The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Let Your Business Dream Turn Into a Nightmare! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 5, 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. The paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. My co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show, Christy Wright, number one best-selling author and host of the Business Boutique Events and the founder of the Business Boutique Academy. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Christy, before we jump to the phones, let's talk about Business Boutique Academy because Yeah. Because we're in open enrollment through Thursday night. What is it and why and who would

want to be in there? Yeah. So this is my training group. It's my online training and coaching group for women with businesses. And we've done it for about, I guess, really four years now. This came out of the first couple of years of having an event. People would get fired up and excited, ready to go change their business, which they certainly do. But they had questions when they got home and they wanted a little bit more help through the process. And we thought, let's create an online group where I can train them. They get help from each other in the community and I coach them and get in their business with them. And so we started, I guess, about four years ago and it's grown to thousands of members. And we only opened twice a year because I want a six-month commitment from them. I tell

them all the time, life change doesn't happen overnight. It happens over time. So I walk with them for six months. And Dave, what's incredible is what started as an idea, you know, we've poured so much into this that today what it is has grown into this unbelievable community. There's over 200 video training lessons, a ton of uh resources tools and downloads and templates to help them build their business all about ladies starting and running and growing a business boutique brand is equipping women to make money doing what they love yeah so everything from marketing and selling to taxes trademarks overcoming your fear managing your time all the things they struggle with well what i do is i coach them and train them regularly

every single week, every single month. And I walk with them on this journey. And what's amazing, especially with this group I'm walking with right now that started in the middle of the pandemic in April is, is you learn that you have more options than you think you do. And with some small changes, you can have a huge impact. So I'm seeing ladies that are making, they're quitting the full-time job to do their side business or small business full-time. They're hiring team members. They're making seven figures plus. They're getting out of debt. You have these incredible debt-free stories. And all of it was because they got the help they needed. And so a lot of people that are listening

might be thinking, well, I'm not cut out for business. I'm not business-minded. And what I tell them all the time is you just need what anybody needs when they're doing something new. You just need a little help. And that's why we do this. This is this coaching group to give them the help they need to get to where they want to be. And you're familiar with this. We only open twice a year because I want to walk with them. So we're only open until Thursday night.

So it's $244 for six months where I walk with them in their business, which is a steal for coaching. It's incredible what all they get for this. But if they join today, they get my social media course free, which is almost $200. So we really want to incentivize the go-getters. Get in, get your spot, and you get the social media deep dive course free if you join today. So it's been fun. We've already seen tons of people join today. And the success stories coming out of the academy are just incredible. It's just such a testimony that it really does work. If you get the help you need, you will get to where you want to be. Thursday night it shuts off, and the website to go to is just businessboutique.com?

Or christieright.com. Or christieright.com, and you can find the Business Boutique Academy open enrollment through Thursday night, $244 for six months, and you're in Christy's personal coaching group when you're doing this. And so it's very much a hands-on thing. And you're just walking with people who are, you know, I always think about just anything you try to do the first time. Yeah. My dad tossed me the car keys when I was 12.

And I think I cleaned every bit of gravel out of the driveway. Because nobody told me. I just stepped down on the accelerator and just threw gravel everywhere, man. I had to rake and shovel gravel for 45 minutes after that. He's just laughing. He thought that was hilarious. I wonder if I'd erected his dadgum car, he wouldn't have thought it was funny. But, you know, no instructions and toss you the keys,

and that's what so many people do when they start a business is they just throw gravel over everything. So you're just figuring out as you go. But here's the thing is you start to run into hurdles. And then here's what happens with the women I work with. I see this all the time. They run into a hurdle that they don't know how to get over. They run into a question. They don't have the answer. And they don't think, oh, someone has this answer. I'll go figure it out. They start to think, well, I should have never done that. See, I wasn't cut out for business. See, I'm not business minded. And I just, I want to catch them at that moment where they hit this wall of overwhelm or fear or insecurity or whatever and tell them, look, you just need help. And it's really cool to see that when they get over this wall, their success stories are

incredible. I had a woman that's an Academy member, Wren, she wrote in to me just literally two days ago and I saved this, but she talked about how my one training, there's over 200 trainings in the video training library, one training on pricing, she says changed her life and her business. She said in 2017, she made half of her take-home pay from her full-time job. And this year she's making 20% more in her business than she was in her full-time business. She wrote a check. Her full-time job. Yeah. So she's gone. Uh-huh. And so she wrote a check for a 2018 Ford Edge a couple days ago, a couple weeks ago. And so she's talking about how she even says now she said, I can weed out the monthly service clients that were just using me because I was the cheapest. She has better clients.

