The Ramsey Show - App - Debt Is Normal, But Normal Doesn't Work (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 9, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Scott starts us off in San Jose, California. What's up, Scott? Hey, how you doing?

Better than I deserve, man. How can I help? So, my wife and I have some savings, about $15,000 in savings, and I'm trying to figure out how to attack some of the debt that we have and how to prioritize what we need to flash out on our debt with those savings. Cool. All right. Well, what we teach, Scott, is, and what we've been so successful with, leading tens of millions of people out of debt, is this idea.

You can wander into debt. You can't wander out. Getting out of debt is not an intellectual exercise. It's an emotional event. You have to get so pissed off and so singular in your focus that all your broke friends think you've joined a cult. You follow me? Yes, sir.

If you're on that track, then you'll play through but you got to get so game on baby game on and you're not looking at anything but mr debt you are going down you are leaving my life and when you get that going and you and your wife are both on that same page then it's such a singular focus that cutting X or cutting Y out of the budget, going out to eat, you've got to be kidding. We're going on vacation, not a chance. We're getting out of debt. You know, you get this singular focus on the goal.

You follow me? Yes, sir. Now, if you're going to do that, and then you're on a written budget, then you're going to do what we call the baby steps. And if you're not going to do all that, the baby steps won't work for you. But the baby steps are, baby step one is your very first goal that you squeeze money out of your budget. And you've already done that. You've got $15,000.

You have $1,000 in the bank. A starter, beginner, emergency fund. That's if you were completely broke. You'd quickly get $1,000, right? You've already got $15,000, so I'll come back to that. Then baby step two is you list your debts, smallest to largest, regardless of the interest rate. You pay minimum payments on them, and you attack the little one with a vengeance. I mean, you sell so much stuff, the kids think they're next. The dog is on eBay and the cat's on Craigslist, right?

We are out of here, baby. We're going to get this mess cleaned up. There's a garage sale. Everything's being sold. We're going nuts. We're working extra jobs. We're going to knock this debt out with all that intensity I was talking about. If you do that, the average family is debt-free, everything but their house,

on our teachings with the way I'm talking about in less than two years. The average is. Some people do it in nine months. Some people do it in two months. So we're not talking about a long period of time here. We're not talking about a 10-year stretch while we lollygag along and try to intellectually figure out what causes debt. No, we're in pissed-off, knock-it-out mode, right? Now, how much debt have you got, not counting your house?

$31,000. Cool. And what's your household income? $97,000. Cool. And what's the debt on? $10,500 is my wife's student loans. About $6,500 is on one car, and about $14,500 is on another car.

So you're just kind of normal, and normal sucks. Yeah, I mean, I feel like living in the Bay Area in Silicon Valley, $97,000 is just peanuts. I mean, we have a mobile home, so half of our monthly house payment goes towards the space rent since you don't own the land, and half of it goes towards the mortgage. But it's either that or live in a one-bed with our with our toddler gotcha for a rough of the same price okay i'm not i'm not picking on that at all you're right you live in a high cost of living area no doubt about it and um

um you know you got a normal amount of debt but normal doesn't work so you want to clean the debt up that's why you called me so once you are are debt-free, everything but your house, then you go to baby step three, which is have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. So here's how this works in your case. We'd take the $15,000. We would leave $1,000 in that account. I would throw $14,000 at the $30,000 of debt. And I want to pay the other $16,000 worth, $17,000 worth of debt off, making $97,000

in about eight or nine months. Okay. No life. Completely beans and rice, rice and beans. And you get the debt gone. Now, you don't have any payments at the end of that equation except your mobile home and lot, right? Yes.

Can you save money then? Yes. You don't money then? Yes. Because you don't have any payments. No car payments, no student loan payments. Now you go back to that $1,000 account, and baby step three is we raise it back up for three to six months of expenses, which is probably 15 or more in your case. All right?

