The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Let Someone Else Control Your Destiny! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Austin is starting off this hour in St. Louis. Hey, Austin, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you? It's an honor to speak with you. You too, sir. What's up?

Oh, I've just got a question about paying back student loans. So my wife graduates next month, and I graduated and started paying. So I'm wondering if we should wait to where her payments have to start being paid at the end of this year or go ahead and start because I waited. So I'm just trying to figure out if we should start on that immediately or wait. Well, what we teach folks to do is to get out of debt using a thing called the debt snowball, where you list all of your debts, not counting your home, smallest to largest, yours and hers, because now it's we, because we are married. Okay?

And we pay minimum payments on everything but the smallest debt. Now, hers, right now, minimum payment is zero, right? Correct. Okay, so I would pay minimum payments on that one until I got to it, on the debt snowball. And then when I got to it on the debt snowball, whether or not I was through the grace period, I would attack it with a vengeance and knock it out. All right. So has she got some small debts that would be towards the top of your debt snowball,

and you would get to them before they came out of the grace period? Yes. Okay. Most of the grace periods have interest accru out of the grace period? Yes. Okay. Most of the grace periods have interest accruing during the grace period. Do these? Yes. Well, then there's no point in delaying it. Okay.

The sooner you get rid of it, the sooner you get rid of the interest, right? Correct. You're just not gaining any ground by getting rid of a payment because it doesn't yet have a payment. That's all. Yeah. But it's a small so how much student loan debt have you got and how much has she got uh i have about 49 000 left and hers i believe about she'll have about 35 36 okay and your household income is what uh about 50 right

now she starts working right after she graduates. When will she graduate? May, next month from yesterday. Oh, great. And what will she be doing? She's going to be an RN. Oh, wonderful. So she can work like a crazy person. Lots of hours.

Lots of hours. Very good. Yep. Okay. So your income is going to more than double? Yes. She ought to be making $70,000 with OT straight out of the chute in St. Louis. Yeah, definitely.

And so you've got $120,000 household income, okay, and you've got $85,000 to clean up. So it sounds like two years to me. All right. The whole puppy's done get after it dude you got this you can do it thanks for calling in keith switherson new york city hi keith how are you i'm good how are you sir better than i deserve what's up well my wife and i are 120 000 in debt and right now i'm kind of confused on what to do. We have car loans. We have a lot of different things going on and I'm lost.

Well, I understand. I don't know where to start. Sounds like a little overwhelming. Break that debt down for me. How much is owed on the cars? Okay. On the cars, we have $53,000. Okay. And so you've got about $70,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so you've got about $70,000 in other stuff. What is that?

Okay. We have credit cards. That are what? About $55,000 in credit cards. Okay. And, excuse me, the other debt is timeshare debt. Timeshare. Okay.

You don't have student loans? No, no student loans. That's's good news what's your household income yeah well right now we bring home about eighty four hundred dollars a month good okay cool and are you putting money into your 401ks now a couple of dollars, yes. Okay. All right. And are you living on a budget yet? No, not yet. All right. Is she as overwhelmed and frustrated and scared as you are? Yes, yes, because what happened was she decided, oh, we can get a new car, and we went and leased a new car, and that kind of hurt. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, everything, you know, I heard a guy tell me one time, at least a new car, and they kind of hurt. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, everything, you know, I heard a guy tell me one time, he was talking about just being successful in general. He said the problem with setting goals that cause you to become successful is not what you're willing to do to hit the goal. It's what you're willing to give up. You know, I'll work my butt off that's one thing but what am i willing to give up and if you want to be debt free making 130 000 a year which you guys are 135 000 a year

and be debt free you're gonna have to give up some stuff and i don't know if you're scared enough to do that yet or not. That'll be up to you. These are emotional, personal decisions. Now, I know having walked in, you know, walked in this personal finance stuff, my wife, Sharon, and I for 40 years now, 35 years now uh and walked with millions of people literally without exaggeration over the last 25 years i know where you'll end up if you'll do these things so it's real easy for me to give up your stuff okay but because i can see the end of

it for you i can see how you're gonna win but i don't know if you can see the end of it for you. I can see how you're going to win. But I don't know if you can see that yet or not. See, I can see that with the kind of money you make, you could be 100% debt free and be on the path to being a millionaire, you know, in about a year and a half. A year and a half? Yeah, but I've sold both of your cars. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. See what I did?

