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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.
George Camel, Ramsey personality, YouTube star and co-host of the youtube podcast
sensation smart money happy hour with rachel cruz he's my co-host today and that is appropriate
because today we are pre-launching the pre-sale on george's first book it is very good it's called
breaking free from broke and it's got a great picture of George here
pushing out against the toxic money culture that's out there, and this is the ultimate
millennial Gen Z guide to the things I used to say, but I say them in such a boomer way that
this is actually incredible. I laughed out loud reading the
manuscript. I was very impressed with the level of research that you and the team have done to
put into the book, the detail, the backup. I mean, you destroy some of these concepts that are out
there in such a way. It is so persuasive that you just can't do stupid stuff anymore after reading this book.
I appreciate that, Dave.
Well, you know, being here 10 years now, having followed the Ramsey plan for 10 years now,
me personally going from broke to millionaire after detaching and deprogramming all this toxic crap.
Does it ever feel weird to say that?
Say millionaire at your age?
It doesn't feel real.
It's a number on a sheet.
Do people on, because I don't read all the comment crap, do people ever say, of course
you're a millionaire.
Ramsey pays you a million dollars.
That's.
To which you respond, no, he doesn't.
I wish he did.
That would be very nice, Dave.
No, he doesn't.
No, the truth is, I was a normal guy with a normal job, you know, marketing roles.
I wasn't a personality up until a few years back.
And so my wife and I, who also works here, we've just been following this stuff for years.
And it turns out, if you just, you know, invest in your 401k for a decade and get your house paid
off, you can become a millionaire fairly easily in America today. Yeah, there you go. So I dispel
so many objections that we've heard over the years around credit scores, credit cards, auto loans,
student loans. It's like the total money makeover meets complete guide to money,
meets the fine print, meets borrowed future, along with my YouTube humor and snark.
And someone said today-
A good dose of the snark.
I released the first chapter. I read it on video. And a comment said,
I forgot you were reading a book. It felt like another one of your YouTube videos.
And it was the best compliment.
That's it.
Because I tried to write a book-
It really is. It's YouTube on paper.
I didn't want it to feel like a root canal reading a financial book of everything you never learned
about money but wish you did and so i tried to make it to where even i would enjoy reading a book
and i hope i accomplished that you did you did it's really really good and uh breaking free from
broke the ultimate guide to more money and less stress so all of those things that people
are saying on tiktok and are saying on youtube and are saying on instagram when you folks are
reading those you go you know that doesn't sound right but you're not sure why george is going to
tell you exactly why painstakingly you had to to explain crypto and NFTs and leveraged real estate.
And it was exhausting, Dave.
I'm not going to lie.
Writing a book is not.
It's not exhausting reading it, though.
I was laughing my butt off.
That's good news.
It's just too funny.
And we had to go to the printing world and invent a new font for the book.
We have officially copyrighted now the snark font
that's right and so the book is written in a snark font that usually happens in the parenthetical
we looked for the sarcasm font for mine but we couldn't get it um so but we got the snark font
for you and so that's a that's a publishing breakthrough that's huge and uh and dave you
wrote the foreword which is very kind of you i don't know if you were forced to, but it was very nice of you to do that, to slap your name on it.
I forced myself to since I own the company.
From Ramsey Press, I guess you might as well.
Hey, I was honored to do that. all of our manuscripts of course and comment on them and um rather bluntly uh to each of the
personalities before they before it makes it through an edit process and uh then but long
before it goes to print right so um that's why i get to read you know dr john deloney's book and
i'm like this book is gonna rock people's world on anxiety i mean building a non-anxious life the six daily choices it's rocks it's really good breaking free from broke george camel's new book it comes out january 16
that's right and uh we will ship it to you then as always with a ramsey book it goes on pre-sale
today we're going to let you buy it in advance and we're going to bribe you to do so uh you'll
get an instant access to george's
newest talk show me the money and exclusive access to an online private event it includes a q a with
george you'll get the audio book and the ebook when we ship the book in january on january the
16th and whether you pre-buy it or buy it later but do pre-buy it please uh you part of it is
you're going to be tied into EveryDollar,
and there'll be a QR code in the book that lets you get EveryDollar free for, what, 90 days?
