The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Invite Murphy Into Your Life! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: The best way to handle a large insurance settlement, Using the emergency fund to pay off the house, Defining your financial priorities. 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

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. We're so glad you're here, America. Thank you for joining us. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. The phone number, 888-825-5225. Frank is in Tallahassee, Florida to start off this hour. Hi, Frank. How are you?

Hey, Dave. Hey, Christina. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? How are you guys doing? Good. I got a quick question.

Me and my wife are on baby step three. We make a combined total of a little over 58 a year. We're debt-free besides our mortgage. 216K. You said baby, $216,000. Wait a minute. You said Baby Step 3. Oh, 3. You're working on your emergency fund.

Oh, I'm sorry, sir. We do have an emergency fund. So you're on Baby Step 4? Yes, sir. I believe. I'm sorry. That's okay. No trouble. I'm just trying to make sure I know where you are.

It's all good. Yes, sir. I have a personal injury settlement that's coming in, a little over $100K, and I'm trying to find the best way to place this money at so I don't mess it up. Now, me and my wife, we don't have a 401K or IRA. We're a little bit starting behind with that. Our jobs don't offer that. So we know, I've been doing some research and listening to you guys talk about IRA accounts and things like that. So we know we want to put some in there, but we can only put a certain amount in that account. But we're just trying to figure out what's the best way to do with

the rest of the money. We'll put it on the house or we'll go from there. So how much do you have left on your house right now? You said? 216. 216. All right. So y'all are in baby steps four through six, which baby step four is saving 15% for retirement. So I love that you're looking into an IRA and starting to figure out what you want to

do with retirement savings because that's the first place we want you to stop. Do you all have kids? We have three. Two of them are about to be seniors this year. One of them has, well, one of them has no ambition doing the college thing. They want to get a trade. It's like plumbing or carpentry work. They're having, one of them having a hard time in school. And the other one is my special needs daughter. And so she is thinking about just doing daycare. Okay. So baby step five is saving for your kid's college. You all have three kids. I'll be curious to get Dave's take on how much should go towards that. And then baby step six is paying off your house. So $100,000 is a good amount.

Dave, what do you think in terms of the split? Now, are you healed from the injury? No, sir. Well, I did 20 years of construction. Now I work two jobs. I had two jobs. I basically have one now. So I'm able to work, but I'm limited to the kind of work I can do. Okay.

Do you have future surgeries on this injury or any ongoing medical bills? No, sir. Okay. So we don't need to allocate any of this money to the injury itself? No, sir. Okay. And how much do you all have in your emergency fund right now? A little over $17,000.

Good for you. Well, you've done a really good job to this point, and you're doing a really good job because a lot of people that get a settlement check like this feel like they hit the lottery, and you instead are being all emotional and whoo-hoo and throwing confetti up. You're like, okay, this feels like a responsibility as much as a blessing. And you're approaching it with a lot of maturity. Way to go.

Good stuff. Thank you, sir. So, yeah, I'm with Christine. I would do a couple of Roth IRAs and set that up to where you've got automatically that $1,000 a month or so coming out. Probably doesn't have to be quite that much in the future out of your budget. You want to put 15% of your $60,000 aside, so that's not going to be quite that much. But, you know, let's make sure we're doing Roths automatically drafted and out of your budget going forward. Kids college, let's just say, okay, what do we need for kids college?

Let's just look at it, okay? Special needs daughters going into daycare. We don't have to worry about any funding of that, it sounds like. Probably do need to pay for some tech school for the boy that's going to be a plumber or some kind of technical training. If he would go get some community or some tech school type certifications, it will probably advance his career in the plumbing field, wouldn't it? Yes, sir. I think from what they're're telling me because he's a junior in high school

now that they can he can go to a trade school his senior year and he'll start trading him for training him for outside work outside in the fields yeah i would just look into post high school education for his field and say what's that going to cost and let's set aside some money for that because i'm a firm believer that whether you go to college or whether you're going to the trades doesn't matter to me but you need to get smarter than just high school everyone needs to do something after high school train for something okay um because the data is there that you know if you go to a two-year uh year diesel mechanic school, you make six figures. OK, in the trade. So you'll be a welder and you go to trade school.