She's working less hours and making more money and enjoying her business more than ever. Yeah. You've got to grow. You have to change things. And it all happened because she got what? A little bit of help. She got some information.'ve got to grow. You have to change things. And it all happened because she got what? A little bit of help. She got some information. She got some encouragement.

She had the right community. And that's what I tell people. You just need what anyone needs. You just need help. And that's really the heart and the why behind the Academy is to get these women the help they need throughout the whole year, not just in a one-time thing, but I want to walk with you in your business. So this is the best way to do that.

Yeah. Businessboutique.com or christieright.com. It's open until Thursday night. The Business Boutique Academy open enrollment. Abby's on Facebook. I have a small side business that runs summer camps. My husband thinks we should set aside a thousand dollars for taxes. We're on baby step two, currently working on paying off credit cards. I think the thousand dollars should go towards the debt. We always get a good tax refund. Any advice on what to do? Yeah, fix it so you're not getting a good refund. Get your tax a little bit more accurate. But we tell people all the time, set aside 25% throughout the year so that you have for your business, for your businesses, and then you'll

be prepared whenever that comes due. That's exactly right. So, Abby, you need to figure out what 25% of your net profit is for the year on the summer camp. And then you need to compare that. Let's just make up a number. Let's say you made $10,000, and so it's $2,500 that's going to be your tax bill. And then you look at your tax return last year, and it was $1,500. Well, that means if you applied your overpayment at your job of $1,500 against the $2,500, you're still $1,000 short. So when taxes come due in April, you're going to need that $1,000 in that example. If your tax refund is $4,000 and your tax bill on the summer camp is $2,500 five hundred then no you don't

need to save any money for taxes you're already paying your taxes because you're overpaying at work and you need to reduce how much you've got at work at least down to what you think the taxes are going to be on the summer camp as far as an over withdrawal or an over withhold because all a refund is is you're paying in taxes you don't owe and they give them back to you it's not bonus money if you're going to owe them over on the other side from the summer camp and they equal exactly the same then all you did was fund the summer camp taxes at your job by over withholding at the job so you just need these two numbers to match up and it equals zero when they're all done that's what we're after. Christy Wright's my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show. folks i love telling you about well-made well-thought-out products today i'm talking

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Grip 6 is determined to help build and modernize American manufacturing. To learn more and get this month's Dave Ramsey special, visit GRIP6.com. That's GRIP6.com. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today here on the air. Ryan is with us. Ryan's in Sacramento. Hey, Ryan, welcome to the show. Hey, Christy. Hey, Dave. First time listener. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's going on? So I think I kind of already know the answer to this, but I kind of want to know the timing on this. So a little bit about me. I'm 25. I didn't have any debt at all. I loved that life having no debt.

I met my girlfriend, and she brought along with her a $11,000 student loan debt. On top of that, we had to get a new car for her, and we are expecting a baby, so we wanted to get something safe. So that's at about $15,000 for a total of about $26,000 in debt. Now, I know that I want to pay off the student loan as soon as I can. Wait a minute. Stop a second. I don't know. Stop, stop. I'm confused. It says on my screen, my wife's student loan.

Is this your girlfriend or your wife? She's my girlfriend, but we have a baby together it's a yes or no answer yeah you're either you're the married or you aren't you're not married is that what you're saying no when are you getting when are you getting married um she wants to finish school first just for a financial aid reason. Why? Financial aid reasons? Okay, you have a baby, a car loan, and a student loan, and you can't pay any of it because you're not married to her. I paid the car loan.

I know you can. You shouldn't. Yes, I guess, but, I know, just for the sake of... Okay, let me try to help again. You said you're how old? 25. Okay. I have a son that is 28.