See? You want this knife back? Yeah. Reach around behind your back. It's between your shoulder blades, dude. Wow. You know, because, see, I don't. No, you don't.

You just sell it and cover the lease. You'll be upside down. You'll have to cover some upside down. But you make so much money, and you're so broke. It's so pitiful. Yeah. I just don't want that for you, man. I want you to win.

And so I know if you'll drive like no one else later, you can drive like no one else. I know if you'll live like no one else later, you can give and live like no one else. Because I've done it, and I've seen so many other people do it. But you're kind of brand new to this whole idea. But the deeper you sacrifice, the faster you win. You know? Wow. It's like if you said, I'm going to retire in five years.

Yeah. Well, you know, you're broke. I know. So we've got to do something different, don't we? It's up to you how radical you want to get. But the more radical you get, the more radical your results are going to be in a good way. Hold on. I'll send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover.

It'll shock your system even more. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health care ministries or chm helps christian families churches and ministries join together as the body of christ to share their major health care costs christian health care ministries is the original health cost sharing ministry a better business bureau accredited organization chm members share to pay each other's medical bills.

It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years. And our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Thank you for joining us. Matt is in Chattanooga. Hey, Matt, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

How are you today, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? I wanted to ask about paying off a mortgage versus taking money and investing it. I'm only going to be in a house for, say, another three to five years. Okay. So the balance on the mortgage is less than $100,000. I have been adding additional principal to get it paid off sooner. And other than a car loan that's instant free, I really don't have any other debt. How much money do you have in savings, not counting retirement? About $20,000. And how much is owed on the car?

Nine. Okay. The way I answer questions on this show, Matt, is knowing what I know about building wealth and the shortest path to building wealth is to be debt-free. What would I do if I woke up in your shoes? I would take $9,000 and pay the car off in 20 seconds, regardless of the fact that it's interest-free. And I wouldn't fall for that crap again, because the only way you get a zero-interest car loan is you buy a new one, and when you drive it off the lot, you just lost a ton of value. That's called interest. So you did not get an interest-free car. That's a joke. Anyway, then from there, I would go ahead and start paying off the house as soon as you have your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses in place.

So I want you to have three to six months of expenses. Above that, be putting 15% of your income into retirement. That's what we call baby step four. And then, of course, start pushing and pushing and pushing towards a house, even though you're going to be moving. Here's the thing. There's no harm in paying off the house. You're making your mortgage interest rate as a return on your money versus sitting in a savings account making a.09% or something like that, right? And so you pay off the house. You make 3%, 4%, 5%,

whatever your mortgage rate is on your money, and the money's not gone. When you sell your house, they give you a check for your equity. You get the money back at closing. And so it's a great way to stabilize your financial situation while you're making the decision if you're going to move. But now that you're going to move, or when you decide to move, if you have paid it off or you've almost paid it off,

you just sell the house, they give you a check at closing, you move the money to the next deal. But I'm always working towards having your everything paid off, including your house, because think about it. If you don't have any payments, oh, baby, you got money. It's a pretty simple formula. And if you got money because you don't have any payments, then you can give more, save more, invest more, enjoy more, instead of sending it to the bank.

And we get caught up in this country like a rat in a wheel where all the money comes in, all the money goes back out to some stupid bank it's like we work for bank of america we work for ford motor credit and we shouldn't spend our lives working for them we should spend our lives building a financial legacy so we retire with dignity and so that we can change our family tree. Tyler is with us in Fresno. Hi, Tyler. How are you? Hey, how's it going, Mr. Ramsey?

Better than I deserve. What's up? All right, so I'm a senior in high school right now, and I'm actually taking a financial literacy class through an ROP program. And I recently just got accepted into UCLA, but my family and where I am at right now, I won't be able to afford it unless I get student loans. So, I mean, I know you say, like,

because my teacher actually uses a lot of your principles in teaching about credit cards and how it's, like, it's better to set more money aside to save than to go through the hassle of having to pay off these credits and possibly getting into more and more debt. So I was wondering how you think I should go about getting a student loan or paying off school. It's $32,000 a year approximately. Gotcha. Okay. And do you have any money at all?