That's fine. But let's put that into the budget here into this and say, OK, we need ten thousand bucks for this kid to do this. So we're going to set that aside. We're going to set aside twelve thousand for two Roth IRAs. We're going to set aside and then I'm going to look at the third one and go, okay, we're going to plan for that one maybe to go to college. And so what are we going to budget for that? And we're going to set some money aside for that. And then the rest of this I'm putting towards the house. Yes, sir. I'm probably also going to budget about $10,000 just to go do something fun.

Gotcha. Sounds like you guys have been through hell. You could use a little fun oh yeah that's yeah definitely that um and just so happens that you know i've been following your your uh your baby steps and and thank you for changing my life my wife's life uh and we just had a a scare with the roof so we're gonna have to get our roof replaced as well but i know i have emergency fun for that well you don't even have to use it i can use some of that hundred and not touch it for that if you want because you're gonna turn and put the emergency fund back out of the hundred if you use

it so you might as well uh but what i'm gonna do with the hundred is i'm gonna treat it like a monthly budget i know that sounds weird but i'm gonna say okay here's a hundred now i need to give every one of those dollars an assignment and And we were just doing that here, okay? Ten for fun, ten for plumbing, you know, 12 for two Roth IRAs. We're going to get the Roth set up. See what I'm doing? I'm starting to spend this money, in a sense, on paper like I'm doing a budget. Yes. And so go ahead and write it out with your wife and say, okay,

and we're going to fix the roof, and that's going to be six. And we're going to, you know, this car needs to be upgraded, and that's going to be 10 or 11 or 2 or whatever it is, or not. And then the rest of it we're going to throw at the house. But if you'll go ahead and, based on the baby steps and based on your household goals, give all of these dollars an assignment before the check gets there it's a lot easier once it gets there because what happens when you do that is you realize it's not that much money when you hear a hundred thousand bucks man i mean remember the first time i thought somebody's gonna send me a hundred thousand bucks i about went crazy i

thought that's so much money and then once you get it it's not it just it it just goes i mean it's just not it sounds like it's a lot and it is it's more than i used you know but but but yeah it's unique it calms you down to give every one of these dollars an assignment before the check gets there don't wail the check gets there to do it you'll make mistakes this is the Ramsey Show. In an uncertain world, being a good steward of your money is more 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. That's chministries.org slash budget.

Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Have you noticed that the stock market is down well if you looked at it you noticed and some people are more than just noticing they're like stressed out freaked out going oh my gosh i'm in freak out mode a little drama queen action going right yeah well you need somebody in your corner when this stuff's going on that can talk you off the ledge so to speak you need someone to walk with you talk with you teach you and that way you don't jump into the market now the market at exactly the wrong times which is what your emotion will cause you to do the data shows that the people who work with an investing with an investing professional

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Free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Noah in Arizona. I'm about to graduate from high school. I have no credit card and I was wondering how I can prove that I can pay my bills on time to an apartment owner to get a lease if I haven't started any major bills yet. The only bills I pay so far is car insurance. Do you have any guidance? Well, hey Noah, good on you for thinking about that now. You sound like one of our foundation students who are getting that stuff in order early on, which is awesome.

One of the biggest things they're going to want to see is your income. So I would really focus on that early on. You know, they're going to want to see a steady income history, which I know that can be hard straight out of high school. If you start working early on, maybe live somewhere with your parents for a bit and have that income history. That's great. But also look into options like having roommates. I mean, you may not qualify for an apartment straight away if you don't have that steady job and proof that you can pay. But you could always get a roommate who's got a lease and you can sign on and get a room with them. So, Noah, what's interesting is, is this is one of the most pervasive myths out there.

