The Ramsey Show - App - Can I Afford To Buy This House? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Live from Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. We are taking your calls on money, relationships, mental health, emotional health, your work, whatever you got going on. We have some ideas or some opinions, and some of them are better than others. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's roll out to Chicago and talk to Chris.

Hey, Chris, what's up? Hey, what's going on, guys? Nothing much, man. What are you up to? Just hoping you guys can help solve a little hot-button debate in my house. This is my favorite. My wife and I have been working the baby steps for about the past year, and we're just about done.

So her mother gifted her with an, was it been offering to pay off her student loan for the past couple of years. We are about to pay off our last credit card. And I'm wondering if we should also pay off her student loan or let her mother keep paying it. Has her mom paid it yet? No, she's been making payments, some smaller, some larger. Pay it off right now. No. Pay it off. Yeah. Okay. You have the money to do it? Not exactly, but we've been throwing pretty large chunks at our debt for a while, so it wouldn't take us more than like an extra month. Okay. So one month from now, you've cleared your own debt versus mom pitching in. What was the agreement with mom pitching in? Was this just like a gift? She said, hey, I'd love to help you guys out.

This is a gift. Don't worry about it. What was the spirit of it? Yeah. Yeah, I think it was a gift. It was a gift before we were married. And then after we got married and started working the baby steps, you know, she kind of was like, oh, we'll let my mom pay it. And we kept working at ours. But as we've gotten further into it, I just kind of feel like it's in her name we should just take care of it and be done with it yes and there's going to be some drama in your house i can tell by this question why is it a hot button issue what does your wife want to do chris tell me if i'm wrong george because it's mom made a commitment that may be harder to keep or she wants to do it at her pace and when they go knock it out they're basically saying we don't want your money we don't need your money and that

can often leave people feeling untethered like what purpose do i have or what role do i have or oh you're just gonna go do it over my head that kind of thing am i right chris yeah my wife doesn't want to take away the gift um you know she doesn't want to take away the gift. She doesn't want to take away that charity her mom's given us. What is left? What is the amount that her mom would have paid? We have like $4,300 some odd on it. Okay, and she was making a payment plus a little bit? Yeah, like $200.

She gave us $500 this month, but, I mean, we've been chucking so much in debt. We're almost clear and free now, so it'd be pretty easy for us to not have that. I'm trying to figure out a way where you both win. You guys pay this off now. You save a bunch in interest, and you talk to Mom and say, hey, thank you so much. You were an integral part of us becoming debt-free. Thank you for this beautiful gift.

If you still want to continue and give the rest, we have other financial goals. Here's other ways you can do it. Maybe it's a trip. Put it to 529 for a future grandbaby. Yeah. Or hey, I'm going to cover a vacation to celebrate you guys becoming debt-free. You know, it doesn't have to be this like wire transfer transactional thing. It can be a celebratory fun thing. It can be a legacy thing where, hey, fund the 529 for the kids. That's plenty gift or don't worry about it. And I don't know her personality. And she may not take it well, but that's not on you, how she reacts.

But the way George has teed this up, Chris, is I think he's right on. Sit down and say, because you were so generous with us, it allowed us to accelerate through all this other stuff. And we ended up way ahead of where we thought we were going to be at this time. And we were able to knock it all out. Yeah, that's awesome. But I think letting her know none of this happens without you

on the front end. And you leave the ball in her court to decide what's next. That's right. Then she gets to pick what's next. She gets to choose her version of generosity. I love that. I love that. Alright, let's roll out to Josh in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What's up, Josh? Hello. Hi Puerto Rico. What's up, Josh? Hello. Hi, yes.

What's up, man? Okay, so I'm 35. I don't have any debt, and I'm looking at buying my first house out here in Puerto Rico. I just moved here on Monday for tax purposes. And the house that I'm looking at, I really like it. It's $675. So I'm just kind of wondering if I should basically put a large down on it, which is pretty much my entire savings, or if maybe the house is a little bit out of my budget. I'm not sure.

