The Ramsey Show - App - Do I Need a Masters Degree? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

George Kamel & Ken Coleman discuss: Selling rental properties to get out of debt, BMW's heated seats subscription pilot, Selling a house vs. fixing it up, Knowing when to leave a job even if it's comfortable, The necessity of grad school, Waiting for student loan forgiveness. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

I'm out. From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you get control of your money, get ahead in your career, and get on the path to living well. I'm George Campbell, joined today by Ken Coleman, and we are taking your calls about work, life, money, relationships, career, switching jobs, switching homes, you name it, we are here for you. 888-825-5225. Joe kicks us off this hour. He's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Joe,

welcome to the show, I think. Let's see if I can get to him. Are you there? Yep. Can you hear me? Yes. How are you doing today? How can we help? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. I have a financial question. I recently got married, and my situation has been a little more complex with my wife's situation now, and I just wanted your direction on what we might do about it. Okay, lay out the picture for us.

So she has a substantial amount of student loan debt and she paid off 30,000 last year and she has about 150 left. I don't have any debt other than my truck. She has a car note and I own two multi-unit rental properties, and I'm contemplating selling the one in order to get rid of the student loan debt. Okay.

But they're my babies, and I'm just calling you for some advice on it. All right. So you got married, and you're sitting there with, what's the total debt outside of the rental properties? The two car loans plus the 150K, what does that add up to? It's right around 200,000. 200,000. And what is your household income total between you and your wife? It is a little over 200. Okay. We've got a big shovel. So we've got the pile of debt there, but we can clean this up fairly quickly. What could you sell one of the rentals for? Which one do you like the least, and what could you sell it for, and what would you net?

I could sell the one and make around $70 on it. Okay. So you'd make $70 net on one of them. Mm-hmm. And where would you put that towards? Knock out the car loans? Well, sure. She has a couple of private loans that are good.

And this is why I want to do this is because the interest rates are kind of crazy on them. What's the interest rate? Like over 10%. Over 10% crazy. Ouch. And what's the other rental worth if you sold that one? That is the one we're actually living in. And that's probably got about you know

40 000 of equity okay after commissions and everything and that's your primary residence right now so we got it we're hanging on to that one obviously and what are the cars worth um she has a it's a brand new um prius um so it's probably worth what she has into it um and my trucks basically work worth about what i have into it throw on it i should say okay so let's say you sold both cars it'd be a wash you'd get rid of the debt get rid of about 50 000 basically yeah how much money do you have in savings, just in liquid cash between you guys? We really don't have anything.

I just put some money into one of the rentals, so that was all of our cash. So you got nothing in the bank right now? We have a couple grand. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm selling the rental if I'm you, because if you want to not make this a slog because right now, how much money could you even put towards the debt every month or every year? I mean, like I said, with her income alone, she put $30,000 towards it. So you could do another $30,000.

And we paid for a wedding as well. So at this point, this is a five-year journey. If you were putting $60,000, maybe $40,000, $50,000 a year. I mean, this is a long time. So I want to speed this up to where you can do this in two years. And that means making some sacrifices, which means I'm definitely selling the rental. I might look at selling the cars. Well, let's walk through that. So he makes $70,000, we hope, or maybe a little less,

realtor fees there. So then where would you have him put that? I'm going to list these debts out smallest to largest. I know you've got the high interest rate student loans, but I think the progress that you're going to feel freeing up those payments as you knock out those small debts, that's going to give you the boost you need to make it through this journey. Yeah, but George, I want to get specific for a second. Can I do that? You're the expert. Let's get nerdy, Ken.

All right, so he sells the rental. And Joe, give us a round number. What do you think you actually walk away with after the realtor fees and everything? What's in your pocket once you sell that house, the rental? That's realistically between $60,000 and $70,000. Okay. So let's split the difference, say $65,000. All right.

You got the two cars. What are your car payments a month between those two new cars or roughly new cars? It's right around $1,000 a month. Oh, baby. So, George. So if you sold the cars today, you just freed up $1,000 a month to go towards the debt. Well, I take the cash from the rental, all right, and I buy two cheaper cars. Now, this is going to be painful, Joe.