So we get the emergency fund put back. Then and only then do we start long-term investing for retirement, which, by the way, if you're currently putting in your case. All right? So we get the emergency fund put back then and only then do we start long-term investing for retirement, which, by the way, if you're currently putting in your 401K, I would temporarily stop during this time, all in the name of focus. So the reason I outlined all of that in detail for you is before I tell somebody to take $15,000 out of their checking account and put it on their debt, you're going to go gulp and so is your wife, but you've got to have a plan where you see that that's only for about eight months ten months something like that and then you're going to start putting it back very very

rapidly so this is not a long-term thing now again if you're going to take four years to get out of debt because you're going to screw around with it then don't do this debt because you're going to screw around with it, then don't do this. Okay. Because you're going to have more than a $1,000 emergency fund sometime, emergency sometime in that four years, and you're going to be up a creek. And so it's just a short term for you. You're going to be able to knock this out really, really fast. The book that outlines the baby steps and exactly what to do, why, and when, the baby steps on steroids is called The Total money makeover new york times best

selling book and you hold on i'll have kelly pick up and we will we will give you a copy and it will show you what to do thank you for listening sir i appreciate you calling in open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five uh dawn is on facebook what other books other than the ones you've written would you recommend for someone on your plan to read um i i would always have some non-fiction in your pile of books that you're reading if all you read is fiction your brain eventually rots i read a lot of fiction though uh but fiction is just makes airplanes fly faster for me that's you know and so i get If all you read is fiction, your brain eventually rots. I read a lot of fiction, though. But fiction just makes airplanes fly faster for me. So I get there quicker.

Or if I'm just, quote, relaxing, a beach book, that kind of thing. When I start reading nonfiction, a business book on leadership, a book on money, a book on investing, a book on personal development, a book on theology or marriage or parenting, my mind activates in a different place. A different hemisphere of your brain is activated than when you're reading fiction. And the weird stuff that will start happening to you is this. You're reading a book on parenting by Meg Meeker, which one of the best ones to come out this year is called Hero by Meg Meeker, about hero dads. It's an incredible book.

And you will have thoughts come into your brain about how to make more money. You weren't reading a book about making more money, but you're activating the same hemisphere in your brain that causes you to think that way. So when you read nonfiction, you are activating the hemisphere in your brain that causes self-improvement. It's different than reading fiction. Fiction is for relaxation. It's for entertainment. And you ought to do both. So my point is, it doesn't matter. You don't have to read a book on money to be activated about money. Just read stuff that matters in your life, and it'll activate. It'll cause you to win this is the dave ramsey show okay things are getting pretty weird out there i thought the equifax breach was bad enough it exposed the personal financial info of half of all Americans. Now we have breaches

affecting almost every U.S. citizen, and the data stolen is more personal and equally dangerous. One company had over 230 million consumer files hacked, which included not only the home address, but info related to religion, pet lovers, smokers, you name it. And the businesses were not any luckier this time, with 110 million files hacked. It really is no longer a matter of if, it's when you'll become a victim. That's exactly why the only plan I've ever recommended is through Zander Insurance. They cover all types of identity theft for families and businesses, and they take over all the work if you become a victim. I use it for my family and my entire team.

Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com. That's Zander.com. Thanks for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We're so glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Hannah is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Hannah. How are you?

Hi, Mr. Ramsey. It's such an honor to be speaking with you. You too. What's up? I have a question about giving money to a co-worker who seems to be financially struggling. She's been having a series of kind of unfortunate events and most recently had one that was about five or six hundred dollars and I was considering giving her, I want to give her that money. But two things, one, I don't want it to be awkward because I technically have a higher

position in our workplace than her so I wouldn't want to create an awkward situation. But to do that anonymously, I don't know how I could do that because I'd really like to tie it with maybe going to FPU to kind of like teach Amanda Fish, as you say, so maybe she could get herself out of debt. Okay, because she's had a pattern of these problems, and so they're not really the problems or the symptom of her other decisions around money, right? It seems like that.