Now, when you put this down, let's say you left three months of expenses for your emergency fund and the rest you put down. Would the mortgage payment then be 25% of your take-home pay? It would be more than 25%. Then the home is out of your budget. And this has nothing to do with what you have in savings or not. You just need to either adjust your expectations, find a cheaper home, or you continue, you rent, you continue to save until you can make that work, where it's 25% of your take-home pay on a 15-year. Otherwise,

you're biting off more than you can chew. Got it. There is a VA, so I do have access to a VA home loan, which might be better. Not a blessing. But I think you're right. Here's why. Yeah. The VA loan is just going to allow you to put less down, which means more mortgage, which will still give you a massive payment so i'll let it let you get into this house it's still going to be a curse because it's going to be 50 60 percent of your take-home pay and all of a sudden this wonderful life you had tried to build in puerto rico is now kind of a nightmare because you're now just working to pay the bills again

got it got it yeah um yeah you're totally right i kind of knew it's a little bit too much but i just really like the house i was kind of like i bet it's a beautiful house yeah but right now you might just need to go i gotta get a condo that's 350 grand or just rent or just rent for a year yeah but do not deplete your whole savings josh you you are you from puerto rico um i'm from florida i'm from like tampa area but um i just moved out here because i Yeah. But do not deplete your whole savings. Josh, are you from Puerto Rico? I'm from Florida. I'm from the Tampa area, but I just moved out here because I have an online company, and I can essentially avoid taxes if I have a permanent residence here,

and I moved my entity out here. Okay. You're moving there for freedom, though, right? Yes. All right. I want you to practice that for a year. Rent a house. Okay. Because you've made this big huge move you watched you clearly have watched a ton of instagram reels about dudes like moving their businesses that's awesome yeah but i want you to actually live it because okay many of us here in the states like i don't mind paying the taxes that i pay for my roads and police officers and fuck I don't mind paying the taxes that I pay

for my roads and police officers and fuck. I don't mind it. You know what I'm saying? Now, if it gets bananas, then yeah, we'll have to... Let me say it this way. I don't like it, and I don't know that anybody loves it,

but I prefer living where I live more than the savings I would have to not pay them. Does that make sense? And so you have a good idea. It's going to save you some money, but it's going to cost you a lot too. And so just play it slow, man. And if you love Puerto Rico, if that's your style, if that's your move, you don't miss your family, you don't miss your friends, you don't miss any of the mainland drama, well, good for you, man.

Then save up and buy a house. What's your income, Josh? So it can fluctuate depending on how business is doing, but yearly take home after taxes, it's anywhere from 200 on the low end. It can be 300. It can be 300 or so. Incredible. Which tells me if you can live on way less than you make

and shove away 75% of your take home pay, you're going to have an amazing house in no time with that amazing income. So this is just a patience game. You're 35. You're doing amazingly well. And everyone is jealous listening right now, but just move slow. Don't bite off more than you can chew and never do anything for tax purposes. That shouldn't be your one strategy. That might be a by-product because of your choice, but I don't want that to steer my decisions. And everybody, when you move to a new town, you move to a new territory, wherever you're going, it never hurts to rent. You get the lay of the land, and then you figure out where you want to live, how you want to live, and then you go from there.

We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell, taking your calls on money and life. 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and talk to Alexis. Hey, Alexis, what's up? Hey, how are y'all?

We're so good. How are you? I'm good so i had a question um about some random credit hit on my husband's credit so we were at a truck dealership about to finance him a truck um and i came back and basically declined it and said that there had been a lot of people were alexis you're breaking up speak directly on your phone there you go okay so the last we heard so you're about to finance a truck they declined it because of something on his credit report continue yes so basically he's never financed anything. He's never had a credit card, anything. We never got a phone call, a letter in the mail, an email, nothing about $600 he owes.

That's on his credit. So I was curious, like, could that be? Could it be what now? Could it be a scam? Not a scam, but it could be fraud. Either it's inaccurate and it's just a clerical error, or there was some fraud where someone used his name, his social security number, what have you, to create a credit account and racked up $600 and never paid it. But here's, and Alexis, I haven't tried to finance anything other than a house for ages.