90 days of all the premium features.
The premium EveryDollar.
That's worth it alone.
Even if you don't want to read this book, do it for the EveryDollar bonus.
That's awesome.
That costs more than the book.
Absolutely.
So we're throwing all of this together, and it's only 20 bucks, okay?
So it's like over $150 worth of bonus items when you include the every dollar in there for sure
and uh so go ahead and pre-order it it helps george with the marketing helps us with the marketing
and um it helps us with the orders with amazon all the stuff we do to try to get a book out there
uh and i just i can promise you i'll give you the uh ramsey trusted seal of approval george
is not only ramsey trusted but uh this we don't put stuff out around here like george wrote it
and we just say that's okay and we print it now we all go through it and beat the snot out of it
it's writing a book's kind of a brutal process at ram i beat the snot out of me yeah what i mean
other people were pretty straightforward yeah i. I mean, it's like- We got high standards around here, apparently.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
But it was worth it to make myself better and write a book that I wish I had at 25,
you know, even at 30.
And this is the book that you can give to, you know, even if you're older, this book
is going to be one of those, like, finally-
What is older?
You know, let's say-
Like 40.
In your 70s if you're 70 this is a great book for you because uh the font isn't perfectly sized
we made sure of that at least god george and it keeps you relevant because i have a lot of pop
culture references dave missed this there's one sentence that includes four taylor swift
song titles and dave didn't even catch it i and i meant it that way caught it but i just refused to comment
so you're admitting you're a swifty no i'm just admitting that i'm not as culturally irrelevant
as you think i am but i didn't care dang it there's that so anyway yeah there's plenty of
plenty of snark in here including taylor no he wasn't snarky about taylor he's okay trust me i
don't want the swift he's coming after me the The serious truth is George exposes the most common money myths that are out there and the excuses that are out there.
And he takes them on head on credit card schemes, investing traps, mortgage mythology. It's all the
stuff you wish you were taught in high school. And some of you people that are bitching about
me being a boomer all the time. Well, we answer for you it's called george and so this book
i think called dave jr and i think it's a compliment but i don't know anymore i would comb
your hair carefully if that's what you're called i'd be worried about my hairdo i'm going to protect
the coif at all costs to protect the coif protect the coif ramsey solutions.com slash store you're
going to get knowledge and confidence with this. Breaking Free from Broke, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress.
Damon John, Mike Rowe, Graham Stephan, The Minimalists, and Rachel Cruz are on the back endorsing and saying it's awesome.
Because it is.
This is the Ramsey Show.
George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us
888-825-5225 Amber is in Houston Texas hi Amber how are you oh Uncle Dave I have a bit of a heart
heartbreak I'm calling for your advice regarding my father's finances, please.
Okay.
What's going on?
Well, he has three different credit cards in the total of $26,000.
He's fallen for every scam.
He's 81 years old.
He's made every Nigerian prince rich at this point.
Wow. We're intervening in his finances.
So his bills, we can help with his bills.
We can help.
He's got his mortgage covered with Social Security.
Bills are $2,300 approximately.
He brings in $2,091.
The total credit card outstanding amount is $26,000.
And we don't know at this point whether he should declare bankruptcy
or we should let those credit cards go into default
and try to negotiate with the collectors.
I'm just not sure how to help with those things.
I'm guessing he has no money.
He has no money.