If he sat down with me and said, Dad, what do I do in this situation? Okay, here's what I would tell him. You have a baby. You are playing house. You're acting like you're married. And you are taking tons of legal and relational risk that you don't need to take by not being married. You are up a creek financially and legally if things go sideways here.

Okay? Let me help you with this. Whose name is the car in? Both of ours. Okay. If something happens to your wife, you now own a car with her mother. Because you're not married, you have no rights to the other half of the car. You're in a partnership, legally speaking. Do you understand?

Yes. Okay? Every dollar you guys try to save, everything you try to act like you're playing house, does not work legally, does not work relationally, and you've set yourself up into a mess. Now, you can do whatever you want to do, young man, but you called this show and asked us, okay? So what I will tell you as the OFART here, representing the OFART contingent, is if I woke up in your shoes, I would get married tomorrow, and then we can ask the question how do we get out of this debt mess that my wife

is in of eleven thousand dollars worth of student loan and a car we bought that we can't afford now what do you make a year i'm a life insurance agent so it varies from what do you make a year upwards of a hundred thousand excellent a hundred thousand. What does she make? She's a full-time student? Student and she works. So what does she make? Probably about $25,000. Okay. So with $125,000 a year, I think you guys can figure out a way to pay for her school

if you lose any rights you have for her acting like poor people when she's not in order to get poor people money for college okay student aid she's not due for student aid she lives in 125 000 household income all right and so you guys good month though dave well good head it up in a year you got a year's worth of income or don't you i mean i ask you. So, listen, you do whatever you want to do, sir. That's what you're going to do. And you should be able to do that. You're a grown person.

That's fine. But if you were my own son sitting at coffee with me, that's what I would tell you. Because here's what we know. We know there is a marital lift to your career. People who are married have better incomes than people who aren't married people who are married have much better incomes than those that are shacked up and not married there's that this is statistical data that's out there dude it's all over the place it's called the marriage lift look it up okay they live longer i have no idea why. Too afraid to die.

I don't know. Why do we, why do we people that are, why are those of us that are married live longer? I don't know. I don't know, but I will say there's a direct correlation between strong social connections and longevity. And the opposite is also true. People that don't have strong social connections. I imagine marriage being a piece of that, uh, die sooner.

No, there's, there's a health, for your overall psychological health. There's a direct correlation. And so all of this for her to get financial aid when they're making $125,000 household income. So what I would tell you to do is I get married this weekend. You do what you want to. If I woke up in your shoes knowing what I know, I'm from the old fart contingent, and I'm president of the club. And so, you know, what would I do if I woke up this today, knowing what, in your shoes, knowing what I know now,

having lived life and done a whole bunch of crap wrong, I get married tomorrow, and then I would get about the business of me and my wife and my baby and my $125,000 income completing her degree, paying off these two stupid loans as soon as possible, and moving on with your life, and you're going to have have a good life you're trying to trick the system sir and you don't get to trick the system the system meaning how life works you don't it's not an option you know one of the things that i see people do a lot of times dave and i've definitely been guilty of this before is i think one of the things i heard in his question too and maybe i'm just giving him too

much of the benefit of the doubt but one of the things i heard in his question too, and maybe I'm just giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt, but one of the things I heard in his question is sometimes I feel like when the situation changes, when the variables change, we still hold our feet to the fire of this was our original plan. Well, the whole plan has changed. We need to adapt to the new plan. So in your example, it's like, well, she was used to getting this financial aid. And so it's like, well, now this is different. We have a baby. We're in a relationship. We want to get married.