And so I may be off here, but I remember coming out of college. One of my roommates, we all shared a house, was supposed to make the final payments on like a phone bill or on a cable bill or something. And that ended up on my credit. And it kept it kept, it kept getting brought up for years, but here's the catch. Or maybe it was like, uh,

we had a cable box. Remember those back in the day or some, we didn't return the cable box and the cord. So they build us for whatever. So it could be any number of things, but here's the bigger issue. Um, it never prohibited me from being stupid with money and getting a credit card

or buying a financing a car this there's something else going on for 600 bucks okay have y'all pulled your credit report on your own and looked at it uh we have not okay um we were kind of just... Well, your first step is to get actual reports. So you can go to annualcreditreport.com, and you can pull them for free from all three credit bureaus. So get all three, take a look at them, make sure there's no errors. If there are any errors, you need to contact the bureau and dispute the error. And say, hey, this is fake, whatever it is.

Then you can place a fraud alert. You can freeze your credit. I've frozen all of mine because I've had identity theft happen to me where it was a similar situation. I pulled in. I went, what are these charges? And I got a debt collector calling me for debts I don't owe. And so there was actual fraud in that situation. I mean, you said I could borrow that money, George.

It was $1,700, John. Yeah, you didn't say I had to pay it back. So that's one thing i would do is just get all the reports then contact them if there's any errors but also figure out what company this is get in touch with them and see if he ever had an account with them like john said it could have been legit and it's just something he didn't realize existed but honestly my favorite thing about this is i think this was the lord saying, don't finance a giant truck. Yeah. I'm going to make a way for this not to happen. It's kind of like you call the marriage show and you're like, all right, so I was trying to cheat on my husband and the restaurant wouldn't

let me pay for the food. Like don't finance a car. Alexis, it's the Ramsey show. We're never going to tell you to finance a truck or a car. Go spend 5 five thousand bucks of your own money and buy a piece of junk your husband will live i promise george and i are both still living and breathing and our wives still love us and we're only recently buying cars that can go more than 20 miles at a time and even george's i have had to push it before that is a legitimate story for another day that's right let's go out to greenville, South Carolina, and talk to Laura. Hey, Laura, what's up? Hey, how you doing today?

We are rocking on to the break of dawn. Laura, what's up? Awesome. I'm glad to hear that. Well, I'm calling. I'm 25 years old. I live in Greenville, South Carolina. And about last year, I got into a really bad wreck, was in the hospital for a few days long story short I'm finally getting some settlement money and I just want to be financially

responsible with that amount of money that I'm receiving and so just trying to figure out what I should invest in what should I do Laura we are cheering you on. Thank you. You got hurt bad and you came back from it, didn't you? I did. I sure did. How are you today? Are you back to a hundred percent? Yes. I'm great. Doing well. Working full time? Part time. Okay. Yeah. Are you in school? Mm-hmm. No, I graduated a few few years ago what are you doing for work college so i work uh part-time as a server and then i have a small business on the side is it a hobby or is it a business uh it's a business i've been in business for about four years now how much do you make on that business?

I would say, depending on the year, anywhere between $20,000 to $30,000. It's a small e-commerce business. Okay. Well, tell us about your financial situation. How much is the settlement, and how much debt do you have? So right now, the settlement is $20,700. Okay. so right now the settlement is twenty thousand seven hundred dollars okay and i'm fourteen thousand two hundred dollars in debt which is a car loan um and that's the only debt that i have good i just finished paying my medical debt this morning so that's a plus wonderful okay so you're going to pay off this car loan immediately which is going to leave you with six grand, and we're going to call that part of your three to six month emergency fund.

So you will not be doing any investing with this money, but what it will do is set you up with this incredible financial foundation so that, number one, you never go into debt again, and number two, you can start building for the future instead of paying for the past. Correct, and that's exactly what I want to do. So with your future income, you get the settlement money, pay off the car loan immediately, put the rest in a high yield savings account, and then begin to add to it until you have three to six months of expenses. That might be 10 grand for you, 15 grand. My next question is my bank is offering a high yield savings account with 4.67%. I'll tell you right now, you can do better. Now, the point of a savings account is not to make a bunch of money. The point is to keep it safe and keep it liquid. For my YouTube channel, we partnered with a great online bank called Laurel Road,

and right now their rates are 5.15%. So if you go to laurelroad.com slash George, you can sign up for an account there. Great they're simple they're not going to sell you a bunch of crappy products and they'll take care of you but the high yield savings account is the place to store it but again don't even worry about the interest rate because that's going to fluctuate it may go down as time goes on the point is that you stack up this money and you don't touch it unless it's a true emergency and here laura i want you to hear what george is saying because it's important all right this money is not to make you rich you're gonna have people in your life they're like you got twenty thousand dollars you're gonna have tiktok knuckleheads instagram knuckleheads all telling you you should be passive income and this money, this $6,000, is going to protect you when you get a flat tire.