I do have some, but it won't be much after the first couple semesters. How much money do you have? It's about $40,000. Okay. $40,000. All right, good, good. So that gets you through a year. Yeah.

Okay, that's good. Where'd you get that? I've been going there for about four years. Yeah, I was planning that. I knew that. I knew UCLA was a four-year school. And so what do you plan on studying? I plan on studying aeronautics and jet propulsion.

Okay. Because I know they have a very good space program there. Gotcha. Okay. And have you looked at what your curriculum looks like the first year? No aeronautics or jet propulsion in your curriculum for the first year? Yeah. Well, the first year is just going to be a lot of general ed that's just required.

I know. Coming straight out of high school. And then as well as aerospace, dynamics, and physics. Yeah, you'll pick up most of your things specific to your field of study in your junior and your senior year, maybe a tiny bit in your sophomore year. But your first two years are primarily general studies in most degree fields, okay? And that's pretty standard with most four-year universities. Okay, there's two or three things to think about.

Number one, I'm never going to tell you to borrow money. The 30-year-old version of you is going to be pissed at the 18-year-old version of you if you go deeply in debt to go to UCLA to get a degree in jet propulsion. This is not going to turn out well, okay? So let's just start with the premise we're not going to borrow money. Now, how in the world can we get through four years of school with $40,000 if we're not going to borrow money? The number one thing that causes people to go in debt is their choice of school.

You wisely have chosen an in-state school. However, you can do one or maybe two years of community college, get your basics out of the way, and in California, that's free. Free. Okay? Not what you wanted to do. You wanted to go to UCLA, move in the dorm, play some beer pong on the weekends. But I'm wanting you to go to community college since you're a broke guy.

I've been a broke guy. I don't want you to be a broker guy the second thing i want you to consider is how much work you can do between now and the next five years and i'm not talking about flopping whoppers at minimum wage i'm talking about starting a real legitimate small business idea or doing something in the jet propulsion field or getting into an apprentice program of some kind or uh considering you know the military as an option or something along these lines to where someone gives you so much money for working that you just work your way through college and you can do that especially with a forty thousand dollar head start okay because you got two years before of work

to build up the next $40,000. And you can make that, delivering pizzas. Now, you're not going to have party life. You're going to be working. Dude, I worked 40 to 60 hours a week when I was in college, and I did not die from it, and I graduated in four years. Most people work while they're in college, at least the last three generations up until now. Now people go $150,000 in debt and call it a necessity, and it's not a necessity. Okay?

So where you go to school, how you go to school, how much you work. The next one is your new part-time job, in addition to your other job, is applying for scholarships. I want you to apply for 1,000 scholarships in the coming 12 months. I want you to scour the Internet for anything having to do with your race, creed, color, national origin, your heritage, your jet propulsion scholarships, aeronautics scholarships, scholarships from American Airlines or Boeing for people that want to, because they want people sharp like you to be ready to come into their field

and having studied it. And if you will get turned down for 950 scholarships and get $52,000 scholarships and you go to community college for one year for free or two years for free, and you work your butt off all the way through school, ta-da, you don't need a loan. It'll work. Now the question is, are you really going to do that? Are you going to take what you think is the easy way out, which is a student loan,

and you'll find out when you're what you think is the easy way out, which is a student loan? And you'll find out when you're 30, it wasn't the easy way out. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Cameron and Marie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, we're good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? St. George, Utah. Oh, cool.

Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way over to Tennessee to do a debt-free screen. Yeah. I love it. How much have you paid off? $50,000. And how long did it take? 22 months. Way to go. And your range of income during that time? $60,000 to $85,000. Okay. What do you all do for a living? I work in healthcare management, and she stays at home and takes care of kids. All right. Very cool. What kind of debt was your 50 000 um well we had some cars and we had

some credit cards and we had some bike mountain bike to pay off okay all right and uh how long have you guys been married almost 13 years this month so what happened 22 months ago that lit the fuse on this so i uh i started a business some people, and I failed miserably like five years ago. Oh. And as part of that, I was supposed to be receiving income, and it wasn't coming. And so we used credit cards to live on. Oh. And so we had about $25,000 in credit card debt.