I mean, I care about her, but she doesn't, like, come to me for financial advice, but she does, from the way we've talked and things she's put online, I surmise that yes, that's true. Okay. Well, it's a fairly small amount of money in that it's $500. And so you have the option of one time just anonymously giving it and not tying it to that. If you want to tie it to that, obviously you can't do it anonymously. You're going to have to sit down and talk to her.

And the way I might do that is this. Sometimes I do it around here in our business uh over the years we treat you know team members like family members or friends because they are okay and so but i i might just say hey i'm going to take off my uh my company hat and i'm going to put on my friend hat and i want you to take off your uh co-worker hat and put on your friend hat for a minute. If you say that out loud, it gives people the visual that the conversation just changed, and we're now on an even playing field. It's just two friends sitting and talking, okay? And you might even go off-site to do it.

You know, go have a cup of coffee somewhere. Okay. Because if you're not at the company, it helps you to change the setting of the table, so to speak. And then you can communicate and go, look, not as your co-worker, not as someone who's higher in the org chart or something like that, but as your friend. Here's what I'm saying. Number one, I want to help you. Here's 500 bucks.

I want to tie that gift with a request that you go to this class and i'm going to pay for it because i want you to learn how to never be here again to never be in this situation again so i want to help you two different ways would you allow me to do that okay and just see what kind of response you get like that and by the way this is just between you and me we're not going to tell anybody else this is what you tell her okay so that uh she i'd rather you not tell other people about this and i certainly will not be telling them about it okay and that way she's not you know running around the office and then people line up at your door wanting money. Yeah.

You know, you don't want to get the weirdness expanded, right? Yeah. And, you know, and two, sometimes if there's kind of an awkwardness, which this has a little bit of awkwardness to it, sometimes in a conversation if there's a little bit of awkwardness, it's okay to just say, hey, this is a little awkward, but I'm going to do it anyway, okay? And you just kind of say it. And that kind of blows some of the awkward out you know if you just call it out if you just name it and own it and go this is a little awkward and you know we're just sitting here talking as friends right now and so it's really kind of awkward for me too and uh because i don't do

this kind of stuff very often but here here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you $500 to help you get out of this last mess you're in, but it comes with a request that you attend this class, and I'm going to give you this class. And if you do it that way, 99% of the people, 90% of the people will not be offended. They will not be weirded out. They will not freak out.

And, you know, just keep it real simple, clean, pure, and then don't ever bring it up again. And by the way, I'm not going to bug you about this. I'm not going to follow up with you. I'm not going to beat you up about this. You don't have that level of relationship. But anytime you're going to give someone money, you earn the right then to request something of them for their own good.

And that's a fair thing to do for them. That's loving them well. Chris is with us in Burlington, Iowa. Hi, Chris. How are you? I'm great. How are you today, Dave? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Well, I have a question. My wife and I, about a year ago, realized we had a problem and bought into your program. And we're currently in Baby Step 2. Good. We've paid off about $50,000. Wow. Good for you.

We're trying. We still have a long ways to go, $182,795. Of what? Stupid decisions. Like what? Student loans. Student loans. Personal loans? Stupid decisions. Like what? Student loans. Student loans. Personal loans.

Credit cards. How much of the $182,000 is student loans? Mine is $96,000. And we have $120,000 in student loans. $120,000. Okay. Is there a doctor or lawyer in this bunch? There's unfortunately not.

What do you guys do? What are your degrees in? Business management for myself, and my wife has a literature degree. She's got a good state job and everything, so we're doing well financially. What is your household income? $120,000, $130,000, somewhere. It ranges just a little bit between there. Okay.

All right. Well, you'll dig out of this. It's just going to take you a little while, right? Yeah. Yeah. My question is, I just switched jobs. I actually went back to an old job that I used to have. And I want to know about retirement. Should I be worrying about this right now?

No. We think, okay. You're broke. No, you don't need to be putting money in investments. You don't need to be putting money in anything. Okay. You need to do nothing but completely concentrate with every ounce of your being on getting out of debt.

