The Ramsey Show - App - Debt-free, Cancer-free and Giving Like No One Else (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 25, 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We appreciate you being here.

This is God's and Grandma's ways of handling money. 888-825-5225. Juan is with us in Orlando. Hey, Juan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So I invested $80,000 in a stock, and now it's down to $10,000. Good Lord. Should I take it out? Yeah, I know. I'm in my own recession. Should I take it out and take it as a loss or keep the stock and hope for the best? Well, I mean, we don't make the decision based on how bad a bloodbath we've already taken.

We asked, what will the $10,000 do going forward? Do you think it's going to come back to $80? Do you have any reason to believe that? Yeah, I think it's going to go up because it went down to 60 cents and it went up to a dollar and 30 cents but i got in at three dollars so my question is if you had ten thousand dollars in your hand today would you invest it into this stock thinking it was going to go up? Honestly, if I were to, no.

Why? If I take it out, if I take out the money, I think I would just use it as a cushion. No, you're misunderstanding me. You're misunderstanding me. The way you make the decision is, what do you think the future is, not how bad the past hurts. The past hurts really don't make the decision. I mean, if you think the future is, hey, I feel good about this. I think the thing's coming back to $80.

I think it's going back to $3. And $3 down to $1 is not $80 down to $10. Wait a minute. That math doesn't work. I believe it's going to go up by the grace of God. Wait a minute, that math doesn't work. I believe it's going to go up by the grace of God. I believe so. Well, God's grace

covers a lot of stuff. Usually stock price isn't on the list. I mean, that's just you're praying that it's going to go up. Yeah, I don't blame you, man. You took a bath. Okay, so wait a minute. It would have had to go down 90%. You would have had to go from $3 to $0.30 for it to go from $80 to $10.

It was like $3 and change, and then it went down to $0.60, and now it's at $0.93. Oh, okay. change and then it went down to 60 cents and now it's at 93 cents oh okay so it's one it should be one third it should be one third of what it was then yeah so it shouldn't be 80 down to 10 it would be 80 down to about 25 wow what's your stock do you think it's worth $25? I mean, at $0.93, what's it worth, $10,000? It's a little bit over $10,000. It's at like $11,000. Okay. Then some of your other numbers are broken. Do you see what I'm doing?

Yeah. Okay. If $3 turns into $1, that's a 67% loss. That is not a 90% loss. And so it would go from 80 to 25. It wouldn't go from 80 to 10. So something on your numbers is wrong. But you can go back and visit that. The way you answer your question of whether to stay in it is,

do you think the 10 is going to go back up quickly? Like, by Christmas, where do you think this is going to be? It's been a year and four months. By Christmas, where do you think this is going to be? It's been a year and four months. By Christmas, where do you think this is going to be? I'm really not sure. I'm hoping for the best. That's not a good answer.

Hoping that you'll turn your $10,000 into $1,000. So you need to have a good case in your mind that says $10,000 is going to go to 30 or to whatever by Christmas. Or I just think this thing's a squirrel, and I don't know whether it's going to run up the tree or down the tree. And so in that case, you get out. And you take your lick. And you never do this crap again.

Never again. Yeah. And the thing is that if I were to leave it, I have leverage in other areas. Like I have a company that I just started called Bless Thyself, and I have inventory and I created my own job. I sell air fresheners. So I have money. I can make money that can pay my bills. You can do that anyway. You don't need the that can pay my bills. You can do that anyway.

You don't need the money to pay your bills. But the question is, what's the best use of this $10,000? Is it going to come back up, or we don't know what it's going to do? It's just a squirrel. And so if you think it's just a squirrel, then get out of the nut business, man. I mean, you're getting killed. You know? So, but if you have some knowledge of this company that caused you to be in there in the first place, that says that this thing should go up, it's ridiculous that it's this low, and you want to have a little patience with it, I'm not going to kill you for that.

I will kill you if you ever do this again. Oh, bless your heart. That hurts so bad. I'm sorry. Melissa's with do this again. Oh, bless your heart. That hurts so bad. I'm sorry. Melissa's with us in Chicago. Hi, Melissa. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Ramsey.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? My question is, I have $70,000 in student loans, but my income is $47,000. What do you do? I'm a licensed practical nurse. Okay, good. Practical nurse.