And you don't have to go backwards. When your electric bill ends up being $150 more this summer than you were expecting. And it will be annoying. You won't have to go put money on a credit card that you don't have. Right. And you called. Can I challenge you on something? Sure, go ahead.

I think you're worth more than $30,000 a year. I believe that too. I think it's time to have a hard conversation with somebody in your local area about your e-commerce business and maybe that stays on the side. But I sure would love, the world needs you because you're smart and you're thoughtful and you all have overcome that you you're obviously got grit the world needs you out there serving your your community and whatever that looks like right as a salesperson as like working in a restaurant whatever it is but man let's be done

with this part-time server gig let's go get what if you're making 60 70 grand plus the 30 from your side business now we can really build some wealth and accomplish some goals that would be outstanding i would love to see you earn a 50 60 grand by this time next year plus keeping your 30 000 side hustle and now you're going to not only have $20,000, you're going to change your family tree. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend George Campbell. Let's roll out to, actually, you're on the camera. So we have a call coming in, i was like i don't know the answer to this question phone a friend no a guy who does we phoned a friend and if you are uh too young for that reference um google that phone a friend yeah and uh that's who wants to be a millionaire wasn't it yes okay you're showing your friend kid coleman's great show thank you guys i'm happy to be here i was at my desk taking care of very menial tasks, and I got the bat phone signal from James, the fearless leader,

and he said, can you join us? I said, you don't have to ask me twice to hang out with George and Dr. John. This is as close as I get to being on SportsCenter, so thank you, Ken. It feels really good to be amongst you. All right, let's go out to Louisville, Kentucky, and talk to Aaron. What's up, Aaron? Oh, not much. How are y'all doing?

We are doing great. How about you, brother? I'm doing all right. Doing all right. All right, so what's up, man? So I'm 21 years old. I am 12-6 in debt with credit cards, a personal loan, and a car payment. And I work a full-time job,

well, more than a full-time job, about 65 to 70 hours a week most weeks. Pay is really irregular, so it just depends on when the job gets done, what I get paid, percentage of that, anyway. But I'm trying to figure out a way with my schedule how I can find ways to bring in more money. Because right now, my prediction for being out of debt is March of 26, and I don't like how far out that is. All right, let's start with what are you doing now at 65 to 70 hours a week? I do flooring for a living. So trades, I install like hardwoods, tiles, carpet, vinyl plank flooring. And I know your pay is intermittent, and I understand how that works. You get paid when the job gets done.

Do you have an idea of what you're making per hour? Do you have any kind of an equation there? Well, I'm estimated to make about $50,000 this year if everything goes well. Okay. Well, you're working way too many hours to be making $50,000 this year if everything goes well. Okay. Well, you're working way too many hours to be making $50,000 in a trade. What do you do in the floor? Are you actually laying it, measuring it? What's your role? Yes. I'm installing the flooring. Yeah. How many more trade jobs could you pick up? Forget how realistic it is in this moment, but what could you do? What other things are you qualified to do right now?

I mean, I've done framing a little bit in the past as far as building houses, a little bit of concrete work, but not too much. Okay. Well, the framing alone. So I had a guy on my show, guys, recently. He's got a big YouTube channel. He's a carpenter, and he teaches people how to do carpentry on YouTube. He's got a very, very large following.

I had him on my show to talk about a video that he put out that went viral, and it was that there is this huge need for carpenters right now. Like there's not enough carpenters. So the reason I bring this up, Aaron, is because you should be making, and I don't know what the market is in Louisville. You could probably tell me, is it anywhere between 30 to 40 an hour for a good carpenter? I don't know, honestly. I'm about an hour and something away from Louisville, technically. All right. Well, it doesn't matter. So here's my point. Right now, you're working 65 to 70 hours a week, and you're not bringing enough income.