And the more you do that, the more you sacrifice lifestyle and the more you completely focus on the debt, the faster you'll begin to get out. And the faster you get out, the more you'll even want to cut more because you'll want to get faster and faster and faster and faster. And that's how this ends up happening. Personal finance is about 80% behavior. It's only about 20% head knowledge.

And when you leave out that part of it and you try to just do math and finance that personal finance especially that's when you mess up okay so yeah you'll get to retirement but we teach a thing called the baby steps baby step one is you only need well you need more than this this, but baby step one is you only do $1,000 in your beginner starter emergency fund. Nothing more. Any more than that you have, you throw at the debt, except for retirement. Don't cash out retirement. Stop all investing temporarily.

Stop all spending temporarily. You work all the time. Don't go out to eat. Don't go on vacation. Drop a bomb on your lifestyle where every dollar is then flowing at your debt. You list your debts, smallest to largest. Pay minimum payments on everything but the little one. Attack the little one.

Work your way down through that. Once you've done that and you will clear that debt, you've got a couple years left of hard, hard years left, about three it looks like. You clear that debt. Once you've cleared that debt, then you build your emergency fund as baby step three to three to six months of expenses. Once that's done, then we start retirement, baby step four, 15% of your income going into retirement. And only then do we start baby step five, which is your kid's college funding, if that applies. And then baby step six is any money we can find above that. We start throwing at the mortgage.

And the average family is debt-free and paying off their mortgage in about seven years doing this. But they have to really focus and be very intentional and no waste, no sloppiness. Don't run around acting like you're spending like you're in Congress or something. I mean, you've got to have a detailed, passionate plan, and then you can break the back of this thing. But you've got some hard work to do, dude, some really hard work to do. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Okay, I need you to listen to this, because one normal routine that everyone does can cause total chaos in your life.

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In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Amy is with us. Hey, Amy, how are you? I'm doing great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. What's that near? It's about a mile south of Harrisburg. Oh, okay. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville.

Thanks. And you're here all the way from Pennsylvania to do your debt-free screen. Yes, I am. Love it. How much have you paid off? Just under $48,000. Wow. And how long did that take?

About 17 months. Cool. And your range of income during that time? It started around $100,000, and then there was a divorce in there, so I got down to $50,000. Oh, okay. Ouch. Right in the middle of this. Right in the middle. Wow. That's no fun so what kind of uh debt was the 48 000 uh it was a student loan a car and some orthodontia

okay and so uh what happened on this 17 month journey and and the divorce in the middle of it. That's weird. It was really weird. So in 2015, I got our tax return back from our accountant, and I realized that we had made like over six figures, and I just couldn't believe that we had nothing to show for it. So I said, we have to do something about this. So I found your book in the bookstore, and I started reading through it, and I was like, this is exactly what we need. So I read it in like an hour and I was like, we got to do this. We got to do this. So my ex-husband was on board and we just started paying stuff off

and we realized that it was taking longer than I kind of wanted it to. So we decided to downgrade it in car, but we kind of did it wrong. We went from a $15,000 car to a $12,000 car. So it really only bought us a month, but I think it was really important for us to change our behavior because it was kind of a big deal for us. And once we did that, I knew that we were not going to stop until it was done. So we kept chugging along. And then in August of last year, all we had left was a student loan. And my husband and I decided to split up. So he moved out. And then my debt snowball was on hold because I was trying to pay the mortgage and trying to work and be a full-time parent.

And so I got the house ready to sell, and I was just working, working, working. That's pretty much all I did. And listening to you yell at me every day saying, you do not deserve anything. You need to go to work. So that's what I did. And then we sold the house. And in February of this year, we closed on the house, and I took the proceeds of the house, and I paid off the house and in February of this year we closed on the house and I took the

proceeds of the house and I paid off the last of the student loan. Wow good for you. Yeah. And so you downgraded at home is that what you did? Oh we did we moved to a rental because the house that we lived in I would have to refinance to get my husband off and they weren't gonna they weren't gonna give me a loan on my own so it was really hard to have to refinance to get my husband off, and they weren't going to give me a loan on my own. So it was really hard to have to move them out of their childhood home. But we're in a rental right now that we hate, which was by design because I knew I didn't want to stay there very long. So it's motivating me every day when I wake up and I say, I hate this house. I know it's only for a year.