Is that LPN? Some states call it LVN. Other states call it LPN. Okay. All right. I got you. All right. Okay.

So you're working 40 hours. Yes. How many kids you got? Two. What age? 10. How many kids you got? Two. What age? 10 and 11. Are you single? I am now.

Okay, all right. Who watches them? I'm usually home by the time they get home. Okay, that's good news. Do you have family in the area? Yes, I do. Okay. Well, here's the thing.

I do quick math. I say, okay okay what's the size of my shuffle forty seven thousand dollars is my shuffle what's the size of my hole seventy thousand dollars is my hole you follow me yeah and so i start going okay if this lady lives on beans and rice and her kids do too and we put $27,000 to live on and $20,000 on the debt. It takes four years. That's a long time. To eat nothing. I mean, really, you're going to have no life at that. I'm not even sure you could do that in Chicago on $27,000.

But I'm just pretending for a second. So I'm kind of going, okay, but if she does $10,000 a year, that's seven years. You see what I'm doing? So what that starts telling me is you need to get your income up that's why i was asking about your other stuff the great news is you're in a great field that you can always pick up extra work the bad news is that's going to be time away from the kids but if you but that's the only bit i have yeah I own my house. I know, but you need to get rid of it. It's killing you. Yes.

And so if you work some swing shifts or something on the weekends and, you know, work a couple twelves in the ER and add some extra work, and you pick up an extra $20,000, $25,000 a year and you threw it all at this, you'd be done with this in a couple of years. But you're going to give up a couple of weekends a month and mama's going to watch your babies on it. Grandma's going to watch your babies or something. You know, that's what I'm saying. Something like that's happening here. And it's a temporary thing. And then you're done with this forever.

But that student loan, it'll hang around like a disease. It won't go away until you kill it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low

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confident you'll love Pure Talk USA that we invite you to try our service risk-free. Visit puretalkusa.com or call 844-862-3677. Enter promo code SAVEDAVE and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Sandra is with us in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Sandra.

How are you? I'm so good. Thank you, Dave, for taking my call. A fellow volunteer fan to another. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So I want to tell you my profile really quick,

and then I'm going to ask my question. Is that okay? Sure. Okay. So my husband and I, we got married in 2012. We have no debt aside from houses. We have our emergency fund. I'm a nurse practitioner.

I've been off the last three years caring for our three-year-old daughter. And my husband's a medical sales, so he has a base salary, and then he gets, you know, sporadically gets huge commissions. Okay, so instead of buying our first house and, like, getting the biggest, baddest house we could get, we sacrificed and worked so hard, and we have essentially bought four houses in the last, like, three or four years before the prices went super high here in Seattle. So our rentals are all positive.

They take care of themselves. They pay for property taxes, everything. We are now, my husband calculated, we are now positive 700K on all the properties just, you know, since we bought them. My husband's 401K is at 320,000. Mine, because for a little while, my job didn't have a 401K. And then I rolled over everything to Roth and IRAs, and I have a 100k in mine. I'm starting to work again, like maybe grossing $4,000. I'm an independent contractor now, grossing like $4,000 a month. Now that my daughter is a little older, we have another one on the way in November. And what's your question? I'm curious. My question is, this money that I'm

making and also my husband's commissions that come in from now on, should we start really being aggressive and paying off these rentals? Or should I like do something with my retirement? Or should we save for my daughter's college? Okay. We teach you at this stage of the game you're at baby steps four five and six okay real estate is baby step six paying off your house or houses in this case rental houses all right baby step four is you should be putting 15 of your household income into retirement once you're doing that then baby step five is you address your kids college and you look at and say what do we need to be saving here so that we're being responsible? You don't have to completely fund it, but you've got to get something started that makes sense.

Once you're doing that, then I would begin to pay off real estate with any other money I can find in our household budget. But it's not your money or his money. It's our money in a pile accomplishing these three goals, 15% into retirement, kids' college, and everything else that starts going on these mortgages. Now, you own a home now, right? Yes, we do. And what is your mortgage balance on your home? I wrote down $413,000. And what's the mortgage balance on the smallest rental balance?