It's an absolute lie. You have to have a credit score to rent an apartment. You just don't. It's a lie. You know how we know? We took one of our Ramsey personalities, got them on the phone, put it on YouTube, and they called 27 apartment complexes and said, Hey, I'm moving to Nashville for for my first job i don't have anything except a job i have never borrowed any money i don't have any credit score is that okay can i

rent an apartment there and they're like yeah sure do i have to do anything special some of them said you need to put up a little larger deposit um some of them said we need to see your w2 we need to see a you know when you see a pay stub from the new job. Well, I haven't ever borrowed any money. I don't have a credit score. No problem. No problem. Out of 27, three of them had a problem.

Three. That's good odds. And these were like regular apartment complexes, corporate management, corporate ownership, all this stuff. So this idea that you have to have a credit score to rent an apartment is absolute bullcrap now some yeah that's true it is harder to rent a car with a debit card than it is to rent an apartment with no credit score much harder much harder so this is just one of those things that people, this mythology that people tell, we used to call it in the legal world, they call it street law.

Everybody thinks they know what the law is because they heard something one time on Matlock, you know, and they don't know anything about the law. But everybody then starts to believe this myth, this lie, and it's spread around. Here's the thing. Noah, call 20 apartment complexes and prove me wrong you're going to find three of them won't let you in and 17 of them will some of them want a higher deposit they all want what christina said they want proof of income they just want to know you can pay the bill if apartment complexes never rented to young people doing

their first job they'd have no customers old people that have been on the job 25 years are not in apartment complexes people most of the time they're not the primary customer anyway okay so i just i kind of believed it and then anthony o'neill that used to be one of our personalities sat down dialed the phone and the youtube of him dialing that phone nope nope nope nope nope it's humorous it's so ridiculous and because it's one of these things that's just widely believed to be true that is an Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. It's humorous. It's so ridiculous. Because it's one of these things that's just widely believed to be true that is an absolute lie. That's humorous to me. It's the emperor has no clothes thing.

We all believe that it's this way, and we're afraid to say out loud that it's not until you prove them with actual data. And so just amazing. So let that myth be busted. There we pop that puppy all right britney's with us britney's in cincinnati how are you britney i am better than i deserve dave good how can we help i am calling to ask if we should pull from the emergency fund to help pay off our house is it an emergency no why is it called an emergency fund then exactly so we were a little bit hesitant because we received an inheritance check and with that check and what we have in our checking and our savings, including the emergency, we could pay off our house in full. Okay, so how much do you owe on your house?

After August, we will owe $61,000. And how much was the inheritance check? $25,000. Okay, and how much do you have in your emergency fund? We have in that account $20,000, but only $12,000 earmarked for emergency. Okay. So you have a $12,000 emergency fund. Yes. And then in our checking accounts, we have $20,000.

Okay. Well, the $ the twenty thousand from your checking and the eight thousand that is not earmarked as an emergency fund are not in this discussion that's all going towards the house right that gets you there though doesn't it almost almost yeah and then what's your household income um a little over seventy six thousand dollars yeah well we do not recommend you go below the 12 which is your emergency fund so the answer is no we don't use your emergency fund to pay off your house now if you had an emergency fund there was three to six months of expenses and you were on the six month side and you wanted to cheat back to the three month side for a little bit and that would do it but that won't do it here, number one.

Number two, your emergency fund's not huge. $12,000 is not huge. Yeah, we're very frugal. Yeah. So $12,000 is good. I'm happy with that, but I wouldn't go below that. Okay. What do you think, Christina?

Yeah, I agree. I love that you want to pay off the house, and I below that. Okay. What do you think, Christina? Yeah, I agree. I think I love that you want to pay off the house, and I think that's awesome to be in Baby Step 7. But I think I would just take it a little bit slower to stay safe. I wouldn't jeopardize the emergency fund because, again, you could have a roof problem or a leak, and then all of a sudden you're in a whole other different issue. So I love keep the gas on the pedal and keep going forward, but just maybe slow it down just a tad bit. How much was the inheritance again? Well, we've had several portions, but this time it was $25,000. Okay.