It's like, well, that changes the scenario. It have a baby. We're in a relationship. We want to get married. It's like, well, that changes the scenario. It changes your plans. It changes your actions that you take, but some people don't. Some people are like, well, I was planning on doing X, Y, Z, and then this happened, and I'm still trying to do X, Y, Z. It's like, no, the plan changes when the situation changes. When the variables change, you need to reassess what you're doing and if that's still right, and I think that's part of what you're saying here

because we're in a new situation. The financial aid is not a variable here to consider when you're talking about the other more important variables at play well when you if even if it is you said there's financial aid on one side of the page you say what would happen if we didn't get the financial aid but we had all these other benefits right the other benefits financially mathematically what i'm saying yes data right right are going to outweigh what you get it's just not worth it it's not worth it and so and by the way you've already made all these decisions you have a baby right you're shacked up i mean you're already playing house

it's not like the decisions are going to change you, and so you're just missing out on all the benefits. And I can't advise you to pay off her student loan because if something happens, it doesn't benefit you and your child. If something happens to her and, you know, and by the way, I've been doing this 30 years, something happens sometimes. And it's not always a beautiful, wonderful end to the story, or at least the next chapter is not always beautiful and wonderful. And for goodness sakes, you want to be doing this stuff in the right order and take care of business, man. But you do what you want to do. That's, of course, always your option, but you cannot expect ever to get anything except our best love when you call here, and that's us loving you enough to tell you what we think is going to give you the most prosperity

and have the best life. And so sometimes people don't think it's love. It's that tough love. Your favorite. Your favorite kind, Dave. Christy Wright, my co-host today here on the air, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Business Boutique and creator of the Business Boutique Academy, which is a training and coaching situation.

You get six months for $244. It's only open a couple times a year. Open enrollment is good only through Thursday night, only through Thursday night. This is the Dave Ramsey personality, Christy Wright, number one best-selling author of of the book Business Boutique. Christy, I asked Kat Nelson, our customer experience liaison. That's quite a title she has, but she's in charge of helping our customers who come in have a great experience here in our lobby. And they watch the show and have free cookies and coffee and other things that have calories in them. And we pay for all of it them and we pay for all we pay

for all of it and you pay for it later there you go but uh she to tell me the story and i said let's see if we can get this young couple on the air and they agreed to be very nervous and they were already that and come on the air so joshua and courtney are on the air with us they're standing here on the debt-free stage it's not a debt-free scream, but it's quite a day for you two, huh? Yeah, definitely. So tell us the story. I just heard the punchline, but I want to hear everything that happened and why, and then obviously I need to know the whole story.

Yeah, I mean, we've been together for probably six and a half years now. We were together for the later half of high school uh we went to college together um and now you know we're really the last two years we've kind of been a partnership and and uh you know your principles have really guided us and helped our relationship become a whole lot stronger and i just really thought there wasn't a better place you know on this earth to kind of start that next chapter of our life together. And, you know, we're super committed to being financially free and, you know, growing together in the future. So wait a minute, the audience doesn't know what you're talking about. All the listeners, they want to know. Tell us the story. Tell us what just happened.

What happened an hour ago? I'm so excited. Yeah, we, you know, we pretty much flew here from Maine, kind of just for this. And I had a great opportunity to propose to her today. Yay! She did say yes. She did say yes. I didn't get shut down, so that's good.

Hold the ring up. Let's see it. Zoom in on it there, YouTube. I can see it from here. It's gorgeous. Zoom in on it, YouTube. Don't break my camera with that thing. Oh, my gosh.

All right, man. Well done. Okay, so you walk into Ramsey Solutions, and I don't know, dude. I'm not sure you're real romantic. Who gets engaged at Ramsey Solutions? Yeah, I heard that from the few people that knew. But for us, it was. For me, and I think for her as well, there really isn't a better spot than here.

We're super focused, hyper committed to each other and being financially free and getting to that stage in our lives where we can live and give like nobody else so all right courtney did you know did you know this was happening i had no idea no clue okay so courtney i want to hear your side of the story for a second you walk in you think you're coming to see the show yeah a normal day maybe get a book signed sure okay you walk me through then i mean did you know what he's doing yeah i go to the bathroom and i come out and like, oh, let's get a photo. So, okay. And then all of a sudden it happens and I was like, what is going on?

Were you like, did you drop something on the ground? Why are you on the ground? Yeah, I was so confused. It seemed unreal, but I'm glad it happened. Wow. That is so, so cool. Okay, so you guys have been together about six years. Yep.