It's $170,000 rental balance. The 170. Okay. All right. So you can decide which of these you want to attack first. If they're close in balance, I always say pay off your home first and then pay off your rentals as a risk management tool. But that's pretty substantial. You may want to knock off that little rental, and then you may want to knock off another one. Then you may want to swing over and knock off your house and knock off the other but how much total mortgage debt do you have

between all of it calculated it um it's about um it's a million on the rentals okay so it's a million four all right and your household income is what um with you working and everything now yeah so it would be like i mean i'm not counting the taxes I have to pay because that's kind of, I just now started, so I don't know. So like for my husband, it's $4,400 on his base salary, but then it's always more than that with commissions. What do you think you two will make a year going forward starting now? Maybe six plus, maybe $10,000 a month.

Okay, so $120,000 a year. Does that take home pay? No, I'm sorry. Mine's probably like $3,000 a month, so maybe like $7,000 to $8,000 a month. Okay, so $100,000 a year. Okay.

If you're making $100,000 a year and you have $1,000,004,000 a month. Okay. So $100,000 a year. Okay. Yeah. And if you're making $100,000 a year and you have a million foreign mortgage debt, that's a little bothersome. Okay. Because it's going to take a long time to get that paid off. I would be looking. I'd be picking out a couple of those rentals to sell and taking that equity and using it to clean up some of this mess. I don't want to make $100,000 a year and have a million foreign mortgage debt. That's scary.

That leaves you into a mess, and I don't want that for you. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more use the promo code ramsey sarah is in tennessee my husband and i are drowning in our bills and debt is piling up we want and have tried to do the financial peace method but our mortgage is way too much for us to keep up.

We bought the house only a year ago. It was definitely a mistake. We've been trying to sell it for almost six months. It won't sell. What do we do? Things keep getting worse and worse and worse, and I don't know how to make this stop. I'm sorry. I know you're scared.

Well, you know, the only shot you've got is to make a detailed budget and do everything you can to get your income up until the house gets sold. But you've got to make every dollar behave. And sometimes when you get in a bunch of stress, a bunch of drama, you throw up your hands and you make it worse by being very impulsive and drama queen. I do that. And so, instead, what you have to do is you have to get very, very, very serious. Like this is life or death. We have to get very serious. We're not going out to eat. We're working extra.

We're selling everything in sight. We have a written budget. You can jump on every dollar. It's free to use. Use your every dollar budget. It'll change the way you do it. And it takes about 10 minutes. And you do it and it you know takes about 10 minutes and you can stay up with where the money's going and um that's the whole thing

so you jump in and uh uh jump on this and and if you'll fine-tune that budget and you'll cut your lifestyle down to nothing and you'll work extra and you'll sell stuff you'll be able to hold on to get the household then until you get the house sold. And then when you get the house sold, this thing turns right side up, and you'll be able to breathe again. And that's what you've got to do. Every dollar is changing the way people do budgets. Now, 6 million people are using our budgeting app.

It is the world's best budgeting app. And you can get it for your phone, regardless of what kind of phone you've got. It is free because we want everyone to be able to get control of your money. But if you didn't know, there's a thing called EveryDollarPlus that's $99 a year. And what that allows you to do is connect to your bank, and then every time you use your debit card, boom, it shows up, and you can slide it and allocate it to a category drag and drop makes it real easy to keep your budget going and so lots of people are loving this upgrade feature now the

reason we charge for it's real simple the service that we use to connect to the banks charges us and so that it's that that's what this is i don't know know why Ramsey. Well, that's why. That's it. And it's worth every penny of it. So if you're an EveryDollar user and you're ready to upgrade, check out EveryDollar.com today at $99. And there's all kinds of goodies that come with that. So it's not just the bank connection, something you want to learn to do and be right on top of. It's a big deal.

Folks, no one accidentally gets somewhere no one wins and says how did that happen i don't know i'm so random they know exactly how it happened they work their tail end off that's exactly how it happened they were very intentional you cannot wander along and then suddenly wake up successful at something it is a very detailed focused intensity concentrating on what you're doing making every moment count towards your goal intentionality perseverance these are character qualities of people that win at life and their choices. You can choose to do it starting today. Ready, set, go. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Cindy is with us. Hi, Cindy.