He brings in $19.26 social security yeah what does what's that
what's the house worth a lot we're trying to keep it what's the house worth 550 probably okay and okay all right in tech is he in texas no oregon okay
uh okay well i i am not i happen to know texas law because it's unusual i don't know oregon's
law but i suspect it's a standard a fairly normal state which would mean that they eventually could take a lien against
his house if they sue him okay if you don't pay them and they sue him and take a lien against
his house he has no money to pay them there's no money in this budget right and he has no money
does he have a car right uh not one that's worth anything no he has a vehicle but my brother gave it to him it's
on its last legs like a thousand dollars or something yes under three yes okay all right
um and you have siblings yes okay uh how are the siblings as far as money do you have any do they
have any can can we get it can we get a group together and chip in and come up with 10 grand and settle 26 000 with a bad credit card debt
yes okay yeah let it go bad let it go bad and then go settle it before they take it before
they take a lien on his house so go bad don't pay the minimum he don't have money to pay the minimum
with what the numbers you gave me he can barely pay the minimum. He doesn't have money to pay the minimum.
With the numbers you gave me, he can barely pay the house payment and eat.
Right.
He's been working physically as 81 trying to make the payment.
Yeah.
So he's been bringing in a little bit to cover, but we've been making up the difference.
Yeah.
Okay, so let it go to collections and then just fight it out yeah settle it out sell it out for a quarter on the dollar for cash destroy his credit so he can't
get any more in the process yeah that's what that does is he living alone he is right now we plan on
moving there in three years um But I've taken over his
finances. We've cut up credit cards.
He had every
spyware on his computer, so
we're trying to get rid
of that. Well, what's his mortgage
payment? Because my worry is his expenses
keep going up. He makes the same amount
of money. You guys are chipping in
for the next 10, 20 years to try to support
his lifestyle, which ain't much't much yes that's what my husband says but he needs to sell the house and make other
payments we're trying to this is his family home and so we're in it's nostalgic to us
the mortgage is 1756 to answer your question goodness and so he so he's 2000 coming in 1756
going the mortgage he doesn't have the money to eat then, does he?
No. And so we're putting in $1,000 to cover his bills.
Well, then nostalgia is going to get replaced with this core memory.
And so I'd rather sell the house and have him retire with dignity than have
your nostalgia tied up in this, keeping him in this awful situation.
You're paying the thousand yes
my brother and i oh your brother and i this is just two of you um there are three of us but only
two that are financially stable okay and the um you have a written agreement where you recoup that
when he passes before we start splitting the house equity up no we thought about putting into the trust and
getting the name the home into our name so he can't i'm talking about your other sibling shouldn't
get a third until you get your thousand dollars a month back we haven't yet no yeah yeah i know
you're right yeah i, I am right.
And this is going to come up later, and it's going to get real testy later when the one that doesn't have any money thinks that she hit the lotto
or he hit the lotto when the house was up for sale and Papa's died.
Oh, so please get this dialed in.
The right thing to do financially is sell the house
and help him make a transition into another place that he pays
cash for and you pay off these debts and we put him on a budget that's the right thing to do
mathematically what i'm describing with an 82 year old is very very difficult yes emotionally
family house nostalgia all the things we're talking about here. So what probably will happen is you all will limp along feeding this at $1,000 a month,
and you'll chip in and get $10,000 together to knock out the $26,000 in bad old credit card debt.
His credit will be destroyed.
When he passes, you'll sell the house, recoup the $10,000 plus the $1,000 a month that you put in
before you split with your sibling who's not putting $10,000 plus the $1,000 a month that you put in before
you split with your sibling who's not putting anything in, and that's all in writing now.
If you're willing to feed it to that tune just to keep him in the house, the only reason
you're doing that, by the way, there's only one reason you're doing that.
That's to keep him in the house.
Yes.
So the strain that you're putting on your brother's finances and your finances to do all of that is only to keep your dad in this house.
Which, if you've got $2 million, it's no big deal.
If you've got $20,000 and you're throwing $1,000 of it, that's a lot.
We have $1,401,000.
Yeah.
But our daily, you know, my budget is dialed in yeah we have 50 we follow your plan so we have 15 going into but we just make sure you you've
got to go do your paperwork now and if dad will not give you to sign over full power of attorney
and um all decision making rights to you and your brother and your sister will not understand or your brother,
whatever the third one is, agree to you recoup before you split in writing,
then any of those end this discussion and we sell the house.
I understand.
Okay, make it crystal clear.