That two-year super series. Through high school and everything. Through high school. That's really cool. Yep. All two years. Super serious. Through high school and everything. Through high school. That's really cool. All right. So tell me now this, I'm sure y'all have talked about engagement, right? Like leading up to this point. Now tell me what is the, what is kind of, I don't know, the next chapter, what are the

things you're most excited about? Courtney, I'm guessing for you planning a wedding, like talk me through, like, what does this, what does this look like? What have y'all talked about and dreamed about? Yeah. I mean, we're, we're kind of tackling our debt that we have from college. We've paid off probably $55,000 of it to this point, about another $55,000, $60,000 to go. But we're making rapid, rapid progress.

And, you know, like I said, those financial goals have really been the guiding principle for the last two years to get us much closer together. So our next goal is to tackle that debt, you that debt and try to be completely debt-free, own our home before we turn 30. So that's our timeframe. And she is actually headed to, I guess I'll let her tell her story where she's going. I just recently got into physician assistant school. So that's a good relationship.

Thank you, thank you. Good for you. That's awesome. And what do you do? So I'm a controller at a car dealership, two car dealerships. So yeah. Cool. That's what we do. And how old do you do? So I'm a controller at a car dealership, two car dealerships. So, yeah. Cool.

That's what we do. And how old are you two? 23. So how did you get introduced to us? My best friend, Nick, actually was kind of hounding me back when he was a teenager. You know, he was always not stupid and getting into debt. And, you know, he would always be like, you know, why would you borrow money if you can just pay cash? And, of course, you know, I get out of college, and I get all this, you know, adult money,

and I'm like, you know, new snowmobile, you know, new side-by-side, new lease that I still have and can't wait to get rid of until in August. But I've undone all that stupid, paid everything off, paid off a huge student loan of mine the 29th of September, you know, so that's kind of the story. So Nick connected you to us. He did, yeah, Nick. Way back. I mean, he was hounding me for a while. He was like, you know, you're stupid, like good for

you on the new toy, but like, you're stupid. And so, but he's been a huge support through this whole thing and for her as well and just a great friend and a great guy and super thankful for him and super thankful for you to kind of help us get to where we are now well we are honored that ramsey solutions will be part of your story that's right in a very real way where you got engaged that day back in 2020 the year of the dumpster fire yeah yeah something good came out of 2020 came out of

2020 and hold it up one more time let Let's see. Oh, it's beautiful. Thanks for coming, guys. Congratulations. Congratulations. How fun is that? That is cool. Serious fun. Very cool. Really, really sweet.

Haston is with us. Haston is in Lexington, South Carolina. Hi, Haston. How are you? Hey, thank you all for having me. Sure. How can Christina help? Yeah, so I kind of got a two-part question

with my career and my debt situation. Right now, I'm 24. I'm a heavy equipment operator, making probably about $2,800 a month. And I've been with the company for about nine months right now and i can see myself moving up uh you know kind of climbing the ladder uh but my my real goal is i want my own equipment after after i mean it's my passion i love it wouldn't want to be doing anything else and um i just think that the real money is on your own equipment you know uh and and doing your own business, whether it be land clearing or any kind of earthwork. And I'm sure, as you know, that equipment can get, you know, expensive. And I was just seeking advice on what's the smartest and fastest way I could get to that point without, you know,

going into debt, obviously. Save like a crazy man and pay cash for the oldest, most beat-up, worn-out piece of old stuff that will push dirt around that you can buy. Use it on the weekends and the evenings to earn more money and then upgrade and tractor, but pay cash for it all the while. If you want to make sure this business dream of yours turns into a nightmare go sixty thousand dollars in debt to buy some stupid bulldozer that'll screw up your life don't do that i do have a i do have a you know i've been reached this is maybe last week i do

have a family member that asked for me to sit down and talk to them maybe for an investment because they know that's what I'm doing and wanted to do it, and I just didn't know how I felt about that either. That's very sweet. No. Okay. Okay. No, you don't need an investor. You need money.