All right, so you have $53,000 if you don't touch the 12 and you need 61. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you're within $8,000 and you make $70,000. So you're going to pay off the house by the first of the year anyway, give or take. Yes. Yeah. So, no, we're not going to blow the emergency fund. Because all it does is take about six months off this process, and you're within reach.

If you've got something else you can sell that you want to pay off the house, I'm okay with that, but I'm not going into the emergency fund. Let me tell you what. When you mess with your emergency fund for something that's not an emergency, it's sending an engraved invitation to Murphy saying, Murphy, come screw with my life because he will. He's standing there ready to come, and you just open the Murphy gate and let him in. Don't do that.

This is the Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Teresa is with us from Lincoln, Nebraska, on on the debt-free stage. How are you? Good how are you doing? Bit of a haul from Lincoln to Nashville. It was a long drive. Well welcome. How much debt did you pay off? $46,303. Way to go and how long did this take you? 13 months. Good for you and your range of income during that time? I started at $39,000 and went to $79,000. Wow, very cool. What kind of debt was the $46,000? I had student loans, a car loan, credit card debt, everything.

You were kind of normal. A little bit. So what happened and made you weird? I mean, you got lined up on this Ramsey stuff. Tell us the story. So I actually met my current boyfriend, and we went on our first date, and yes, we did talk about money.

He's a real romantic, isn't he? It was natural. He asked me though what my goal was for a bit and I told him I wanted to be debt free before I was 30. At the time, I was 25. I was about to turn 26 and he was like, okay, yeah. You know, he told me about you, told me how he came on here two years ago he did his scream oh he's debt free told me his life i was like okay like this guy's debt free he's kind of attractive yeah exactly it processed a couple weeks later he gifted me the total money makeover read it in like a two days subtle as a brick through a window, isn't he? Once he gifted it,

I read it, it clicked, and I was like, nope, I've got to do this. So I started hustling. I sold a truck I had. I had a 77 Chevy that I sold as my baby, and I told him, I will never sell this truck. I'll never get rid of this. It's not going anywhere. What did it sell for? $4,500 4500 it was hard i still to this day i'm like i'm getting that thing back one day um i had a car i sold that i think that's when he took me seriously that i was serious about getting out of debt at that point because he was like wow she sold her truck i told him i'm never selling this thing finally sold my truck sold my car after that i started hustling just started working before work,

full-time job after work. And after that, I just, once I got into it, it was a competition and I couldn't stop with myself. I was like, oh, I'm going to beat this 17 months. I'm going to beat this 15 months. I'm going to beat it even more than that. And I just kept going and going and going. And then once I got done, it was like, I'm done. man I love that I was gonna ask you what was the hardest part but it sounds like the truck the truck was hard yes in the beginning but just continually going was really hard for me you know after so long you're just like I'm so tired tired of working 15 16 what do you do for a living I'm a compliance analyst for an energy company so you had extra hours doing that or you picked up side gigs side gigs what was the best paying side hustle um probably grocery delivery yeah i did it all i did i think

i had like eight of them at one point in time but whatever everything i could i'm not afraid of hard work are you nope and you did this pretty quick too 13 months that's that's impressive yeah i think when i started it was 16 months and i was like, nope, can't do that. And my original goal was 11, but I blew a tranny in my car. So I had to get another car and just a bunch of stuff happened, medical bills and other things piled on top of that. So you're working like crazy. You're selling things like crazy. Did people think you were crazy? Oh yeah. People kept asking me, why are you working so much? Why are you doing this? What are you doing? why what are you doing why and it just was clear to me I understood why I wanted that lifestyle I was sick and tired of

