The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Let Your Family Take Advantage of You (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

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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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money. It is a free call, and some say the advice is worth what you pay for it. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Mike in Missouri is going to start us off this hour.

Hey, Mike, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. I appreciate you taking my call. I wish I'd have found you a long time ago. Well, we're honored you're here. How can I help? Well, so here's my numbers. I'm 48, my wife is 39, and we are everyday millionaires,

but we kind of have a financial and household mess going on. Our net worth is about $1.7 million. Good. Our household gross income is based at $235,000 a year. Last year we had a little bit of an exception and jumped up to $310,000 due to my wife's company being sold to another company and getting an extra bonus in that year. We expect a bonus minimum of $35,000 this January.

Our monthly income is about $12,500 a month. We have not worked on a budget ever. I just downloaded the EveryDollar app, and I'm trying to get everything situated so I can bring my wife on board to go down this road with me. We've had separate bank accounts for 15 years. I know we need to consolidate everything. It's a wee-wee. I've actually listened to all of your podcasts that I could download and Rachel Cruz's in the last month.

Thank you. I know your philosophies and know a lot of things you would tell me on this. Okay. I have three kids, 12, 10, and 2. How can I help you today? 401K question. My wife maxes hers out, and my company most years does a 100% match. And I'm not taking the full advantage of that. I've been there 18 years. And 14 of the 18 years, it's been 100% match based on profitability.

So I've only been putting $10,000 to $12,000 a year in there. We've got about $60,000 in stupid debt. And then another total debt is about $418,000. We have a primary mortgage. We also own a lake house that's a summer vacation house. How much do you own your home? We own the home. The primary residence is $220,000. And how much on the lake house?

Lake house, we own $95,000. Okay, and then you have 60 in stupid. What's the stupid? About 20 in credit card, $17,000 in a 401K loan, a student loan of about 8,000, a vacation timeshare of about 8,000. It's not quite 60. It's probably more like 53 or so. Okay.

But I'm also a partner, 50% partner, in a farm, the 40-acre farm that I bought with a friend 15 years ago. It's for sale right now. I expect when it sells to net about $200,000 on it. Phenomenal. Okay. Well, I would, listen, you've been listening and you've kind of been drinking from a fire hose, it sounds like.

I have all my numbers written down. No, but I mean, it sounds like you've really got got the bug to to kind of systematize this fabulous income you have because you'd probably be at at 2.7 had you done that you're at 1.7 which is no shame i mean congratulations you've done very well and you guys make a lot of money so you're obviously smart people proud of you but i'm with you i think if you uh if you polish up your systems and your processes, including working together, including doing a budget, including let's just walk through these baby steps that you've been hearing about, I think you're going to see an acceleration then.

I would hope so. I believe so. Yeah, I think you are. I think you're – because it's just a – you know, you're probably – you know, most people when I talk to them, they're 70 or 80% off track. You're probably 10% off track, you know? Yeah. And you've got a fabulous income. And so when we adjust that last 10%, you're going to get exponential movement for this little bit of adjustment in terms of uh because it's gonna it's just gonna

be fun so anyway i i still in this situation even though these numbers are really cool numbers they're big numbers i still would work you through the baby steps so it would sound like uh let's stop all retirement temporarily that means you're gonna miss a hundred percent match that makes me cry a little it makes me throw up a little just into my mouth right just a just a little bit. But I'm still going to do it for one year. And one year, you're going to be completely debt-free. And then you're going to have your emergency fund. And then you're going to max out. Based on your income, you need to be putting 100% into your 401K.

And she needs to be putting enough in hers at baby step four to get the match. And that's next year. You know, you're going to do this really fast. You'll do it even faster when the farm sells, right? So, you know, do you have any cash laying around? We do. I failed to mention that. We have, between savings and individual investments,

a total of almost what our stupid debt is, about $50,000. Oh, pay it off. Yeah, convincing my wife to do that is hard. She likes to have a big nest egg there just for emergencies. You have $1,000,007. You're going to be okay. Yeah, I agree. You make $250,000 a year. This is false worry.

Okay, yeah, pay it off. Just pay off this stuff. just pay this clean this mess up it's just you know it's listen you you walked into the garage and the garage is dirty clean the garage you know that's all it is and then let's rebuild that emergency fund really really fast and that way you don't have to miss these matches yeah i agree um well can i ask you one more question sure if we clean we clean that up and this property sells, I've got, say, $200,000. Would you apply the next one towards the lake house or a primary mortgage? The lake house is so small, I'd probably just knock it out.