Yeah, everyone needs to have every T crossed, every I dotted,
and everyone is on the same page and discussing this.
Because your dad's of his right mind.
He's just susceptible to scams.
Yes.
He's not like in third stage dementia or something, right?
Not yet, no.
Okay, all right.
So, you know, he's 82.
So statistically, you're going to do this for two years or so.
I don't know what his health is like
but he could do it for 10 george is right could do it for 20 george is right those are possibilities
but statistically you know we're not doing this for a long long time and the other thing you i
would be real clear on is this is what we're going to do for now we reserve the right to decide to
sell the house later like you you may reach the end of your rope on this.
Your husband might.
Your brother might.
Well, and that, from a husband's standpoint, if it were your wife and your in-law,
and you see financially this is a poor decision, that would really be a strain for you.
I don't think it's a poor decision because you're going to get your money back out of the equity.
And basically, you're putting a strain on your cash flow, but it's not costing you anything at the end of the story.
And the strain on the cash flow is in return for your dad getting to live out his last days in his family home.
That's the trade you're making.
And I don't necessarily think that's a bad trade as long as everybody's on board and everybody's signing up for this but dad
you do one more stupid scam we're done uh sister brother you don't agree to a recoup we're done
you're not going to live on a budget and we're going to pay your house payment and you're going
to and i'm going to manage your money you're going to sign over a power of attorney we're done
we're done there are there are stipulations to play in this through and
putting a strain on our family george camel ramsey personality soon to be number one best
selling author is my co-host today on the stage in the ramsey solutions, we have a very special guest on the debt-free stage.
If you didn't know, money problems are the number one thing that stress out employees and team members at your company.
And if you didn't know, we help companies, big companies and small companies, with that by providing an HR benefit to them called called smart dollar that allows them to have their team
members go through our curriculum it's kind of like financial peace at work sort of but a little
different but i mean it's us teaching you how to bid on budget how to get out of debt how to live
on lesson you make all that kind of stuff and uh and it's fun it's taught by me and george and
rachel and so on and And so it's pretty incredible.
One of the companies that has had all of their team go through Smart Dollar and provided it to them as a benefit at no cost to the employee is U-Haul.
U-Haul is a great company, by the way.
We've had a lot of interaction with them over the last couple of years.
They do a great job and um so for you all
team members that's translated uh to a combined 6.7 million dollars in debt paid and in dollars
saved that means that those team members are not stressed about money so while they're at work
they're thinking about work instead of mastercard ta Productivity goes up. That's how that stuff works.
So this is the deal. So
all of that to say, our debt-free
scream is from a U-Haul
team member. And that's
Chris and Jessica. Where do you guys live?
Elk Grove, California.
Okay. So you're not in the home office. Home office
is Phoenix, right? Correct. Okay.
Cool. How long have you been with U-Haul? 23 years.
Wow! That's a long time
so they come in and go smart dollars here had you ever heard of us when they presented all this
no i have not oh so it's all brand new yes so company benefit which kind of could be like a
little bit of an eye roll a little bit like uh what is this what are you guys you know snake oil that's what i would do right
did you do that a little bit that's what i did you go jessica i like someone with the gift of
cynicism good for you but you gave it a shot anyway but you gave it a shot anyway so kristen
says okay company's providing this it doesn't cost anything we might as well try it what'd you tell
her chris i was at a conference when I learned about it.
And so when I got home,
my bright idea of let's get out of debt
when she's the one that does all the books.
And so I come home with a great idea.
Now you're a genius.
Yes.
Okay.
And she kind of looked at me like,
no, you don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, stay away from my stuff.
I got it figured out.
Yeah.
So how did y'all decide to actually take the class?
It was more of me watching YouTube, listening to the podcast, getting her stuck in the car
to listen to it as well.
So you kind of sampled some of our stuff in the market and then that enabled you to plug
back into Smart Dollar at U-Haul.
Yep.
Okay.
Very cool.
So Jessica, what convinced you to actually try the actual Smart Dollar thing, which you're watching YouTube, listening to the podcast.