You're not going to like this, but I'm giving you an option. But let's say you buy two $10,000 cars short term. Yep. Short term, this is just to kind of speed everything up. Or even if you spent $30,000 on cars, two $15,000 cash cars. Okay. All right? So, Georgie's got about $35,000 cash left.

Yeah. But we've gotten rid of the debt on the rental, and we've gotten rid of the debt on two cars. We've taken a huge chunk out of this, and we still have $35,000 to put towards the snowball. What's the payment on that rental? It's actually dirt cheap. It's $350 a month. Okay. So now we have $1,350 though back in your life to throw at these other debts. You see what we're doing here? And this is food for thought. Would it be worth, you know, not throwing the $20,000, if we were putting twenty thousand dollars towards the cars the used cars would that be worth it even though these interest rates are so high we would kind of like i guess we would we wouldn't knock out that twenty thousand dollars worth of the student loan

and then we'd be getting hit with the ten percent interest well you're staring at the student loan but i'm looking at 1350 in payments we can free up. Yeah. We just added $1,300 to your budget. So how quickly can we knock out those student loans? So I like Ken's plan. I'm selling the rental with the $65 you make. We're going to buy some reasonable cars,

let's say $30,000 worth of car, leaving with $35,000, freeing up the rental payment, freeing up the car payments to now throw at the remaining $150,000 in student loan debt. Okay. And with some sacrifices and making $200,000, now we're talking we can do this in less than two years. Yeah, this is a scalable mountain, but Joe, I think you need these dramatic moves to speed this up or else this is a much longer slog. You guys with the income, and we're not even talking about your income potential down the line as you guys grow in your career. Oh, yeah.

Now is not the time to be doing math. The time to be doing math was when we didn't go into $200,000 with debt. Let's focus on behavior right now and changing the way that we look at money and looking at our future as a newlywed couple going, where do we want to be five years from now? Do we still want to be climbing out of this mountain of debt? Or do we want to be completely debt-free, making $200,000 a year, more at that point, and we can really start living our life? Yeah. So that's what we want for you. And you can get another rental later.

We can get a Prius later. They'll still exist. They're out there. But right now, let's be about the business of cleaning up this mess so we can utilize our greatest wealth-building tool, our income. Appreciate the call, Joe. We're cheering you on, man. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be worth it.

This is The important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey-trusted provider. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, Ramsey personality and host of The Fine Print,

joined by my fellow Ramsey personality, Ken Coleman, and host of The Ken Coleman Show. We're taking your calls this hour, 888-825-5225. All right, Ken, occasionally people send me things on the Internet, and when enough people send me the same thing, I go, all right, I think we need to talk about this. And you love a good headline, and this one caught my attention. Here it is. You ready for it? I'm ready.

Let's go. BMW heated seat subscription is real, and it costs $18 a month. What? Get this. Here's the article from MotorOne.com. We've been warned about how subscriptions could become the automotive equivalent of a video game's downloadable content. We're beginning to see some more examples. On its connected drive store in South Korea, BMW owners can pay a monthly fee to have a creature comfort such as heated seats.

It costs 24,000 won, or approximately $18 at current exchange rates. Alternatively, you can get a one-year plan for $176 or a three-year subscription for $283. A similar subscription plan is offered for heated steering wheel, and it costs $10 a month. Okay, I got questions. You understand what's happening here? Well, I don't think I do, because if you're paying for the heated seats,

and so let's say I sign up for this nonsense, because first of all, I think it's nonsensical. It's ridiculous. All right, but let's say I pay for it. All right? What happens if I'm delinquent? Like, I don't take the library book back. How are they turning the heat off in the seats?

Is it something? It's all software. It's all software. So they send a code, Ken is current, and then I can have Toasty Buns. And it activates your Toasted Buns feature. There you go. Oh, okay. So that's what I see.

I was trying to figure out how do they activate the heater. This is a horrible idea. It continues on. You want wireless Apple CarPlay? That'll be $305. One of the most unusual items found in the BMW Connected Drive Store is called Iconic Sound Sport. It essentially plays fake engine noises through the car speakers, should you be willing to pay $138 to have the feature permanently.

Is this officially only in South Korea, or is this... It sounds like it's starting in South Korea, but I can see this taking hold. Let me tell you something. No way this lives in America. No American is willing to pay for that. I'm willing to put a fun bet on this. I think that it is ludicrous. I don't think Americans will do it. I think they'll just say, you know, forget it. I'm not doing it.