And because the investor is going to be they own your business. Yeah. Because they're the only ones putting money in it. All you did was 24 years old worth of sweat. Yeah. That's's all you did and so you're going to end up not owning something that way if somebody in the family has some money and they want to give you some money to get you started with a good worn out used bulldozer and get you to where you can go make some money with that and then work your way up one piece of equipment at a time paying cash at a time let me tell you man there's no situation in the earth-moving world

where brand new makes sense unless you're a billionaire. Yes, sir. Because the stupid things go down in value really fast. Ask farmers who buy big tractors. They drop in half in 24 months. It's like a stinking car that plows i mean it's unbelievable how fast these things go down in value so these things are to make money with not for you to pay caterpillar you know you get to pay caterpillar finance for the rest of your dadgum life if you

get in these things do not do that young man when the other thing to keep in mind hasten is is people are are hiring you to get the job done, not because your tractor's shiny or because it's new or because it's the certain model. It just needs to get the job done. Does the dirt move? You can get the job done. All that matters is did the dirt move. That's all that matters.

Nobody cared what it looks like. The only time that four-wheel drive, brand-new, $60,000, $80,000 Silverados go through a mud puddle on a construction site is when an idiot's driving it. That's the only time it happens. And on a commercial. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. my co-host today here on the air ramsey personality christy wright number one best-selling author the business boutique academy is in open enrollment through thursday night if you don't know what that is it's her coaching group along along with hundreds and hundreds of videos, all kinds of things to check out there for you ladies that want to start

and or learn to operate a business. The Academy is open through Thursday night, businessboutique.com or christywright.com. Christy, our question of the day from blinds.com, a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color, they'll remake your window blinds.com a 100 satisfaction guarantee even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color they'll remake your window blinds free if free samples free shipping new promos they run all the time you'll save even more always use the promo code ramsey to get the best possible deal yes today's question comes from bobby in arizona here's what she wrote she said my husband is wanting to start his own business once we are debt free. He's been in his line of business for several years and

knows he could do it, but he's just nervous about starting one. What are some tips you could advise him in starting his business? He's a pool repair tech. One of the things that I've heard a lot of times, and I think this is what I'm hearing in this question from Bobby, is this idea of starting a business feels like this terrifying leap. It feels like a big deal you're going to launch. It's this huge splash. That's one way to do it. And you also don't have to. You could start really small. You could take tiny baby steps. You could offer your services to people in the neighborhood, people at your church, people on your Facebook community group page, and you start doing small jobs. Here's what that does. And Dave, you and I've

talked about this a lot. It not only creates income into this new side business that's small and on the side, it increases your confidence. You're like, oh, well, I did this small job. I can do a bigger job and bigger job. And it gradually turns into a business you're doing full time, but it doesn't have to feel like this terrifying leap. You could just even test out some stuff now. You could call it research, but you're also getting income in and you're taking these baby steps. I tell people all the time, the antidote to fear is action. Nothing will silence your fear of doing the thing, like doing the things to go do the thing. Just take some small steps that also create income and increase your confidence. Yeah. The small steps, you go, Oh, I didn't die from that. Right. Maybe I could take a bigger one.

Maybe I could do this. Yeah. Yeah. Now, here's the thing. If you're going to start as a pool tech and you're currently a pool tech, you cannot do something from an ethics standpoint that takes money away from your current employer. And so you would have to pick up the types of jobs that your current employer doesn't want as a side job or that

you're not stealing customers from your current employee. It's a different area of town, whatever, those kinds of things. The good news is this is a fairly easy business to start without a lot of expenses. And it just takes your knowledge. And you could do it part-time i've got a pool i don't care whether you clean my pool in the evening it doesn't bother me a bit um whatever works for you yeah whatever's good especially if a i can count on you and b your prices are reasonable having had a pool that i've maintained for several years and talked to other people who hate their pools um the world that your husband is talking about going into bobby is a an interesting world there is no middle ground there is no mediocre sort of okay pool tech there's two types

complete morons who never show up and overcharge and don't know what they're doing when they get there and break stuff and then there's the people that know what they're doing and charge a reasonable fee and there's not many of them so if you actually show up on time and can fix the freaking pool you're going to get rich, dude, because you got hardly any competition out there. And truthfully, it's one of those businesses that for some reason, pool building is the same thing. Who's going to build a pool? You know, there's something about that world that they're going in and out of business all the time. They're crashing, they're burning, and the type of people, you know, there's a few really good ones, and the rest of them simply