And then we will be buying our own house. Okay. Wow. Yes. Very cool. Good for you. So, I mean, you really, I'm assuming the split didn't have anything to do with money because you guys were working on this together. It didn't.

But I think through the process, we kind of found out a lot of things about each other that, I don't know, it just seemed to bring out the worst in both of us. So I think it kind of brought to light a lot of issues that we had kind of maybe been ignoring. Yeah, so it was really an enlightening process. I'm so sorry. Wow. Thank you. Well, congratulations, though. Thank you.

You're debt free. That's very well done. How's it feel now? It feels really good. In fact, you know, I thought that the relief of the stress was going to be the best part of it. But really, when I look back, the best part is knowing that I struggled for all of that time. And now I can look back and say, look at what I did. Like, I did that.

I did that. And then I look the other way and I go, oh my gosh, what else could I do now? Like, it's just amazing. Yeah, because a lot of times when you go through a divorce and so forth,

you don't come out of that with confidence. And in your case, you're coming out with confidence. Yeah, I'm coming out with way more. Yeah, I can do anything now. Absolutely. Yep.

So did you have cheerleaders along the way, people telling you you could do it? I had a couple. My dad, who's here with us in the lobby, yeah, and my kids, for the most part, were cheerleaders. Sometimes there were some, you know, not so nice words. That's called being kids, yeah. Yeah, mostly from the 13-year 13 year old but that's all right absolutely cool so what are their names and ages uh we have charlie is 13 and elizabeth is 11 all right very cool yeah very cool well you're set uh for a whole new runway a whole new runway to take

off and lead a completely different process now yeah i can't i can't wait to see what's next dave i'm so excited i'm sure your dad's proud of you. Yeah, I think he is. Very well done. Very well done. Good stuff. Well, we're proud of you. Congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. It is Amy, Charlie, and Elizabeth. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired, number one bestseller. That's the next chapter in your story to be a millionaire. I can't wait. Now you've got control of you, and you've got control of the money. You can do anything.

Yep. So it's nothing nowhere but up from here. Way to go. Very well done. Amy, Charlie, and Elizabeth Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, $48,000 paid off in 17 months, making $100,000 to $50,000, and life is good.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Love it! Well done, you guys. Very well done.

Man. Cool stuff. You know, every debt-free story story because these are real stories with real people every debt-free story has a different kind of struggle somewhere in the process and um people go through i mean we've had people come in here that you know they're getting out of debt while they're fighting cancer they're getting out of debt while they're going through a divorce in amy's case they're getting out of debt while dot dot dot well guess what while life happens you have to have life and that's what this means and people you know they money you know the bills don't stop

because you face a horrible situation of some kind or another and these people that persevere through these unbelievable things while they're getting out of debt, man, that's hero stuff right there. Very well done. Heroes. Mark is with us in Syracuse, New York. Hey, Mark, what's up in your world? Hi, Dave.

Thanks for having me. Sure. How can I help? So right now our family is approaching Baby Step 4. Good. And I'm a New York state public school teacher. And our pension plan is actually pretty good. It's 60% of our final salary. And so as we look to start doing the 15%, we're just curious whether I should be doing that to the full 15% or maybe to 10 in order to help

get going on five and six, because we're not having enough funds to do 4, 5, and 6 as much as we want to all at once, if I do 15% to the retirement. So I'm just wondering if that's the right thing. Give yourself some room. Give yourself some time. No, you need to be doing 15%. There's no difference here, because that pension is not going to make you a millionaire. 15% is.