Like every other car, for crying out loud, like Kia. There's no crappy cars anymore. Everybody's got the heated seats. Sure. But, for example, Tesla. Self-driving. It exists. The functionality's there, but you've got the heated seats. Sure. But, for example, Tesla. Self-driving. It exists. The functionality is there, but you've got to pay

to activate it. A Peloton. You buy a Peloton, well, you've got to pay the $50 subscription fee if you want access to all the content in the screen on the Peloton. When every other car on the market has got heated seats, unless you're driving something past a certain age... I think this is going to hurt

BMW's brand. It's going to hurt BMW. It'll never't never fly here it's ridiculous and don't be sucked into this i mean heard it here first sit on a blanket what's happening is companies are getting away with this whole digital subscription monthly fee type service i guess they can make more money okay let me say this if you are in any type of business if you can find a way to come up with subscription revenue, it is smart. I do believe that it is absolutely the future is now. But this is not the way to do it. But not this. To nickel and dime for every feature.

I'll tell you what I would. So if I'm BMW and I'm trying to get subscription revenue. This is free advice, BMW, if you're listening. Yeah, I would be coming up with exclusive content. So BMW, they got some money. They got some relationships. So maybe they go to who's a popular band right now? You know these things.

Harry Styles. Oh, geez. Big Harry Styles. Yeah, but you got to think of a BMW driver. They don't care about Harry Styles. What do they listen to? Frank Sinatra or something. I don't know.

Anyway, the point is I'd be coming up with unique content that is only available through BMW listeners or something. I don't know. Anyway, the point is, I'd be coming up with unique content that is only available through BMW listeners. There's an idea. So if you want subscription, I can't even believe I'm doing the work for BMW. This is brilliant. Free consulting from Ken Coleman today. Anyway, it's not heated seats. Well, I want people to pay attention to their money, and this is just not a good use of it. Go find you a car that has built-in heated seats instead of you paying for it forever in perpetuity.

You know what my dad did for heated seats? What did he do? He went and started the car about 15 minutes early. There you go. On those cold days. Old school. I mean, come on. Go start the car.

You got to hustle out there. It's a little abrupt the first time you get in there, but you fire the car up, you turn the heat on, and guess what? The whole car's heated. These are some concepts. Some first world luxuries we have, Ken. I'll tell you that much.

Back in your day, you had to walk uphill both ways. You could get respiratory arrest just doing that. What do you think, I'm 70, George? I don't know. Come on. All right. Gen X is a confusing generation. All right, let's help Zach.

He's right. Zach is on the line in Atlanta, Georgia. He regrets the seven minutes we just took up with that. Zach, how you doing, man? He's never going to get that part of his life back. He'll never get it back. How can we help today, Zach? Hey, I'm not going to be buying a BMW, I can tell you that. Hey, that's what I'm talking about. Another person helped. Where's the tote board? What's going on with you? So I'm 37. I'm a single dad. My income is, my gross income is 104. And I don't have any debt except my mortgage, which I'm currently paying $500 a month extra towards.

I'm going to pay my house off early. Cool. After all my other bills and tithes, that leaves me about $1,500 left over, or $2,000 if I don't make any extra mortgage payment. And I've got about $5,000 saved up in an emergency fund. I did all the baby steps up to and including step four. So I'm all caught up there. I was just recently divorced. During the divorce, I worked a side job or multiple side jobs

to pay off $70,000 in marital debt, um, the support for the divorce and legal fees. Um, my ex-wife decided she wanted to keep our marital residence. And, um, I was already out of the house, of course, because of the divorce. So I agreed to that, even though the mortgage was in my name only. Oh boy. So she didn't refinance in her name. Well, see, that's the thing in the court order that was supposed to happen, but it didn't happen. And legally, it has to happen. It still hasn't happened. Agreed. So the issue is that it can't happen. And so I have this house stuck in my name, um, because she's not able to get a loan for it. The house needs some work before it'll be, it'll pass any kind of inspection. We bought it as a foreclosure fixer upper and, uh,

we got about halfway through the renovation work before the divorce occurred. So I have this, um, I have this issue and there is still a little bit of legal stuff pending on exactly how it's going to play out. But I have the expectation. I'm willing to take this house because we owe, or I owe, in my name, $178K on it. And the appraisal, based on the mortgage company and the comps in the area that they say it's worth over $400. Whoa!