How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm so excited to be here. Well, it's an honor to have you with us. Where do you live? I'm living in Birmingham, but I'm so excited to be here. Well, it's an honor to have you with us. Where do you live? I'm living in Birmingham, but I'm originally from Tennessee, so go Vols. There you go. Well, welcome to Nashville.

And so several hours north here to Nashville and doing your debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? I paid off around $31,000. Very good. And how long did that take? It took me right at 22 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? During that time, I was making $50,000 to $55,000.

Okay, very good. And what do you do for a living? I'm actually a financial analyst. Oh, very cool. How old are you? 28. All right. And so 22 months ago, $31,000. What kind of debt was the $31,000? It was just the typical student loans, my car, credit cards, and then, of course, my phone. What was most of it? My car. Your car. How much was it? Probably about $18,000. Over half of it. Okay, good. Cool. So what happened 22 months ago? You're a couple years out of school at that point.

Yep. My church had a financial conference, and we went to the conference, and I didn't really think I needed it. I thought I was pretty in control of everything. I've always been frugal, never really a frivolous spender. And I went to this conference, and I was like, oh, I think I'm normal. And my eyes were open. I had no control of my finances. I didn't know where my money was going. So I'd look at my bank account and go, oh, I have $5 left. I guess I'm eating ramen tonight. So I just had no plan. I wasn't preparing for my future or anything. And so I remember you actually, I heard you in college, you came and spoke at Tennessee. So I was vaguely familiar with the baby steps, and I had a copy of the Total Money Makeover at home. So I went home, I read it, started listening to the podcast, and I was on board after that. Okay, very cool.

I think I remember Chris Hodges' church having a conference about that time. Was that your church? That's my church. Yeah, he's a great pastor. He's a good friend. He's got a new book out that's wonderful. Yeah, that's good. I think Rachel spoke at at that if i remember i think she came down went down or maybe she did

a service right after that yeah so we love those guys they're great it's a great church yes very cool well congratulations thank you so now that you've done it you did the total money makeover you got some information from your church at that conference and um 22 months later you're free what's the secret to getting out of debt uh i for me it was just um remembering your why staying focused on that um and just keep you know you put a lot of discipline into this it's a lot of hard work and it just makes it so much harder when you don't know why. And for me, what's your why? Well, my why was, you know, I really want to be a blessing to other people. About nine months into my journey, I went in for a routine eye exam and the optometrist found a mass on my eye.

Whoa. So I went in to see specialists and testing and all of that. And I was diagnosed with a uveal melanoma, which is a rare form of cancer. So I remember last year, my mom and I flew up to Philadelphia for an appointment. There's a doctor up there that specializes in this rare cancer. And we went up for an appointment and we got there and the doctor said, you know, we need to have surgery now. And so there, there's a lot of stuff going through my head at that moment, but I'm just kind of thinking, how am I going to pay for all of this? How am I going to pay to stay in Philadelphia? You know, I had already booked a flight home. I got to book another flight. Um, I have a thousand dollars in my savings account. What's going to happen? And I just really felt defeated in that moment of, you know, I've

worked so hard, so long, and I'm just in this pile of medical debt now. And we went through with the surgery and about day two of recovery, I opened up my Facebook account and someone had started a GoFundMe for me. So my friend had recruited people to donate to help pay for the hospital and the medical expenses and all of that. And last year I was just like really holding on to Psalms 46.5. It says, God is within her. She will not fall. And it's just having that faith and trusting and knowing that God's going to provide. I went home after the recovery, after the surgery, and the next few months, you know, you keep getting these medical bills in the mail. And I feel like after every medical bill I got, there was a card or a note from, you know, friends, families, and sometimes even complete strangers. And they said, you said, we're thinking about you, we're praying for you,

and there's a check-in closed. So it was every step of the way, taking this step of faith and trusting God that He's going to provide and just getting that far. So I'm never going to forget what those people did for me and how God used them in my time and my struggles and how it has affected my life. And so, and that's my biggest why God wants us to bless others and to give to others, give like no one else.

And we can't do that if we're not being better stewards of what he's given us this far. You can't do it when you're broke. Yeah, right. So, so how are you doing now? How's the health? You know, I'm, I'm cancer free. I'm really free. Yay! I'm really, really happy.