aren't and so it's like a lot of things around construction yeah if you show up on time do what you said you were going to do don't steal from people yeah don't threaten people don't be a butt and you actually get the work done and charge what you said you were going to charge it's an amazing how your business will grow yeah i think it's so interesting too because you hear this question it's like okay he he is a pool tech. He wants to start his own business once we're debt free, but he's nervous about starting one. Something about the idea of business is so scary to people, men and women. It's not just a female thing. And that's one of the things I love helping people do through business boutique. But so much of what I do, and Dave, you have watched me do

this for five years. So much of what I do is help people push past their fear. He's going to be doing the same job he's doing right now, but's doing it on his own he doesn't have this umbrella of safety of someone else paying his you know writing his check and yes that feels vulnerable it feels new and i've got to talk about prices or talk about my business or marketing i've never done that before in that way uh but you're doing the same thing you can do this you know how to do this you can learn the business side of things yes there's some stuff you need to figure out but man it's not as scary as it feels absolutely adams in nashville hi adam welcome to the dave ramsey show hey how can we help hey um well uh i mean uh i just want to ask some questions, I guess, uh, advice is how to move on. I have financial issues. Uh,

we had a baby last year and then in December we decided to, my wife not to work to dedicate to the baby because, um, the daycare was basically almost half a little bit more than half of her salary. So she wants to dedicate for the baby. And then suddenly, uh, we found out that we were pregnant again. So now we have a newborn and, uh, she got sick. And then I got into debt with paying medical bills and everything else. So now I'm at the point that, um, debts are basically not letting me sleep. And, uh, I'm trying to see a friend advised mine to file for bankruptcy.

How old are you, Adam? I'm 38. How much medical debt do you have? Well, the majority of them are paid by my credit card, so I have approximately $60,000 in credit card debt. Okay. And how much in medical bills other than the credit cards? I think right now we're at just like $3,000 recently for the baby. How much do you owe on your cars?

I'm sorry? How much do you owe on your cars? On my cards? Cars. Your vehicles. We only have one car. What do you owe on it? We owe like $16,000. Okay, and what do you make, sir? It's pretty new. Yeah, I guessed. What do you make? Like $58,000 a year.

Okay. How much is your rent? We bought a house when we moved here. We rented first and then bought the house since it was cheaper than actually renting. Yeah, right. Okay, and so how much is your house payment? $1,300, including the, what's it called, the insurance and back taxes and insurance. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. You're not bankrupt. You're in a mess, but you're not bankrupt. Yes.

You're overwhelmed and you're scared, and I don't blame you, which makes you a good man. You're worried about how to feed your babies. And this thing's got its foot on your neck. I've been there. I know how it feels, and I can hear it in your voice. You're going to be okay. We just have to develop a better plan than the one you've had. Okay. Are you willing to do some things that are hard

to clean up the mess and not have to file bankruptcy? Yeah. If they work, it's going to be really hard. Okay. What do you do for a living? I do customer service basically right now with the pandemic i'm working from home you do what customer service customer service okay so you're working how many hours 40 yeah okay 40 44 sometimes over time but i don't get paid for overtime yeah well you don't work anymore overtime you're broke right now you're picking up an extra job in your overtime. Lots of extra jobs, six of them. You're going to be working a lot.

And by the way, that's going to help your sleep because you're going to be really tired. Okay? I want you working like five, six extra jobs. I don't know what they are, but I want to get your income up dramatically. I'm not sure you have to sell the car, but you probably do. You shouldn't have bought the car. You're broke, but it's not the one thing that's going to save you, and please don't tell me how smart it was under any circumstances, and don't tell me you have to have a $16,000 car when you have $60,000 in credit card debt, and you have two babies,

and you call me about filing bankruptcy. Don't even let that come out of your mouth, okay? Now, if you'll go do the stuff I'm going to teach you, I can completely help you turn this around. And I'm going to put you through Ramsey Plus, a year's worth of teaching, and you're going to go through Financial Peace University with your wife, and you're going to work extra, and you're going to live on beans and rice, rice and beans, and you're going to be sleeping well at night. I'm going to show you how. You hold on.

Kelly will pick up, and we'll help you walk through this. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.