But it needs work. I'm thinking that too. So it needs some work to get it there. I just started building up my emergency fund and had a bunch of things go on this year that kind of emergencies that kind of dipped into that. So I don't really have a

lot of liquid cash to i don't have any really to dump into this house um not right now so yeah but you have two grand of margin a month that you could start socking away in the savings account to cash flow these repairs and renovations correct okay but i would have to do i'd have to pay both mortgage payments. Because you're paying the one on your own currently, but also on hers that she's living in. Is she paying the mortgage? Right now she is because she's still technically living there, but she's not physically living there. Very confusing.

She's staying somewhere else. Okay. Yes, it is very confusing. Well, we need to get down to the legal brass tacks of when is she getting out and what does the financial piece look like when you sell it? Because once she's gone, you're going to do these repairs and sell it, right? That's what I would like to do. Does she get proceeds from the sale as part of the agreement?

That's what we're trying to figure out. Here's the problem, Zach. You don't have the cash to fix this house up, and you won't have it anytime soon. It's going to take a lot to fix this thing up to be able to sell it for over $400,000. I'm going to see what I can get as is for it and make sure if the renovations are the renovations are 20K and it's only going to appreciate by 15, then it's not worth doing the renovations. So I would work with a realtor, see what you could get for it as is in this market and maybe go down that path. But before you do that, I want to make sure that what you're doing is going to be worth it financially because of this divorce. This is real messy. So I'd talk with an attorney.

I'd work with a real estate agent and start doing that homework. But man, we got to clean this up ASAP. Wishing the best for you, man. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. You know those moments when you're sitting right next to someone, but you feel a thousand miles apart? Some of you might be feeling that way right now. I am, and this is a little awkward to admit that, George. Ken, two seconds away, but Ken's on his phone. He's distracted.

I'm going to slide over. Ken is not connecting. That's the problem. We've got to put our phones down. We've substituted deep and meaningful conversations from binge-watching Netflix and scrolling social media. And you guys deserve better relationships, and that means having better conversations. That's why our friend, mental health expert Dr. John Deloney created Questions for Humans. These are conversation starters that will help you disconnect from screens

and actually connect and have fun with the people you care about. So we launched the first edition of these cards a few months back, and they went gangbusters, flying off the shelves. So you guys have asked for more topics. We took the hint. We've got new ones for you. Girls' Night, Guys' Night, Dating, Parents and Teens, and Workplace Editions have been added to the lineup,

and all of them will get you spending time laughing together, learning something unexpected, and building deeper and stronger relationships. So go ahead and pick up one, two, three of our new Questions for Humans conversation starters and start having fun together. You can find those at ramseysolutions.com. I got to talk to John and the team. I got an idea while you were talking about that. I thought you'd be a good one. I mean, to talk to John and the team. I got an idea while you were talking about that. Oh, yeah? I think it would be a good one. I mean, they've got a million of these things. Oh, yeah.

They're clearly looking for ideas. What do you got? Elevator edition. Oh. Yeah, you know. Elevator conversations are very awkward. You get in an elevator, a bunch of, you know, you're in an office building, and it's just the awkward silence.

You just go, where are you headed? Oh, floor four. Good floor. And I think they need one of those those because people aren't expecting that one and we're all in the elevator and then everybody's friends we're all facing the door you can't sit there and stare at the person yeah in front of you that's awkward right and then it feels weird to have a conversation with someone behind you and then there's the half full elevator and then you're the one person hopping on at floor number 15 and you're going up to 28 do you get on or do you wait you feel then you're the one person hopping on at floor number 15, and you're going up to 28. Do you get on or do you wait?

You feel awkward. You're breaking in on the party. So I feel like this could have some legs. This feels like a Seinfeld episode. Bring it back, Jerry. Bring it back. All right. Let's go.

Man. Anyways. What are we doing next? We've got our blinds.com question of the day. Oh, I love blinds.com. Yeah. Their 100% satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color, they will remake your blinds for free.

You get free samples, free shipping. With the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Just use the promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Matt in Iowa. I have a new job opportunity, but I'm extremely nervous to take the job because it is a management position. I've had leadership roles in the past, but this is my first opportunity for management. A little confused by that statement. We'll break it down momentarily.