Gotcha. And that's where I want you to go towards. I want you to be in control, regardless of whether the state of New York manages money well, dot, dot, dot. Yeah, that's a little scary right there. So, I mean, I'm not suggesting their pension plan is going broke today, but I'm not going to sit around and count on me having an awesome life due to them behaving either. So, yeah yeah you keep doing baby step four fifteen percent going into retirement's what i would do so hey thank you

for calling in man open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five you jump in uh we'll talk about your life and your money guys it is a fairly simple formula. When you don't have any debt, it's much easier to invest. Just take what you were paying on a car payment. Take what you were paying on a student loan that's been around so long you think it's a pet. Put that into a good mutual fund in your Roth IRA. Do that for 25 years, and that alone will make most of you a millionaire. Really. I mean, your car payment is just straight up stupid beyond belief.

You've got to look at this stuff, folks. You've really got to stop and take control of your life. You just wander along. The richest country the world has ever known broke. Why? Why? Why? This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Guys, let's talk about that timeshare pitch that you fell for.

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TimeshareExitTeam.com. Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Ernest Hemingway said, There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. It's a great saying.

Kind of weird from Ernest Hemingway, though. I mean, what a character. We just visited the Ernest Hemingway Bar in Spain, the city of, I can't pronounce, I can't remember how to pronounce it, Palermo, or somewhere they do the running of the bulls, anyway. And so we were there just a few weeks back in the Ernest Hemingway Bar, and then you start reading just a little bit about ernest hemingway and you go oh yeah all kinds of nobility okay he had a lot of fun though i mean he's a character

james is with us in lansing mich Michigan. Hey, James, how are you? I'm doing great, Dave. And first of all, thank you for taking my call. I've been listening for about three weeks now. Cool. Welcome aboard. Yeah, thank you. I went home and I told my wife all about you and told her I wanted to do this debt-free thing. And she's kind of got on board and we're working and trying to get through Baby Step 1 and save that first $1,000 and then kind of looking ahead to Baby Step 2. And right now, the only debt that I have that I pay on monthly is I've got about $700 in credit card debt. But what I'm calling and what my question is about, I've got some collections like on my

credit report, old hospital bills, things like that. And I was just wondering, should I list those in my debts for my debt snowball? Okay. How much debt do you have that's not in collections that's active? Not counting your house. Just the $700 in credit cards. That's the total debt is $700? Yeah.

Okay. What is your household income? About $60,000. Okay. You don't have any student loans or car payments? No, sir. Okay. Good don't have any student loans or car payments? No, sir. Okay. Good. Do you own a home? We're renting right now, but once we get through this, we're going to save up to put some money down.

Great. Okay. And how much debt is there in collections? All total, maybe $7,000. Okay. All right. Good. um all total maybe seven thousand okay all right good well let's knock the seven hundred dollar credit card out and cut it up like in one month like this month when you do your budget budget seven hundred dollars and pay it off okay um once you got your thousand dollars aside you gotta be able to do that and the kind of money you make, you need to do it really, really, really fast. You need to tighten your budget down and do that.

Get on everydollar.com. Get your every dollar budget downloaded for your Android and your iPhone or whatever. And you and your wife sit down together and go, this is how much we're bringing home. This is how much our rent is. This is how much our, you know, you don't have any payments. That's the great news. Okay? So you'd have to just crank it have any payments. That's the great news. Okay? So you'd have to just crank it down on that.

You just lean into it. Now, once you've paid that off, then I would list the ones that are in default, smallest to largest, as well, once the credit card is gone. Now, $7,000, it's all medical? Almost all of it. How old is it? All of it's more than two years old. Good.