What happened?
It didn't cost anything, so what could it hurt?
Ah, except that they might have some weird ideas.
Probably not.
Thank God you and I are both smart.
But, yeah, at least we're not.
Because I bet you we were on the same team, weren't we?
Yes, we were.
Okay, all right.
So as long as you both wanted to get out of debt, you're like,
all right, he's making sense.
Let's do this thing.
Absolutely.
How much debt did you guys have?
Combined, we had $291,000.
Wow.
And what did that include?
We had a rental house that had $180,000.
We had a travel trailer that was about 7,000 remaining and 73,000 in credit cards.
Wow, the credit cards are kicking your butt.
Yep.
Yes, they were.
Did you sell the rental house or pay it off?
We sold it.
Sold it.
March of 2020.
Whoa.
That was my birthday present.
Mic drop on the timing though.
Wow.
A thousand percent.
Yes.
Wow.
Thank you, Jesus.
Oh my goodness.
If my prayers were to be answered it was that day because
the people that were renting the home um were in the restaurant industry industry industry oh yeah
which means they lost their jobs in the falchion pandemic yep oh my gosh so how long did this take
to pay off 291 no they sold this house was 180 right so you had 75 in credit card
debt and then you had to plow through the other how long did it take to pay off that other debt
the remaining debt 21 months 21 months good for you good for you well because u-haul all of u-haul
is going through this uh we're going to treat you all like we treat a ramsey team member when they're
doing their debt-free screen we're not going to ask your income because all your buddies are going
to be watching this and they're going to go i know what chris makes now and we're not
doing that so uh we're going to give we're going to give you a little uh give you a little break
on that but congratulations what do you do for a living jessica i raise our children yay awesome
yes full-time domestic engineer i love it good for you our ceo so now that you went through smart
dollar um and you pay off 291 000 including the sale of
185 you pay off travel trailer and the credit cards by the hard way uh well i guess you probably
got a little equity out of the rental right to throw at it about 43 000 okay so that jumped up
some of it and then the rest of you just budgeted through right what do you tell people the key to
getting out of debt is cut up your credit cards don't get
them anymore um but just really cold turkey no plastic surgery yeah a lot of that just
seeing it on paper and really getting sick at how much we had and going what what did we buy? Like, where is all this stuff? Where is this going? Yeah.
So it was just, it was freedom, finally.
Getting the app, using the budget,
and seeing your money's actually going somewhere
that you don't want it to go.
So the EveryDollar app.
Yep.
Getting it transitioned to putting it
where we actually need the money to go
versus the restaurant here, Amazon there, Target, whatever.
By getting on the budget and actually knowing where every dollar goes
allowed us to kind of get a raise.
As we cut one credit card, we got more money.
The next thing you know, we're just rolling
and kept that snowball going until it was all gone.
Was there an extra layer of accountability with team members and HR?
Was it kind of like, all right, we got to do this thing?
I think the kids were the biggest motivation.
Knowing that they're getting older, that if we didn't do this,
college was going to be a lot harder to do.
Setting them up for success so they weren't going down the same path as us
was kind of the motivation to keep going and get it done even faster
because all the other ways we did didn't work.
That's a strong why, changing the family tree.
Very cool.
Yeah, and we got a phone call this morning from our daughter
to get her first acceptance letter for college.
Ooh, there's some timing.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
We got to write those checks.
I mean, we get to write those checks now.
It's excitement with zeros on the end.
That's all.
Exactly.
Opportunity.
Opportunities.
So, Chris, what do you do at U-Haul?
I'm a marketing company
president so i oversee the region of all the u-hauls in our district that i work in i got you
okay cool and you've been there 23 years how many team members of u-haul have total um i believe
about 40 000 okay yeah pretty substantial company to say the least i mean we all think of it as the
truck or the trailer from the consumer viewpoint right but? But it's a big dadgum company.
Yeah.
So as a leader then, 23 years in that company, you've now personally experienced this.
You're able to concentrate on work because you don't have $291,000 worth of debt hanging over you.