If you get enough out of it that you can scrape it together and knock the whole house out, the whole 220, I'd just do it. Yeah, that'd be good but if you get like if you get like 170 or something your part now probably reach over and knock the lake house out and then i'll reach over with the not having the lake house payment we're tightening the budget up a little bit just by bothering to have one and you're going to knock your home out the point is with the sale of this property the money you have have in savings, not counting your big nest eggs, you know, you're going to be baby step seven in 24, 36 months. That's kind of what I was hoping.

I mean, that's what the numbers are saying, right? Yeah. We've already started the 529. We've got like 22 in there for the three kids. You're making, I'm going to stop that. I'm going to stop that a little bit. Well, you probably don't have to if you're going to clean this debt up. But if it were me and I woke up in your shoes, again, you guys are, you've drunk from a fire hose.

She doesn't have all this information, so it's fair to her to let her catch up information-wise and let her come to her own conclusions with you on this rather than you just dictate this that's not what i'm saying but um but but yeah let's let's get her caught up because she's obviously a smart lady too because here 400 000 and you've already in debt and you've got uh uh 260 of it in your hand right now with the sale of the farm and the liquid assets correct and so you just mow through the rest of that with your $300,000 income in no time. You know, so you're going to, this is, it's just clean up, dude. It's just clean the garage.

You just, you got everything you need. You have a fabulously huge shovel, a great situation, and you just need to polish the edges of it, and you're going to see exponential move. Congratulations. I love it. Very cool. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. If you've turned on the TV, read a paper, or been on the web lately,

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Or if you want some help, just call the Ramsey Concierge Team at 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223. Jason's in Georgia. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the dave ramsey show hey dave honored to speak to you my friend you too sir how can i help no my wife and i had her i've had it a moment about two weeks ago so we're just starting out cool we're on baby step two love it um bring home between 7600 and600 and $8,000 a month. But we're about $118,000 in debt.

That includes $65,000 in student loans between the two of us. We got a brand-new minivan that we owe about $40,000 on. We leased a vehicle this year, unfortunately, for $10,500. year unfortunately for uh 10 500 and we got about 2 500 and just interest-free cars that we're getting ready to pay off my question was we don't really know what to do with the cars considering we bought brand new so we're pretty upside down and then the lease itself no idea how we would get out of that there's about 10 500 worth of payments left but i don't know what a buyout on it is or anything so yeah if you have that little if you have we'll just sidestep for a second if we have that little amount left on payments um you're probably gonna lose almost

that much selling it you're probably that far upside down versus the actual lease payoff so you're probably riding that one out versus the actual lease payoff so you're probably riding that one out that tells me what got 14 months left uh well it's a three-year lease but uh i think i paid 2.99 a month on it so when i look at what's left it says it's about 10.5 or something like that if i paid every single payment so i thought we just snowball it but do when we're done snowballing the 10 000 do we turn it back in then or do we just drive no no no you wouldn't you don't prepay your lease payments i wouldn't do that there's one of two options here you just hold the car and pay the

payments until the end of the lease and then turn the car in that's option one okay and that's going to cost you ten thousand five hundred dollars the way to analyze it then is you can call them and ask what the early buyout on the lease is. How long have you had the car? We just got it in January. I'm a government employee, and I kind of had a knee-jerk, traded in a car and leased that during the shutdown. So that's how I ended up with the lease. So we've only had it for January. Okay.

And so you're six months into a 36- months, so you've got 30 months left. Mm-hmm. Okay. And what was the sticker on the car in January? I don't even think I looked at that. Oh, roughly. Is it 30,000, 20,000? What was it roughly?

I would assume somewhere around 30, 25, 30. All right. Let's just call it 25,,000, for example, okay? And you're six months in. So if that were the case, you'd probably have about $18,000, I'm sorry, $19,000 left on the full buyout of the lease if you wanted to pay the car off and own it, your payoff, your early payoff, okay? Right. You can call them and ask for that number

let's use for example purposes let's say that that was uh twenty thousand bucks okay your early buyout and then you call up and you or you look at kelly blue book and you say okay i can sell this car right now for fourteen thousand,000. Okay? Right. I'm just making these numbers up. But if you've got to pay it off at $20,000 and you can sell it for $14,000, that means you're $6,000 in the hole. So if you sell it now, you're going to lose $6,000.

