handling money together like you've never done before the fact you're on a written budget and have the detail of where every dollar is going to go. And I will say every dollar, like, totally changed my life. What about hers? What about hers? No, she agrees with that.

She loves every dollar. I think we've been really, really, you know, getting a good budget for probably the last, I'd say, three or four months at least. Okay, so my challenge were she to call me on the air. My challenge to her would be that you're stuck on the $1,000 as if it's going to be there for very long. It's not very long. It's a drive-by.

You're going to drive right by it. It's not going to be long. Right. And so you could, I don't recommend this, but if you can't get there, you could say, all right, let's pay down the debt until we get within $11,000. And then let's just pay it off. I like that. That actually might make sense to her.

Yeah, that's my worst case scenario. But I would prefer, there's something about around here, around our business when we're doing stuff and we have to really, and we need to really dramatically shake things up. We always just say we need to shock the monkey, you know, right? And it's like, get the monkey to do stuff different. And I'm talking about myself. You know, there's a sign in my window. So don't feed the monkey.

Right. And it's like, so there's something good about shocking the system. You're a nervous system. You emotional, your spiritual, your relational system. There's something about shocking that that's good, and that's what this is doing to her more than it's doing to you. Right. doing to you right and that's you know i would i would argue with her that that's a good thing you know because we're trying to get a whole new pattern of belief a whole new pattern of doing things so i'm gonna tell you to do the baby steps but your worst case scenario if you just can't get there that's a sidestep you can do and then and then go back to doing the real baby steps that's an ish and i don't like ish But it is a way to get at it.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to the Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.