And you're now congruent with your spouse.
You're working together instead of her doing it by herself.
Right. And then you're trying to figure out what's happening and um and her wishing you would
have helped and all that stuff right so now you so you see the benefit personally uh but i'm curious
because i don't get to ask this very often um sometimes when i'm doing something in leadership
i personally get to experience it like you have, but I also immediately see if the person downstream does it, how it's going to benefit them and
benefit the company.
Right.
Because they actually think, do you see that the stuff we've been talking about with productivity
and some of the team members getting their lives back?
Yeah.
Because we're able to focus more on what we're doing at work versus at home.
I'm able to talk to my staff on different things with my team
on ways that they can better their personal life
because you get to know all of your team members
and get to know about their family, kind of their financial,
if they're talking about going to buy a car or I got to leave early,
I got to go do a refinance or I got to pick up a second job,
that kind of thing.
Yeah, at least you got a place to go to discuss it.
Way to go, you guys yeah way to go you guys
we're proud of you thank you very cool and uh our salute to the u-haul leadership team for letting
wonderful people like chris and jessica go through smart dollar and paying off 291 000 in debt count
it down let's hear a debt-free! Yeah!
Gotta love it, baby!
This is The Ramsey Show.
George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Nick is in Greenville, South Carolina.
Hi, Nick.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Hey, sir.
Thank you for having me.
Sure.
What's up?
So I am curious how I should go about starting to tackle a small student loan mountain when I'm on about $3,000 a month.
And after expenses, I have about $900 spare.
So the student loans just started my first payments last month.
Wanting to know, should I do the snowballs? Should I tackle it with an avalanche
method? And how to go about doing this all the while, properly preparing for a tax season,
because I'm an independent contractor. Cool. What's the total student loan debt that you have? Right around $33,000.
What do you do?
I am an Uber driver.
I am in my college town.
I just recently graduated with my bachelor's, and I'm sticking around the area.
Graduated with a bachelor's in what?
Psychology.
Psychology.
I'll be applying for a master's for clinical counseling.
And that hopefully if I get in, I'll start August.
How are you going to pay for that?
I am thankfully on the GI Bill.
I got most of my bachelor's, well, all of my bachelor paid with the GI Bill. The $33,000 was pretty much living expenses over four years due to cost of living and not focusing on working.
I'll be able to have 18 months out of my two-year program for my master's still covered under the GI Bill due to how I did my schooling.
And I will have to do one semester out of more student loans. still covered under the GI Bill due to how I did my schooling,
and I will have to do one semester out of more student loans.
Okay.
All right.
Nick, you're new to the whole Ramsey thing.
I know this by the questions you're asking and the statements you're making.
So what I discovered and we have discovered years ago is the fastest way to financial peace, peace in your finances, the fastest way to wealth is to avoid debt at all cost.
Because your most powerful wealthbuilding tool is your income. And when you commit it all to Sally freaking May, you destroy your peace.
And that's why you're calling us because you don't have peace right now.
Now, when you restart, will the student loans go back on deferral?
I'm assuming so, yes, as long as I am an active student.
Yeah, I think so, too.
And so what that tells me is the first thing we're going to talk about is how you can get your income up so you can cover future living expenses and keep it up.
And no whining, just work.
Okay?
You're just going to have to work my man and uh because otherwise you're going to create another mountain of student loan debt because you didn't work so you're going to have
to work while you work on your master's oh well by the way almost everyone had a job when they
were in college almost everyone worked when they were in college some were smarter about it and
made more than others but almost everyone that went to college worked.
I did.
I worked 40 to 60 hours a week when I was in school, okay,
back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.
But anyway, so nothing wrong with working.
You can work and you can do a master's degree in psychology.
And I have no problem with your goal.
You're going to need the master's to get licensed if you're going to move into therapy, if you're going to move into counseling in most states, including South Carolina.
So you're going to have to get the master's.
It's permission to play.
It's table stakes.
So go ahead and do that.
Let the GI pay for it.
And by the way, thank you for your service.