I want George to jump in on that. I crunched the numbers, and I hate to break it to you. You're making about 13 to 15 an hour, which is the equivalent of someone working full-time 40 hours a week making 30 grand, 25 or 30 grand a year. That's not okay with your skill set. No. No. Yeah. That's not okay with your skill set. No, no. Because concrete work, carpentry work, you should be, and I could be wrong, but you should be in the $25 per hour on the low end. And so my point here is, Aaron, this is about you saying, I have more options than I think I have.

And the way you find those options is you've got to start talking to people all the time. When you're in the car on the way to this gig, you're calling people. When you're on your way home, you're calling people and you're letting everybody and anybody know. You've got friends who have a Facebook page, or if you've got a Facebook, you're saying, listen, I can do work. And pretty soon we've got to replace the 65 to 70 hours that you're working for way below market value, as George is pointing out. And Aaron, I got a guy, he's 21 and he's a handyman now and he quit everything else he was doing and he charges 50 to 90 bucks per hour and he's fully booked because you can't find reliable handymen who do good work these days. Exactly right. So you could do that in

your neighborhood and double your income tomorrow. Here's an option i had at my um at my last job i mean in my last state where i lived back in texas a guy would just put stuff up at church and he was a handyman like that and he would say i will be at your house november 1st i will work until all the jobs you need are done and it would be everything from move a plug hang a a fan, fix this flooring. I need you to put carpet in the back. It was everything. And he could do it all. And he would stay at your house for 10 days, 11 days.

And he would charge you 50 to 90 bucks an hour. And then he'd move on to the next gig. But you see what we're saying, Aaron? So you're hearing this. We're telling you you're worth more than you're getting paid right now. And there's probably a ton of opportunity, with, of course, some downside, but a ton of opportunity if you go out on your own. What are you feeling as we're telling you all this stuff?

Trying to think of ways I can pull some side jobs. We're telling you, you need to replace your full-time core income. You've got to replace your big kid job. The solution is not more side jobs and more hours. It's less hours doing work that pays more. Dude, go work 60 hours a week at McDonald's because they're paying $20 an hour. Yeah, I couldn't handle doing fast food. I know.

You're breaking your elbows and your knees and your neck and your back. John, I feel something on Aaron. I don't know if you're feeling the same thing good i just aaron i just don't think that you think that you can go get this work i think you think the best thing you got going for you right now uh or maybe you feel limited by something else in your life right now to where you go i feel stuck in this flooring job is that right i don't mind being wrong no It's a great job. Out of all the things I've done, it's the one I enjoy doing the

most. Yeah, but it sucks. Getting the pay for the hours is the hard part. That's it. But Aaron, the job sucks. You're making $13 an hour. That's not a good job. You like the work. That's awesome. Yeah. But there is somebody else that will pay you way more for

that work. I agree. Are you in a really small area where you feel your options are limited yeah way out in the country what's holding you to that area something what's stopping you from moving closer to the city your church yeah what does that mean your church yeah what's that mean? So my church is way out in the middle of the county. It's about an hour and some change from the city, and so I like being closer to my church for any kind of ministry. How often?

I participate in the ministry, so I like being there. Love that. Okay, real quick, because we only have a couple minutes. We've got to lock in on something. How many times a week are you at that church doing ministry besides going to church on Sundays? Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursday nights, jail ministry, and then Tuesday nights we have a young people's ministry. Okay, here's the thing. I'm a pastor's son, so if you don't like what I'm about to say, I don't know what else to tell you, but I'm a pastor's son and I live that life. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night visitation.

That was my whole stinking life. You can do that when you're no longer broke, but you can't do that right now. Now, you need to decide. And I don't know how you're doing all that working 65 to 70 hours a week. That's a recipe, Doc, for a breakdown, isn't it? Yeah, you're burning the candle at every end, aren't you, Aaron? Just about. It should not take you two years to pay off 12 grand that i work way too much well you've got too much going on period yeah and you're broke and you're broke i you've probably heard this before but if you fly on an airplane they tell you in the case of an emergency when the oxygen masks drop out,

as a parent, do not put your oxygen mask on your kid first. Put it on you first, so that you have air and you can take care of the people around you that you're obligated to take care of. Right now, you're trying to take care of your boss for some reason. You're trying to take care of your entire church community, which is honorable, the person being left out of this equation is you. And if you go back to scripture, Jesus was always pulling away. He was tired. He said, I don't even know where to lay my head. He was always pulling away to spend some time. Right? Aaron, I think you need to drive a little further to go to church, be a little closer to some great work opportunities where you're making close to double what you're making right now.