I'm 34, and I still don't know if I'm ready for the job because it's for a company that's similar, but their terms for items are very different than what I'm used to using. Am I crazy to take the position, or should I stay at my 9-to-5 in a field I'm more comfortable with? There's a lot going on here, Matt, and I don't think you're ready to take this position for a multitude of reasons.

You've had leadership roles in the past, but this is my first opportunity for management. I truly don't understand that. Leadership assumes that you are leading people. Yeah, and thus management. But here's what I'm seeing is the real red flag. It's a company that you said is similar to what you've done in the past, but their terms for items are very different. And I think what's going on here is a lot of overthinking going on. And so I don't know if you're ready. And I think what you've got to do is, this might be something that you reach out to some people that work in that company and get to the bottom of maybe the language, but they're going to teach you the terminology or you're going to adapt to the language. So I'd be talking to people that work in the company and get a good feel for, is it a good culture?

Because if it's a healthy culture, I wouldn't be worried about learning new languages, if you will, or business terms. That's going to take care of itself. It's a healthy place because they're going to really onboard you well, and they're going to care for you. I think the big issue, and he doesn't ask this, George, but I'm seeing something in the data where we're seeing a lot of managers change jobs in this so-called great resignation. And one of the things I was reading an article, a Harvard Business Review article about this, is because here's what happens when companies see a high performer. They see a high performer, and they're not in a leadership role or a management role, but they're doing a really good job.

And so we want to reward them, right? And so there are really two ways to reward people traditionally, which is, okay, we're going to give you a raise and we're going to give you promotion, more responsibility. But there is a critical error that happens when you just assume, well, George is really good at social media and now we're going to move George into a leadership leading other people in social media. Well, here's the deal. You may or may not really enjoy the role of leadership. You can teach leadership. You can teach good management to people.

But if they don't enjoy it, it's not something that they look forward to and to be put in that role. Or maybe they don't have a great skill set for that particular type of leadership role. Then it ends up going bad for everybody. The person you've promoted into the leadership role doesn't feel like it's a fit. It becomes obvious. And now we've got a problem because we've rewarded a high performer who performed well in this seat of the bus, but it's not performing well in this seat of the bus.

And a lot of companies are doing this. And so if you are in that position and you're facing a potential promotion and you go, I'm not sure, really dive into it. Look into it. What does the role require? Am I wired for this? First and foremost, do I love this type of work the majority of my day? Does it produce results that I really care about? And that's why we developed the Get Clear Career Assessment to be able to look at that kind of thing. Do I love the work and does the work create results that matter so in this situation matt that's what you've got to be doing you've got some flag some red flags on your own dive into it deep uh to to be able to see is this fear

is it warranted yeah i go is this doubt is this imposter syndrome because if it's that we can learn we can grow some confidence but if the red flags are pointing to, this ain't it for me, that's okay, too. But like you're saying, a great salesperson gets promoted to lead a sales team and coach them. Well, they may just love sales and talking with people on the other side. They may not want to coach salespeople. And you've got to be able to parse those out and have that self-awareness. Good stuff.

Thanks for the question. Matthew joins us up next in Queens. Matthew, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you guys? Great. How can we help today? Thank you for taking my call, Jordan. I appreciate it. So me and my wife were just introduced about three months ago to Dave Ramsey. And by the way, I'm a little nervous, so just bear with me. You're doing great. And we have a little bit of a dilemma here, and we're trying to see what's the best way of going about it. We're currently in baby step two, aggressively paying back all our consumer debt. But after the consumer debt, I have the student loans that's about 200 grand that I have to start paying back as of September 1st. And I'm a government employee, and I qualify for the public service loan forgiveness. 200 grand that I have to start paying back as of September 1st. And, um,

I'm a government employee and I qualify for the public service loan forgiveness as of 2025. So I have a little bit, a little bit under three years or three years to qualify for the loan forgiveness. So my question is after baby step two with a consumer debt, should I snowball into the student loans or should I take that time and go into baby step three and have faith for the public loan forgiveness or what should I do in terms of putting all my eggs in that basket? So you're telling me in three years you'll qualify as in they will forgive the remainder of all loans three years from now, all $200,000?