constantly making payments not being able to make those payments or only having you know 50 bucks at the end of the day to go and get groceries I was just tired of that lifestyle I didn't want to do it and now I mean when I blew that transmission in that car before that would have been the end of the world I would have been crying and everywhere I still remember that day I called him and I was like just blew the tranny he's like what and we're like okay we'll figure it out and I was like all right yeah it's cool we'll get a new car yeah in a matter of moments we had another one lined up and ready to go and it was like like, just, I was like, wow, this is what it feels like to have that freedom to not stress and not have to put yourself backwards and use a credit card to do it or get a

loan to do it as well. Yeah. It goes from being like this life altering emergency to an inconvenience. It's like, oh man, that's unfortunate, but we can, we can afford this. So for somebody who's on the fence, who's thinking about starting the baby steps, who has a lot of debt, what would you tell them right now? Figure out your why and what motivates you and push to get to that goal. You know, I'm a little bit competitive. Go on a date with somebody that went through financial peace. Or that. That works, too.

But, hey, I got FPU on my own. I went through it all. I watched them religiously religiously took notes i'm a note person wow so i did that on my own after he gave me the book and after that it just clicked in my mind and i was like man what am i doing this is crazy i'm more i'm working too hard to be living this stressful you know yeah you're you're amazing well done girl you got after it i love it so proud of you so you're you got out of debt by 26 is that what you said um no 27 just want to turn 27 okay all right way to go shy not even 30 years old though nope beat that goal you are free you are free which i mean previously you thought you were just gonna be there your whole life yeah i i've honestly never lived a life of not having debt.

This is the first, and I have never felt more free. You know, coming up here, I would have been super stressed about, oh, let's go out to eat. No, no, no. Like, we've got to stick to this budget. We're on a trip. We're still on a budget, though. I mean, we're on a budget, but we're still having fun. We're still being able to go and do what we want. We swipe the debit card or cash when we go to dinner or whatever we do.

So I love that feeling. It's amazing. I would never go back to that. Completely in control instead of out of control and don't know what's going to happen. Exactly. The ambient anxiety that just hangs in the air around you when you don't have a plan and you're not executing. Even when you're not out of debt yet, once you've got the plan, the anxiety drops off. Oh, yeah.

Because you're just like, game on. Like when the transmission hit and all that. It's the same thing. It's just game on, game on, game on, game on. So this is your biggest cheerleader, I assume. This was my biggest cheerleader, yep. Okay. My mom and my sister were extremely supportive.

They're listening right now okay did they think you were crazy or they and they still supported you or they thought yeah finally she's gonna do this i think they thought i was a little bit crazy for how much i was working and oh you need to slow down but at the end of the day they knew exactly why i was doing it too you know just to have that freedom i'm my stress levels my anxiety levels it's like to a healthy late rate now, you know, not where I was at, where I couldn't, you know, it was just, it was really big struggle. And right before I happened to do this, I moved into my own apartment again. I was, you know, going through

some crazy time in life and there's just, I couldn't even afford, I mean, at the end of that month, I think I had like 50 bucks for groceries. So it was like doing what I could with friends to try and, you know, like, hey, I'll babysit your kids. But then that means I get a meal or something. So I'm not having to stress about the money. And now it's like I don't even stress about it at all. Yeah. I bet they are so proud of you. You are a walking, breathing example.

That is awesome. Yeah. Very well done. You're a rock star we're proud of you thank you very very cool good stuff good stuff excellent job all right now that you've done it what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is don't give up just keep going you know why you're doing it you know what you want what was the low point when you almost gave up oh i think it was probably like the last final months. It was

just that point where I was like, I'm so tired. I'm exhausted. I was sleeping minimal hours because I was working like crazy. And it was just that hard internal drive to not, you know, I couldn't stop. I knew I couldn't stop, but I didn't want to keep going either. But I knew I didn't want to be in debt. So I was like, choose your heart. What's your heart going to be? Either work or, you know, do your fun and whatever. But at the end of the day, going through and having fun didn't make me happy because I knew I was doing it on debt or it was going to catch up to me later on. So getting that out of the way, it was just freedom.