At least. You have a great skill set, my friend. And George, 12.6, he could pay that off in a fraction of the time. I want to see that gone in six months, not two years. You know what I love, guys? I love trades guys, tradesmen and women who love it. He loves this. I love that.

He just got to find somebody who'll pay him what it's worth yeah hey this is the ramsay show we'll be right back what up what up what up this is john with the ramsay show i'm joined by george camel and we've got a couple of work questions that have come in, career questions, questions about purpose and what in the world am I doing? So we phoned a friend and we went over to where our offices are and we asked the great and mighty Ken Coleman if he would join us and he has joined us. And so we're going to roll out and take another question about work with our brother Justin here down the street in Nashville, Tennessee. What up, Justin?

Hello, hello. How are you today? Outstanding, brother. What's up? Awesome. Well, I tell you what, I just kind of wanted to tell you a little about myself. So I'm 38 from right here in Nashville. I was employed with a company that did online marketing and SEO for eight and a half years is the kind of time I spent with them. But I was recently let go or fired this Wednesday. Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah. And I have a four-year degree in communications, bachelor's. I have $21,000 set aside in savings for a little rainy fun. I also have a mutual fund with Fidelity Investments, but it's only worth about $4,000. I'm single without kids. I'm debt-free. And currently I have no health insurance, so that sucks. But I need to bounce back and would like to earn a living soon at a job where, you know,

I have the potential to work my way up and earn at least 100K a year. I know that sounds like a dream right now, but, you know, I was actually just kind of like some kind of entry level to, you know, work my way up the ladder in the tech field like that. And I know initially that's, you know, kind of unreal, but I would like the opportunity to climb the ladder. So, you know, the company I did just work for merged recently so that's not really a good sign but I was making about 42k a year and that's not a lot at all what were you doing in this SEO online marketing online marketing SEO

yeah and you did I hear you say you want to get on a path to technology? Yes, yes, that would be nice. What specifically? Well, I tell you, you know, it's funny. I've been thinking about it here recently, and, you know, there's a company named Oracle that's kind of like headquartered here now in Nashville. I know everybody wants to start.

Small little startup. There's this little body of land. They call it America. It's like Oracle's got 100,000 employees or something like that. Yeah, they're moving their headquarters to Nashville. But specifically, are you thinking about programming, cyber security?

What interests you? Well, I tell you, you know, what I was just doing with search engine optimization is interesting to me, but also, you know, I would like to, you know, learn programming as well, and, you know, whatever I could do to, how do I put this, I guess, have a steady income there, be useful to the organization, and have an ability to work my way up. But I want to know just, you know, currently speaking, in my current condition, kind of what you would really recommend here. Okay, so I would think of the short-term first, because getting qualified to do that kind of

technical work, I've got an answer for you there, And I think we've got a great resource for you, but let's look at short term. What I would tell you, and I know George and John will agree here, is we would like you to not have to dip into that $21,000 emergency fund because you're single. And so we don't have a wife or kids that are relying on you. That makes us a little easier. And so I also am a guy that believes in bouncing back pretty quickly and just bringing income in the door right now. I would recommend that because it keeps you from sitting around the house kind of going, this is what happened to me. And what am I going to do next? And we're going to give you some steps on that, but short term, John, I hope that's not bad advice. i'd like to see him just get anything even

if it's uber or it's jumping in at a walmart 20 bucks an hour exactly to stay active and also quite frankly let's not dip into that 21 000 unless we absolutely have to so justin that's that's the first thing there's often a a rumor if, if you will. It just kind of makes its way into the mythology, Ken. But if you just go get another regular old job, that somehow that will hurt your ability to get a job down the road. Like a job's beneath you. Or why did you have to go throw boxes at Walmart? Or why did you go do X, Y, and Z?