In order to get the GI, as a taxpayer, I'm more than happy to pay for your school in return as a way of saying thank you.
So you go do that but by god
get your tail in gear and pay for cash for that last semester that you're talking about that's
hanging out there that dangling semester and by god get enough money in that you have baloney in
the house and you have baloney sandwiches if not you eat a wish sandwich two pieces of bread and
wish i had some meat okay we're just going to do whatever it takes to get through this with no debt you're following me you following my intensity here yes sir okay because
debt is a behavior thing you kind of outlined that a little bit in your process so your first
goal right now is kind of a physician's goal do no more harm your first goal is finish your master's no more debt
that's more i do i do think i started that pro on the first step to that i am in a debt
consolidation program um and so that's two two of my credit cards have have already been cut up and
no longer being used yeah okay so the the
point being we're going to live on what we make and then step two step one is no more debt finish
the masters right with me if we can find any more money above that and we want to start reducing debt
then we would use the debt snowball not the debt avalanche the reason is the debt avalanche
normally doesn't work because you're in psychology it's a feedback loop okay when you pay off the
smallest debt it encourages you it's like going on a diet and i lost weight the avalanche is i go on a diet and
i gain three pounds the first week i'm getting no traction i get no positive feedback loop
to encourage me emotionally to in to stay engaged in a difficult behavior change
yes sir it's the rat pushing the lever needs some freaking cheese hello that's all we are
and so the reason the debt snowball works is feedback loop it's not the math it's mathematically
incorrect because we're paying it off smallest balance to largest balance regardless of the
interest rate but the difference is mathematically it has a much higher probability of completion.
And the debt avalanche has an almost zero probability of completion because there's no feedback issue.
There's no feedback loop.
And so the feedback is so long that no one stays engaged.
And so the mathematical probability of completion goes down.
So overall, technically speaking, if you want to get really nerdy about the math
when you build in probability of completion the debt snowball is actually mathematically more
correct than the avalanche but you know we're now i'm getting real nerdy on you so intellectual but
yeah dave's right i had a very similar situation to you nick i was thirty six thousand dollars in
debt ten years ago in my student loans. And I thought intellectually,
well, it makes sense to do the highest interest first when I broke them all down. And it turns out when I started using that debt snowball method, I actually got this little thing called
hope. If I can knock one out, I can knock the next one out. It's a little bigger. I knock the next
one out. It's a little bigger. I start freeing up these payments. They start making traction.
And 18 months later, I was debt free. I don't know that I'd be saying the same thing today
if I had used the avalanche method.
Yeah, and George even paid off his home.
That's into your future down there, Nick.
But so I think what needs to happen is, you know,
what we win at in life is the things we concentrate on.
If we want to run a half marathon,
we have to concentrate on the training to prepare to do that.
If you want to graduate without any more debt, you have to concentrate on the training to prepare to do that if you want to graduate without any more debt you have to concentrate on that and that involves keeping
your out go down and your income up and these are the things we're concentrating on after this
discussion today that you and george and i have had and so that that would be our thing work the
debt snowball but truthfully i don't expect you to make a lot of progress on it in the next two years
because your main focus is for Nick to graduate with no more debt of any kind
and make enough money to live on and finish that last dangling semester on the end there.
The dangling semester.
I like that.
It could be like a blog.
But yeah, you can do this, Nick.
I'll tell you what, we're going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover,
which is my best-selling book ever.
It's about 10 million copies out there.
It'll show you exactly how to do what we're talking about.
And you can play through and do this.
But part of it is just making that paradigm shift and going,
I'm going to try a proven plan instead of trying to intellect my way out of this. That's huge when you can just commit to a process.
Yeah, it's, you know, behavior follows belief. And belief does come from a feedback loop. Belief
is hope, right? And so I have to believe it's going to work, and then I'll engage in the
sacrifice in order to win. And Nick, I know, and I want you to believe it's going to work, and then I'll engage in the sacrifice in order to win.
And, Nick, I know and I want you to believe that you can do what we just told you to do.
This is The Ramsey Show.