Exactly. All my federal student loans, which equivalent to $200,000, when I qualify, which will be in three years. Yeah. Because I'll be the 120-month mark for me, which is when you qualify. What's your other debt that you have? I have $39,000 in credit card debt, unfortunately, $17,000 in a car, and just my mortgage, which is $390,000. Okay. I've got to ask a quick question, Matthew. Is this a guarantee?

This is actually an already existing law or executive order from the administration, and because you're a federal government employee, is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, so that was my question as well. So I quote them, because I honestly was thinking the same thing. You are a little bit skeptic about it. And they're telling me that this is true, and that I do qualify after the 10-year mark, which would be in three years will be my 10-year mark. And then my loans will be forgiven. So far from the information that I got, everyone that I spoke to, only one person actually passed then my loans will be forgiven. So far, from the information that I got, everyone that I spoke to, only one person actually passed it and actually got it forgiven.

No one else that I've spoken to have been forgiven. So I don't even know how to approach this. I'm not going to put my hope in it, but I will do a lot of research. And if it's a sure thing, then I'm going to keep socking money away in a savings account. And three years from now, if it's forgiven, you've got a pile of money in your life. And if not, you've got a pile of money to throw at that debt. But I'm going to keep socking money away in his savings account, and three years from now, if it's forgiven, you've got a pile of money in your life.

And if not, you've got a pile of money to throw at that debt. But I'm not banking on it until I've got a real assurance that this is going to go through. Yeah, George, it doesn't pass the smell test to me. There you go. From the mouth of the day, Jeremiah 9.23. This is what the Lord says. Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, or the strong boast of their strength, or the rich boast of their riches. Anne Frank once said, human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.

Love that. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. I'm George Camel, joined today by Ken Coleman. Shiloh joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. Shiloh, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. How are you? Great. How can we help today? So I graduated college in December, and I've been on the fence about going and getting my master's in a different field and so right now I am an executive assistant with my degree in business administration or

business management and then I'm wanting to get my degree my master's in in dietetics and go the registered dietitian route and so I just don't know if that's like wise choice financially or if I should stay in the business field or what y'all's opinion is. Yeah. Well, I, you know, Shiloh, I don't ever give people advice to just, Hey, you know, stay in the safe, uh, career that just, it's a good check. It's a, it's good benefits, uh, because you're going to end up regretting that. And you are kicking the tires on the idea of being a dietitian for a reason, I'm guessing, especially now so that you're actually out there in the real world having got a degree and you're in the business world, and yet you're still being pulled to being a dietitian. And I'm just curious, what's pulling you that direction?

I think that's what i always have wanted to do i went into college as a sophomore and then um i was so close to finishing my uh at uh my associate's degree my parents were like just finish that in business and then maybe think about it well then covid hit and i was taking summer classes. So I graduated college in two and a half years, and so I never really stopped to think about redirecting. But that's always still been what I wanted to do. Okay, you're going to have to humor me here because I don't know much about, you know, the dietician field.

How much value is there in a master's degree, or is it an absolute requirement to actually be a dietitian? So in 2024, it will be a requirement for all registered dietitians to have a master's degree. And most programs, I found one program where I can only get my, like I can just get my master's, but most others make you pretty much have to have a bachelor's and a master's to become a registered dietitian. But the one I found is career towards or focused towards career changers, and so it allows you to go in with any bachelor's. All right, so let me ask you this so you got you could beat the 2024

rush presumably correct you could i mean once you once 2024 hit you're gonna have to go back and get your master oh i see it's one of those retro you'd have to go back and get it okay i got i'm sorry i misunderstood all right tell me this? Yeah, yeah. What's the difference between dietitian and nutritionist? So a nutritionist, you do not have to have a degree, and you're probably not going to be, your earnings are, like, there's not as much security in the position because you don't have to have that degree and you can just do trainings. anyone can call themselves a nutritionist but you have to set for boards and exams to be a registered dietitian and have a degree okay and what is this master's degree going to cost you

it would be around 40 000 okay and how much cash do you have set aside for that? So I had to take off work and be on medical leave for about three months. And so right now I only have about $1,500 in savings. I have $1,000 or about $1,200 in a Roth IRA and then $1,000 in emergency funds. Okay. So here's what I'm hearing is that you really want to be a dietitian. You've always wanted to be a dietitian. Have you spent any time with a practicing dietitian, or have you just been so busy with school and work?