And I need you to know know as a guy who's hired a bunch of people that would put you at the top of my list because you would be a guy that i know would push through a lot of stuff who would go get the job done who wasn't scared of hard work no job was beneath you like you see i'm saying it would send a message to me about your character and who you actually are um were you laid off as a result of the merger, or was this fired for discipline or anything else? Because John brings up a good point about what our narrative is going to be as we move forward.

What happened? Okay, well, determination, what I wanted to know is, is it really killing my chances moving ahead? But, you know, I've got to tell you, so it was basically related to, well, this is a message and they told me, they told me I'm not fitting in with how everybody else is fitting in at the moment and the merger. And, you know, maybe it has something to do with a performance deal or something, but

that was never communicated to me prior to the... All right, so let me jump in here. All right. To John's point, you tell everybody else what they told you, and that is we have a merger, and you were laid off because there were just too many things, too many jobs. You didn't fit into that new plan. Big deal.

To John's point, nobody cares because the answer is it was a corporate layoff. I was a victim of a corporate merger. In fact, I'd say something just like that because nobody even wants to dig into that. It's kind of one of those things. They're just like, oh, okay. A corporate merger. You got laid off.

You're a victim. My company got bought. This happens every day. That's right. And Justin, you are massively underpaid. I just looked up and even here at Ramsey Solutions, we're hiring for a digital marketing specialist and the range is from 56 to 83. And even outside of there in Nashville, 50 to 60 is what I'm seeing for the range for an entry-level digital marketing specialist.

So you've got eight years of experience. You're clearly good at what you do. I would go, like Ken said, do the side jobs for now until you can find a full-time SEO spot and then get the tech skills and eventually move into that realm. So, Justin, we're going to recommend that you call Bethel Tech. All right? You got something to write with? Yes. Bethel Tech. BethelTech.net. Now let me just tell you one testimony. Okay. First of all, I'll give you a reference and then a testimony. So Ramsey Solutions hires Bethel Tech to train people in our organization to move from non-tech jobs into tech jobs. So that's about as strong of an endorsement as you can get from the big man himself, Dave Ramsey,

who doesn't cut checks lightly. Now a real story, okay? We had a guy that we found out about that was listening to my show. He was a school teacher, making about $46,000 a year. He took Bethel Tech's program. Justin, it's a nine-month program. It's less than 15 grand for Ramsey Show and Ken Coleman listeners, anybody associated with our network, okay? Nine-month online program. He got placed in a job because they do job placement as well,

and he was placed before he finished the nine-month program making $74,000 a year, and we just got an update that he's in line for a promotion two months from now where he'll make over six figures. And this is in programming. They also do cybersecurity, UX, UI, the whole nine yards. So I want you to at least call them and say, I talked to Ken and John and George on the Ramsey Show, and they sent me to you guys. Kick the tires. They'll tell you everything. And you can actually afford that because you got the money set aside and I'd rather you spend the money investing in yourself than living off that money.

George? I'm with that. And I think he's, even for now, he needs to be getting paid more. And then the long-term trajectory of your career, jumping into tech, you're going to go to six figures and higher very quickly. All right, Justin, I'm going to leave you with one thing, okay? Okay. You gave your heart and soul to this company for almost a decade,

and they just looked at you and cut you, didn't they? Yes. That hurts, doesn't it? Yes, it does. All right. Don't blow by that, okay? Okay. Grief is right.

I hate they did that to you. You gave everything you had, and they lied to you on the way out the door. If it was a performance issue, they didn't tell you the truth. They were cowards about it. If you've had issues fitting in over the last few years, they were cowards about it.

Nobody sat you down and loved you enough to be honest with you, and they just cut you loose, and you've been working hard for them, haven't you? Yes. All right, here's the temptation. The temptation is to go into the next job and only go halfway.

Do not do that. You're not that kind of person. You're a person of character and integrity. If you have an old colleague that you could call and say, hey, what really happened? Will you be honest with me? Maybe you've got that. But I want you to sit and be sad about it, and then we're going to go get a job tomorrow, and we're going to head north.

I'm proud of you, my brother. Hey, that's it for this hour of The Ramsey Show. We'll be back soon. Don't go away. Take care.