Mm-hmm. in credit card debt. And I started a job at a new company, and they, 22 months ago or so, introduced a new program that was called the Smart Dollar. All right. Very good. And I thought, hey, maybe it's time. So we finally owned up to the money and decided nobody was ever going to pay us for that, even though we thought it was owed or whatever,

and just took care of it ourselves. There you go. Very cool. So just said, we're going to attack this and take responsibility. If we ever get the money later, it'll just be gravy on the biscuit. Exactly. Very cool. For those of you who don't know, Smart Dollar is a program like Financial Peace University,

very similar, that is taught in companies. Companies buy it and teach it as an employee benefit, and that's what you guys have there, right? Yep. Very cool. What's the name of your company uh family health care awesome well tell them thanks for teaching it we appreciate them well being a customer and taking good care of you yeah well done well done so how's it feel you're debt free awesome worth the trouble yeah okay what do you tell what do you tell people

the key to getting out of debt is i think one of the big keys is to trust in God. We've always been tithe payers, so we just continue to do that and then change our mindset and said, you know, it's in your hands. We'll do our part if you can help us out and fill in the gaps. Well, you were already doing the tithe, but you had to do something different yourself, right? That's right. What did you do different? Well, we decided to set a budget.

And this budget was a tool. I always thought of budgets as just like an exercise in pinching. Where else can we pinch, right? But budget can be a tool in empowering us. And we actually get to be intentional about choosing where how many goes well that's good very very cool well congratulations okay so some of the folks at work were doing this while you were doing it i hope you had a cheerleader or two there where else did you have some cheerleaders telling you this will work well we had lots of cheerleaders i have a really good friend who i

work with who's already debt free um and actually for for my birthday, we'd started in January and then in May, it was my birthday and he gave me a check and it had a picture of your face next to it. And you were cutting up a credit card and it said, Dave Ramsey says, get debt-free. And then it had an amount on it and then it said on the memo line, debt. Wow. It was sort of a kickstart. The first four months, we actually only had like $300 extra to put toward anything

and it was toward that mountain bike because it had to be paid off or we were going to start getting interest. Right. So we just had to tighten up and we had like a $250 food budget for six people and we just went for it

and he was a huge cheerleader. My parents have always lived debt-free, which is awesome. So we just had a lot of people. Her dad's a banker and he's always been a good example, too. So we had a lot of help that way. Very cool.

Well, well done, you guys. We're proud of you. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, number one bestseller. That is the next chapter in your story for you guys to go on and build some wealth now. Next step, next step. You brought the kiddos with you on the trip? We did.

Okay. What are their names and ages? Let's introduce this is phoebe she's 10 piper 7 hawkins is 5 and maverick's 4 all right very cool well congratulations you guys we're very very proud of you all right there we go i love it cameron and marie phoebeiper, Hawkins and Maverick from St. George, Utah. $50,000 paid off in 22 months. Make it 60 to 85. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Okay. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. Proud of you. Great job. That is exactly how you do that.

Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos that they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSEY to get the best deal. Our question comes from Jordan in Iowa. I'm wondering if I should contribute, should continue to invest 15% of my monthly income

when I have a pension plan that will be 80% of my top three highest years paid. I will top out at $79,000. I plan on retiring in 28 years. Yes, you should always be putting 15% of your income into retirement when you're in baby step four. There's very, very few exceptions. I would not sit around and count on a pension, as many of them as are poorly managed, and get people in trouble all the time. I would not sit around and wait on someone else to control my destiny. I think you'll get the pension. I don't think it's going broke. I'm not predicting the end of pensions,

but I do not let my destiny sit in other people's hands. And that's what you're doing when you say, I'm going to count on the pension, or I'm going to count on Social Security, or I'm going to count on whatever. And so, therefore, I'm not going to build wealth. With the 401k, the Roth IRAs, and so forth, you are building wealth that you control. You have to control the controllables.