Yeah, there's your lock for now. Choose your heart. I love that. You're going to have one. Choose it. Got a copy of Baby there's your lock for now. Choose your heart. I love that. You're going to have one. Choose it. Got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That's the next chapter in your story. You're going to be one.

No question about it in my mind. A copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away. Maybe some of those naysayers need some help. And a Financial Peace University membership as well. And you've been through it, but maybe you can give that away and help somebody. Very proud of you,issa lincoln nebraska 46 000 paid off in 13 months make it 39 to 79 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt-free Yeah! This is how it's done! Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop!

And not even 30. Boom! This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you. our scripture of the day romans 12 13 take a constant interest in the needs of god's beloved people and respond by helping them and eagerly welcome people as guests into your home robert lewis stevenson said don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. Jackie is with us in Honolulu. Hi, Jackie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. How are y'all? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Well, me and my husband, we're doing good. I just have a question as to where to put the savings that we have.

Maybe you guys can help us out. We have combined $47,000 in debt, and also we are planning an actual wedding next year. Wedding and honeymoon, we want to spend no more than $10,000. I have saved up $19,000 that i've had since before we got together and i want to put that to worse or dead um but my husband thinks that we should put it towards the wedding and then just keep the remaining as an emergency fund so we're kind of debating as to where to put the money um and i just wanted to see if you guys can give us some advice what's your household income going to be after you're married?

Well, we got married in court, so we're together now. We just got a promotion, so together we're going to make $170,000. You got married what? We've been married for 10 months, but it was only a court wedding. So we want to have an actual wedding next year that our family can be there because our parents were sick, so they't able to be there gotcha so you want to have a celebration but you're married yeah and i want to get married to church because i'm catholic so i still have to do that so yeah okay that's fine that's fine all right so now what is your household income today then uh together is 170k 170 000 wow you make a lot of money to be this broke.

Well, I mean, I technically didn't really have much debt, but now we're married, so it's ours. And you're wanting to know which order to pay off the debt? Is that the question? Yeah, because I have $19,000 in savings, and I wanted to pay off my car, and that will leave me 5K. But now with him, he has 33K in debt, motorcycle and student loans, and we also have a wedding coming up. When is the wedding celebration planned?

It's planned for next year in September. This coming September or a year from September? A year from now, so 2023, September. You have a lot of September? A year from now. So 2023, September. You have a lot of time to save for that wedding. Well, and especially with that income. Yeah. Especially with that income, I think you can knock out the debt well before the wedding.

And in terms of what order, we recommend the debt snowball, which is where you list your debts from smallest to largest, regardless of the interest rates. And you start paying on that smallest debt with aggression. You want to pour everything into that while paying minimum payments on the rest. And then you're going to pay that off. And then you're going to take the payment from that and pay off the next debt and put all of your aggression into that next debt. And it kind of builds up like a snowball rolling downhill. So yeah, definitely starting with that smallest debt is where we want you. So Jackie, let's talk to him about this. Let me throw out some numbers to you, if I got these right.

Tell me if I got them right. Okay, you have $47,000 in debt, and you need $10,000 for a wedding. That's $57,000. Okay, so if you had a wedding in Septemberember 14 months from now and you were debt free we need 57 000 to do those two things 14 months from now does that sound right to you yeah okay you have 20 000 19 yeah basically okay so you only need 37 000 in 14 months while making 170 grand i mean really i think we can do that okay so i would take uh all but one thousand dollars of the 19 baby step one we teach a thing called the baby steps

baby step one's a thousand dollars saved baby step two is pay off all of your debts smallest to largest so i'm going to put eighteen thousand dollars on the forty seven thousand dollars worth of debt tomorrow tonight at on the computer whatever we do okay i'm going to get on a written budget and the two of you are going to be on beans and rice rice and beans no eating out no vacations no frills we're getting out of debt and we're saving for a wedding and if you can't save or move thirty seven thousand dollars out of 170 in 14 months something's wrong with you people yeah really i mean that leaves you 130 000 bucks to live on yeah i mean hawaii is expensive come on you can get out of it come on 130 grand