Okay, so you've done enough research, even shadowing, spending time with it to know this would light my heart on fire if I just snapped my fingers right now, Shiloh, and you didn't have to get a master's degree, and I could put you in a dietician role, you feel like, hey, this would be so fulfilling. This would be something that I've always wanted to do. Yeah. Okay. Well, here's the deal.

I got good news and bad news. The bad news is you don't have the money right now to be able to afford the master's. The good news is you will eventually, and the dietician role will still be relevant and still be there. So I think this is a buckle down, go really hard. In the professional world, you're making a good salary, you've had some health issues, and so you need to save up some money. But the reality is that you can save up $40,000 faster than you think you can, even with a second job, selling stuff, whatever you've got to do.

Here's another idea. Look for the opportunity to get the cheapest possible master's degree. Could you find a master's degree in this dietitian field that's less than $40,000? If so, do it, because here's what I can guarantee you, Shiloh. Your ability to become a dietitian is all based on you, not where you get the master's, because you're still going to have to sit for the boards, show them the degree, and nobody cares where you went to school. I want to challenge you, Shiloh.

I just did a quick search. And based on my search, dieticians and nutritionists, about the same median salary. Ah, interesting. And so if that means I can be a nutritionist and not get the master's degree and not go $40,000 into debt and do the dream faster, that might be an option for you. Okay. And Shiloh, I, George, thank you for doing that because here's the thing Shiloh no seriously I was walking through I'm glad you did the research um what if Shiloh you could move from being an executive assistant to be a practicing nutritionist and get paid well and be in a good company or a good situation and you're saving up and then if you felt like okay to go to the next level or to

max out in this area uh but at least you're in the field and you're practicing, you got all this experience, and you're saving up money in that field. And then if you really feel like down the road, I want to get that master's, now we can cash flow it. What about that option? Right. That sounds good. I feel good about this already. What do you make as an executive assistant? I'm at 50 right now. Yeah, that's pretty good. I mean, listen, you can work your way up in that if you go with the first option. You know, executive assistants can make as high as six figures. Yeah. In the right place, the right company. That's why I was like, well, is that kind of like silly to go back and go a different route? It's not silly.

No. I just want you to do what we want you to do it the right way at the right place. What I'm saying is you can increase your income as an executive assistant over the next two to three years, which will allow you to make more money. If you don't want to go the nutritionist route and you want to do the dietician route and the master's, what I'm saying is you can grow professionally as an executive assistant. I mean, you got a degree in it. I'm just trying to paint a positive picture that you can make really good money, save up money, invest in your 401k, you have no debt, get out of debt, all that stuff. You know what I'm

saying? And then cash flow your way through. You've got options. I just don't want you to go get a loan for a master's degree. It's not worth it. I'd rather you wait a couple of years, then go get the degree, get the job, and be digging out from underneath a mountain of debt. I don't want you to back yourself into a corner where you imagine that you only have two options. One is go $40,000 into debt to do the dream, or the other is stay in a job I don't like forever. Those aren't the options. And so I want you to just expand your horizons and go, hey, what if I could be an executive assistant for a dietician? That would be cool.

I'll get my foot in the door, proximity principle. Folks. Now I'm in the field I want to be in, and they'll hire you on as you get the education. They might even pay for it. Folks, the camel is sharp. The light bulb just went off, Ken. He's sharp.

I might go do this. I'm more excited than Shiloh is. Right, right. I'm pumped. What do you think about that? Hey, what George said is another really awesome option, you know? You talk about getting into the field and making things happen. I love this.

So no debt, right, Shiloh? You're not going to do debt. Not an option. Right. And then we get creative and go, if debt's not an option, how are we going to get there? What's the right path to where we can do this and it's not going to become a nightmare financially? I like it. Shiloh, thank you so much for calling us.

Love the call. We're pumped for you. And my wife is an executive assistant, so I've got to say shout out to all the executive assistants out there. It's very exciting. You make great money. It's a great role. Very exciting. Hey, that puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.

My thanks to Ken Coleman, my co-host, all the folks in the booth. You, America, we'll appreciate you. Until next time, spend wisely, save intentionally, and give generously. Do you love a good day, friends? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show channel on YouTube.