There are things you can't control in this life, but there are things you can control, and you have to control the ones you can control in order to win at anything, but certainly at building wealth, without a doubt. Phil is in New York. Hi, Phil. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Ramsey. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. I guess I have a refinancing question. So I read your Total Money Makeover book, and my plan is to be debt-free by the end of 2020. I also looked into refinancing so I could free up some more money to put towards my debt. And right now my interest rate is about 3.625%, but I have a PMI, which is $200 a month. So my mortgage is coming out to be $2,700 a month. The refinance that they offered

me was $2,576 without a PMI, but they're going to give me a 4.6% interest rate. I owe about $325,000 on my house. And I don't really know if it ends up being worth it. I bought the house about five years ago. You do not need to refinance with those numbers. You're going up in interest rate more than you're saving on PMI. The only reason your payment's going down is you're agreeing to be in debt longer. Right. Otherwise, your payment would have gone up. Now, if you could have gotten rid of a tiny bit of interest rate

and gotten rid of the PMI, it might have been close to making sense. But it might not even then because you've got closing costs associated with it. But there's no way this deal works. Moving up a full percentage point and all you're gaining is resetting the loan. It's called recasting the loan. Starting over on the loan is why your payment's going down and the fact you got rid of the PMI. But you went up an interest rate, which, you know, is one percent,

one times your current balance. And that'll tell you how much you're losing every year doing this. So now I think you're sitting right where you're sitting. You're going to keep plowing through. I'm proud of you. You got a good start. Don't stop. Keep on moving. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Sarah is with us in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Hey, Sarah, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I have a question. My husband and I are both in our early 30s. We have followed the baby steps.

We are completely debt-free besides our home, and we are currently working on paying that off as well as working on our retirement. We've been investing 15%, as you suggest. I'm wondering if there's any point you quit investing in traditional IRAs, things that you can't get to later, if part of our retirement goal and plan is to retire prior to 59 1⁄2. Yeah, it would be called bridge investing is what we generally call it, and it would not be instead of your IRAs.

It would be in addition to your IRAs. How much do you owe on your home? $175,000. And what's your household income? $185,000. Wow, good for you. And you said you're how old? My husband is 35, and I'm 31. Way to go.

Okay. Your home will be paid for in about seven years right and or less or less yeah and at that point if you'll just take your house payment for 10 years and invest that if nothing else and in uh non-retirement mutual funds you'll have a pile of money to to be able to, quote, retire early. Here's the other thing about retiring early. Like if you want to retire at, say, age 50 instead of age 65, okay, what that generally means in the real world is that I have enough money to not have to do this job anymore. It doesn't mean you're going to produce zero income for the next 50 years

okay almost no one does that it's because it's kind of a hollow existence i mean you can go fishing or you can go skiing or whatever you want to do but there's only so much of that that you can do you can only play so much golf to where you start to realize okay you eat enough lobster tastes like soap uh i had a friend of mine sold his companies uh for about eight million dollars years ago when he was 32 years old and uh by the time he was 34 he was fat and bored of fishing and got back into business and lost his weight and got back to trim and you know he just got it it just you know he thought he thought the end goal was to quit working, and it's not. It's to have the choice to quit working or have the choice to work at what you want to work at.

That's the end goal. It's not like you have to work 80 hours a week going forward, but a lot of people have an encore career that are financially independent that make more doing that than they ever did in their regular career that got them to the point of financially independent. You're making really good money. So all of that to say, yes, you would build some investments after you finish paying off your house that are non-retirement investments to enable you to have those choices.