you can't live on 130 grand no yeah we can okay that leaves you 40 to pay off debt and you'll be debt free easy that's like a hot knife through butter kiddo well and it's just for a season too it's not forever it's just for this one little period of time so the point is you can be debt free and have the money for the wedding easily by one year from september especially given we got 18 000 bucks to throw at it. Now, I don't know if you all are going to do that or not, because it sounds like you guys are just kind of sniffing around the edges of this stuff. You haven't decided who you want to be yet, and for sure, he doesn't want to do it.

So you guys got to decide, do we want to be debt-free? Because here's the point. You can be debt-free and have a wedding for ten thousand dollars in september of 23 it's only a question of if you will mathematically we're all agreeing right now it's possible and it is what you should do so we we know what you should do we know what you should do. We know what you can do. The only thing we don't know is what you will do. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking of using the savings,

but you were telling me we should keep them for the wedding in an emergency. Where were you in the last five minutes? I mean, I don't know. I want to pay it off. Okay. All right. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a wedding gift for your court wedding,

and we'll see if it sticks for your Catholic wedding. I'm going to send you a copy of the Total Money Makeover. You and hubby read that thing, and you're going to start to figure out that I'm right, okay? You cannot save money at $19,000 while you have a car debt and all this other debt, and your money's making a half a percent in the bank and get ahead you make $170,000 you spend money like you're in

congress you're going to have to get this in control and until you do you're going to live a life of regret you're going to wake up with a financial hangover and you're going to feel like you live in chaos and anxiety to anxiety to anxiety like you do right now. And that's why you called me, Jackie. That's why you called me for that. You called Christina because she's nice. Well, Jackie, I was going to say, too, like I would encourage you all to go on a date and talk about your why. It seems like right now paying off the debt doesn't seem like a super huge priority. But like we said earlier, it's just a season.

Like if you can get through this season and have a so that, I think you'll see that it's worthwhile. This isn't going to be forever. You said you want to get a house and there's different things you want to do, but dream up what that looks like and think about how's it going to feel to be debt-free. We had that debt-free scream earlier and she said the thing that kept her going was her why. So live in that for a little bit. Think of what it is and think of how it'll feel and how good it's going to feel. The shortest distance between where you are right now and wealth is to get on a plan, learn to work together, and clear this debt so that you've got the

$170,000. You make a wonderful income. It'd be a shame to get to the end of your life, have made this kind of money, and have absolutely nothing to show for it. That'd be a shame to get to the end of your life have made this kind of money and have absolutely nothing to show for it that'd be a shame don't do that don't live that life so you're gonna you're gonna get a sense of pride a sense of empowerment a sense of togetherness when you're working towards a shared goal like christina's talking about a big why because i think you could be very very wealthy in five to seven years if you'll get your crap together but not with the conversation i'm having with you right now you're just a dog chasing his tail right now i mean you're just back and forth back and forth

man maybe we need to save a little listen the deal is we teach this stuff we've taught it to 10 million people this works we've made more millionaires than anybody you've ever talked to. And that's why the latest bestselling book is Baby Steps Millionaires, because we show you how to do it. Now, kiddo, you can do this. We just looked at the numbers. The only question is, will you? That's the only question remaining.

You should and you can, but will you? Hang on. Austin, I'll pick up and we'll give you a book. You're seeing a good hour? Well done. Well done to Kelly, to Andrew, to Zach, to Ben, to Austin, the team in the booth. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. 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. Have you been inspired to make a change with your money? Want to know where to start? Take our three-minute money quiz to get a plan you can follow. Go to ranzysolutions.com and search for Get Started to get a plan for your money.