Okay. And you don't pay payments on any of it? You haven't made any deals with them at all? No, sir. Okay. Good. Well, what I would do is, again, just list them smallest to largest. The little bitty ones, the ones that are under $100 or $200,

just call up and confirm that that's the amount before you send it. And if they give you confirmation, just send them a check. Okay? Okay. Now, once it gets over about $200, I want you to call them up and have them send you in writing what pays the debt off before you send it. Because I don't want you to have an old collections notice from two months ago that says you owe $900 and you send them $900 and they come back and say, oh, we added $500 in collections

fees to that now that you paid it. You know, and so you need in writing before you give them money on the larger ones over $200, in writing exactly what the bill is, okay? And if they're going to take any kind of, now, if the original bill was $900 and they marked it up to $1,500, you know, then negotiate it back down and say, I'm willing to pay $900. That's all I've got. And you'll have to argue with them and fight it through,

but get it in writing or don't give them any money. Get it in writing because they lie and these things will linger and they'll come back around and you'll never seem to be able to get the end of it because every time you pull the thread on the sweater, it just keeps growing. You know what I'm saying? I understand, yes, sir. Then no electronic access from your checking account.

Do not let them draft your checking account for these bills, because they will clean you out, and you won't be able to pay your rent. They lie. Okay. Okay. Some of the scummiest people in the world are in the collections business. There are some good ones, but there are not many. And so just make sure that

you, you know, that you can remember that if their mouth is moving, that probably means they're lying. So get it in writing and no electronic access to your checking account. And the good news is, I mean, $8,000 makes you debt-free. You make $60,000. So this really should happen in less than six months. So by Christmas, you should be debt-free and be saving towards your house, towards your down payment, I mean, towards your emergency fund, and then towards your house for your down payment. So get after it, man. Good job. Very cool. Congratulations. J.R. is with us in Lansing, Michigan. Hey, J.R., how are you?

Pretty well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. My wife recently quit her job at the end of last year. We were both federal employees, and her goal was to get to stay home with our daughter. And so over the last couple of years, she cut down her hours to part-time. We kind of got used to that, and then she went to the total just not working.

However, we didn't really make enough changes around here with our budget and everything so we started getting into some issues and i started listening to a show a few months ago and i really started listening to it all the time and i wanted to get on the plan so we started doing that the thing is is she's kind of like going along with it but she doesn't like when i talk about it she doesn't want to get into it she's just kind of like going along with it, but she doesn't like when I talk about it. She doesn't want to get into it. She's just kind of like kind of on board just a little bit, but she doesn't really want to learn about it. And I'm feeling, you know, how can I get her to be into it like I am?

Why isn't she? I don't know. I think she just wants – I've always kind of handled all the financial things. I think she wants me to keep doing it. Well, what I would tell her is this, honey, I'm unwilling to do this by myself. This managing money is managing our life, and in order for you to get to be a stay-at-home mom, I really don't want to be your daddy.

Right. I really want to be your husband, which means we need to walk together on this. I don't need to put a bunch of pressure on you a bunch of stress on you but you need to plug into this if you're going to be a full-time stay-at-home mom you're going to have to be a home economist and that's going to be consignment sales and couponing and cooking from scratch because we got to make this work and you need to be seeing the numbers so you know why you're doing this and being involved in the decisions on what we're going after and what we're not. And so I don't mind doing the administrative parts of this. I do completely mind and I'm unwilling to carry all the decision-making

and the responsibility by myself. Okay. Because that means I have to drag you through all this, and I just really don't want to drag you through all this. If you want the privilege, the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom, I agree with you on that goal. Let's shoot towards that. But your part in that is you have to carry the weight, the financial responsibility weight with me. And that means you're looking at these numbers, we're making the numbers together,

and you're doing your part at home to make these numbers work. Okay. Instead of just saying, do what you have to do, then that way she's more of an active participant. Yeah, because here's the thing. When she does the whatever you want to do, honey, as soon as you do something she doesn't like, she's going to raise Cain. Yeah, we've had a little bit of that. The weird thing is I was always the one that spent most of the money

on things that we didn't need. And now I'm trying to cut it all back. You can start this entire conversation by just apologizing and going, you know, I've realized how much of a screw-up I was, and we've got to walk together on this, baby. I need you, you need me, we've got to work together.

That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, guys, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer of the Dave Ramsey Show. This hour of the show is over, but you can also watch on our free mobile app, our website at DaveRamsey.com, or on the Dave Ramsey Show YouTube channel. We are everywhere to serve you. Can you believe this real estate market?

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