That's very cool. Yes. Very cool. So when did you get that final diagnosis? A few months ago. You got cleared just a few months back. Wow. Good for you. Yes.

Thank you. Very cool. Very cool. Man, you've been through it. Yes, I have. I am so excited. You know, last year was tough, but debt-free, cancer-free, I mean, it's uphill. Yeah, everything's easy now.

Or downhill, I guess. Downhill, whatever. It's whatever the hill is, but you did it. Wow. Yes. Look at you. Thank you. Congratulations.

So who were your biggest cheerleaders? So I went through Financial Peace University after that conference. And my leader at the time, Kenneth Leonard, since then, him and I have actually led three groups together. Oh, wow. Thank you. Yeah. So he's always been a big advocate, a huge supporter, encouragement. And then I have to give a shout out to my work family.

They've had my back every step of the way they tease me anytime i want to purchase something they go what would dave say about this or what would dave do so you became a filter in decision making i've been called worse well congratulations thank you very proud of you. Thank you. Well done. Very well done. What a great story. I'm sorry you've been through all that, but I'm glad you're on this side of all of it. You know, it was tough, but it's awesome. You learn the lessons.

Amen. God always provides. Amen. Yep. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. You're going to be one, and that's the next chapter in your story, and that's going to put you in a position that, you know, there'll be all kinds of cards that you write with checks in them outrageous generosity for the rest of your life looking forward to that you won't you won't be able to stop yourself i'm so proud of you well done cindy in birmingham alabama 31 000

paid off in 22 months she's debt free and cancer and cancer-free, making $30 to $55. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! I'm debt-free! Love it! Love it, love it, love it!

Very well done. Oh, man, that is awesome. That falls under the heading of just in case you thought you had an uphill climb today. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and knock out the debt while I'm knocking out cancer. Just a little thing. And we're an eye patch part of the time. Oh, my gosh those of you on youtube are watching the pictures come up of her in and around her time of her surgery hey i know

it's hard but you're going to pay a price you're either going to pay the price of living a mediocre life or you're going to pay the price that it takes to be a champion and to win I would rather get it out of the way you're going to pay a price choose

intentionally which price you want to pay. Don't give up. Don't be a victim. Be a Viking. Be a victor. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. our scripture of the day psalm 55 22 cast your cares on the lord and he will sustain you he will never let the righteous fall.

Mark Twain said, courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear. Andrea is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Andrea. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking the call. I have been following, I was lucky enough or blessed enough to take Financial Peace University about two years ago through my church. Since then, I've paid off about 80 grand in debt. I am on my last $10,000. So single parent is very excited about this. So here's my question. A part of my

compensation, I received restricted stock units. And I so far have about 16 grand that's fully vested. And in May, I'll get about another 19 grand fully vested. Should I cash out this money and apply this towards my Baby Step 2, the $10,000 that I have left, and then the remaining amount put for Baby Step 3? And then my second question is, the remaining amount that will be, that will vest over the next 18 months, do I leave it in that stock account or do I cash that out as well? Okay. Do you remember what we taught you in Financial Peace University?

Yes. Okay. What did we teach you? What did we teach you? And when you're in baby step two, what do you do with all non-retirement investments? You pay everything off. You cash them out and pay it on the debt. Okay.

That's what we taught you, right? Yeah. Is this any different? Well, I've kind of, like I said, I paid off a lot and I've been doing that. I've had a second job and I've just been bare minimum, right? I've been paying off a lot.

So how much debt do you have left? About $10,000. Okay, so you're debt-free today. Cash out the stock and pay it off. That feels pretty good. Okay. And then cash out the rest of it and let's get your emergency fund in place. It is more important for you to be debt-free and have that emergency fund in place than it is for you to own this stock.

Okay. Why? Why? Because when you're debt-free and you have your emergency fund in place, then you're in a position to build wealth. Okay. Okay. And you've been working your butt off, kid. I mean, you really have killed it.

$80,000. Way to go. You're going to do great. I mean, you are on your way. By the time you cash both these out and then this next one, you're in baby step four, and you're moving right along. Right? Okay. Do you own a home?

Yeah. Well, I don't own it yet. I'm still paying the bank off. I know, but I mean, you have a home with a mortgage, right? Yes. Okay. And what's the balance on that? It's around $213,000.