Maybe at 50 years old or 48 years old, 15 years from today, you want to start a business and you want a million dollars set aside. You'll be able to do that with what you've got, the kind of income you've got, the kind of discipline you've got, the fact that you're being intentional at 34 years old. You're just going to win. You're going to do it. You're going to be everyday millionaires. You are on the way. And I'm going to send you a copy of the book and it'll show you the 140 statistics in Chris Hogan's number one bestsellingselling book it'll show you exactly where millionaires come from and they come from doing the things you're doing and asking the questions you're asking that's how i know you're on track that's where all the data shows us it's not a made-up thing it's not a philosophical thing it's not the power

positive thinking it's that when you plant corn you should not be shocked that corn grows you reap what you sow and you are sowing good seed right now so hold on i'm gonna send you a copy of the everyday millionaire book you're on your way mike is in dallas texas hey mike welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave how you doing better than i deserve what's up well um don't want to take too much of your time, but I know how you hate credit cards. So I have a credit card with Bank of America right now, and it's been closed for a while. It's all about over $26,000 on it, and it looks like now they're trying to sue i guess sue me for the money now how long has it been since you paid them i want to say probably in the 2017 it's been a while all right so two years yes sir okay yeah they're gonna sue you yeah on 26 000 they're gonna do that sure

yeah what do you make i'm just trying to see what my options are. What do you make? Well, me and my wife together, about $130,000. Okay. Why have you been unable to pay them, making $130,000? Life just took place, and it kind of went into a snowball effect and just kept adding up to the interest and everything minimum payment was almost like four hundred dollars just for the minimum payment

four hundred dollars is forty eight hundred dollars a year you make a hundred and thirty thousand why were you unable to pay them uh bad management yeah. Disorganized, not paying attention. And so you ran the car in the ditch. Is that right? Pretty much, yes, sir. Me too, brother. I did that too, except I did it with more zeros than you did it. So I know how you feel.

So are you ready to straighten up your whole life and use this credit card as the reason to look at the whole thing? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you make enough to fix this mess pretty quick okay so how much other debt have you got that's really the biggest debt i mean i have my mortgage and everything how much do you own your cars uh don't we know cars free and clear both cars are free and clear what are they worth? 2010 Camry, probably maybe $10,000, I guess.

That's the miles on it. The other one is an old, beat-up car. Okay. All right. So where do you think, if you were going to guess, that all your money is going uh i would say one is daycare and probably my uh mortgage and student loans how much do you have in student loan debt uh myself 70 000 my wife over 100k ah okay there we go that makes starting to make some sense all right so what we need to do is the two of you you and your wife sit down and say our life is full of stress and

sucks right now and we need to fix it are you willing to do that yes sir you think she is yes she is okay all right then is. Okay. All right. Then we can walk you right out of this, all right, because $200,000 changes your life. You make $130,000, so how long does it take to get $200,000? Well, three years of $60,000 gets you pretty close. That would put you living on $70,000, not counting taxes. Okay. Are you putting any money in your 401k right now?

Yes, sir. We're going to stop that. We're going to completely focus on these debts. We're going to get on a written budget, and you're not going out to eat again. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you work there. You're not going on vacation anymore. You're broke and getting sued by Bank of America. So it is time to straighten things up.

Do you agree with me? Yes, sir. Okay. If y'all are willing to do that, I'll show you exactly how. We have a class called Financial Peace University. It is nine weeks long, and we plug you into a one-year membership of Financial Peace Online, which has all of the audios, videos online, plus the follow-up class, Legacy Journey, plus the budgeting software, budgeting app, the world's best, called EveryDollar that connects to your bank.

It's EveryDollar Plus. It's about $600 worth of stuff I'm giving you for free because I have been where you are, scared and broke, and I don't want you to be there anymore. But you're going to have to do a lot of hard work in the next three years to become debt-free, no payments at all. And I'm going to show you how, okay? Yes, sir.

If I do that, will you go to the class? Yes, sir, I will. All right, here's the good news. In Texas, they cannot garnish you your wages. So all they're going to do is put a lien on everything and a lien on your house. They can't even do that in Texas homestead laws. So you're living in the perfect state to keep them stiff-armed away from you. You don't have to panic about the lawsuit.

But you do need to start paying them $3,000 or $4,000 a month so that in 10 months, this debt is completely gone. And it goes away. And it never bites you again. And then we'll start working on the student loans. So hold on, Kelly. I'll pick up. We're going to get you signed up for Financial Peace University

and take care of you, brother. You call me if you need some more help. I've been where you are. I know what it feels like to be ashamed and scared. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen,

check out our show page at Dave Ramsey.com slash show.