So any of this stock that comes to you, you know, when you're doing baby steps four, five, six, after you've gotten out of debt and you have your emergency fund, right, I'm going to start chunking it on this mortgage. Okay. I'm not going to have mortgage debt and be buying stock. I'm not going to have debt and be buying stock. I'm not going to not have an emergency fund and be buying stock. Does that sound familiar to you from FPU? Yeah, it does.

It was just that it was a part of my competition. It doesn't matter where it came from. It's there and it's available to you to hit your baby step goals. And that's what we do. We take all money that's available to us and we work them on the baby steps. Rebecca is with us in Chicago. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Well, thank you, Dave.

I am standing in awe of God's goodness, and I'm calling to thank you. Cool. For you and your team, for the hope that you gave us. I have two very weird kids. Very weird. They both received their bachelors, and one will be finishing his master's in July, totally debt-free, no student loan.

Way to go, Mom! Awesome! I can't breathe. I just stand in awe because they did this. Wow. Well, it sounds like you must have guided them in that direction. Yeah. We ended up what I called the ABCs of college.

A was apply, apply, apply. Apply to any college and every scholarship. Oh, I like that. We are going to see which college is going to give us the best scholarship package. And which one's going to give us the best deal. Ooh, ding, ding. I like it. Yeah, which is the deal.

Yeah. Compete them against each other. It's a financial decision. Yeah. It's a financial decision, not an emotional decision. Ooh, whee! I like it. Don't get your heart set on a college.

Okay, and what's B? Be the best student and person you can be. Oh. Both my kids got, my daughter competed for a scholarship, and she got a full tuition scholarship. Wow. And my son had a, got maybe 70% tuition scholarship, and then he worked his way up getting better grades every semester and ended up with a hundred percent tuition scholarship wow and what's the c now well that still means we have to pay room and board so c was commit to no debt um my kids were the best person and student and commit to no debt. A, B, C.

Yes. A, B, C. Love it. Yeah. My kids work two to three jobs all through school and pay for all the things they needed. And their degrees are in what? My daughter is media communications, and my son got a psychology degree, but he's finishing up his master's debt-free MBA. Wow, very good.

So a guy the other day, this famous guy, was pissed off at me, of course, and was making fun of me. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can go to college debt-free. If you just go to a state school and get a part-time job and build yourself a time machine and go back 40 years. Dave Ramsey's out of touch. It can't be done. And so my answer to him is a lady named Rebecca, who is a world-class supermom who's guided her kids through ABC in Chicago,

both of them 100% debt-free colleges. No time machine. Yeah, the tree was changed. Yeah, and you guys didn't write $100,000 checks either, did you? Oh, no, no. We sacrificed, and we had just gotten out of debt ourselves right before our daughter started college. So I think we had $2,000 saved for college. So it was sacrifice and all four of us working together to get all this paid off.

You're amazing. Very, very well done. Oh, God is good. I am so proud of you. Great job. Well, thank you. And thank you for the hope that, you know, it can be done. It can be done.

But you have to make sacrifices. You have to make good, wise choices and decisions. And you don't get everything. You may not have that huge college experience, but you're walking away debt-free, and the world is just open to you now. So I hear all these kids going, I have, you know, $20,000, $40,000, $100,000 in debt, and it just breaks my heart. So I'm just standing in awe that God allowed us to pull through this and get our ABCs done. I love it. Congratulations, Ms. Rebecca.

Well done. Well done. You know, we often say we don't have a student loan crisis in America today. We have a parenting crisis. Moms and dads that don't watch over the shoulder of their beautiful 18-year-old and say, no, don't do that. Don't go $200,000 in debt for a degree in left-handed puppetry. Don't do that. Don't do that.

Don't do that. Instead, go, hey, let's work the ABCs. Let me show you what we're doing. We're going to commit to no debt. That's the C. B, we're going to be the best person, the best student we can be. A, we're going to apply, apply, apply, apply to colleges and get them competing against each other and apply, apply, apply, apply for scholarships until we get so many of them that we go to college completely debt-free. What a great lady.

What a great story. Wow. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. It's not rocket science, and no, you don't need a time machine, you goob. We're not out of touch, darling. We actually know how to do math. Oh, I love it.

That puts us out of the Day Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 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.