If you keep it and drive it for two and a half more years, you're going to lose $10,000. I'd probably keep it in that case. Right. Okay. Because it's not enough savings. But let's say the numbers were reversed and um or were further apart and you know you could if you sold it now it only it costs you eight thousand dollars but if you keep it it costs you eighteen thousand dollars well we're selling it now

right okay you see what i'm doing and so just looking at the comparing those two things against each other. I think it's going to cost you a little bit more to keep it, but not enough to screw with selling it. So I'm probably keeping it once you run your numbers out. Now, that's that part. The rest of it is this. We just list our debts smallest to largest. What do we do with the cars? If you can be debt-free, not your house cars and everything in two years and if

the total value of your vehicles is less than half your annual income then i would keep my cars that puts this that puts the van on the bubble right because your lease car is $25,000, and the van is $40,000. That's $65,000, and you don't make $130,000. Right? We make $150,000 is what my income is. Oh, I missed something. Oh, no, you gave me take-homes. Okay. Yeah, I did.

That's right. Okay. All right. Yeah, okay. So you're less than half your annual income. Now, if you're making $150,000, can we pay off $100,000, which is roughly your debt, in two you're making 150 uh can we pay off 100 which is roughly your debt in two years yes you can correct and so if you can be debt free you and the cars are less than half your annual income you can keep the cars they only and and so the cars aren't so big that

they are dragging you down in other words and they're not so big that they're all depreciating their butts off because you got 65 000 worth of vehicles they're going to be worth 30 000 total in 20 minutes so these things are going to go down in value like crazy and you know it you know when you lose that much money it's harder to build wealth that's what it comes down to so if your cars were a little bit more expensive they'd be right there i mean you're I'm probably going to go ahead and work my way through this if I'm you and keep them both. Okay. And, you know, keep the lease car, and then you've got to have some money saved to buy a car at the end of the lease. Right.

Cash. I understand. That sounds perfect, man. I appreciate it. Cash. Cash. No borrowing. Roslyn is with us in California.

Hey, Roslyn, how are you? Hi, Dave. You can call me Roz. Hey, Roslyn, how are you? Hi, Dave. You can call me Roz. Hey, Roz, what's up? Hi. Okay. Well, I am, today's my birthday. I'm 56 years old today, so this call is a birthday present.

Well, happy birthday. Thank you. Okay, I have all this stuff written down for you. I'm a single mom. I'm a high school teacher. I make $90,000 before taxes. I owe $200,000 on my home. I have a school loan that's approximately $60,000.

I have a car that's $10,000 and one credit card for $1,400. I have $1,000 saved. And listening to your show about the extra work, I've got some Saturday schools lined up, extra duty pay by writing extra reports, and professional development after school. Cool. Right quick, how can I help you? I would like you.

What's your main question? I want to pay off my school loan fast and my car. I want to get them out of my hair. Okay. We have $70,000 in debt and $75,000 in debt, and you make $100,000 with your overtime and other stuff, right? Yes. So what, two years?

How can I do that? Well, $70,000 divided by two is $35,000. That's a small percentage of $100,000. Right? I mean, you ought to be able to pay off $35,000 a year and make $100,000. That's $3,000 a month. You get on your tight written budget. You sell so much stuff the kids think they're next.

You take those extra jobs. No C in the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. No vacations. It's beans and rice, kiddo. Get after it. You got it, Roz. You can do this. Happy birthday.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Thank you for joining us, America. Michelle is with us in Arizona. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So this is more of a situation on my dad. So I guess a couple weeks ago, my dad reached out to me after not talking to me for about four years. I thought he called to make amends or we're trying to make amends,

but he's been calling me to ask for money from my credit card. And each time I tell him that I can't, so he would end a call. And about a week or so later, he would call me back to pretty much come up with a method to take money out of my credit card. And it went as, it got as bad as to him asking me to go to a casino with my credit card to put my money on the credit line, I guess. And I'm not sure how casinos work, but he pretty much told me to put on a slip and withdraw that money. So my question is, is that I want to fix my relationship with my family, but every time he reaches out to me, it's in regards to helping him with his financial situation. He's not trying to build a relationship with you. He's trying to get your money.

And I wish it wasn't the other way. I'm sorry, honey. I know this hurts. Yeah. It sounds like there's a symptom here that he's possibly a gambling addict, is he? I'm not sure if that's true or not, but there was, I guess he gambled when I was gone. I guess it was like a coping mechanism, but that's the one time I heard about it. But it's mostly just bad financial decisions on his part.

Yeah, but I mean, if he was just making bad financial decisions, he'd want your credit card to pay a bill. But when he's wanting you to pledge for chips, that means he's probably got an addiction going. Yeah. Lots of reasons to say no, kindly and gently and with a low voice and no anger, even though it's real easy to kind of get frustrated because it hurts when someone that's supposed to be there to protect you and love you

is someone instead that's trying to take advantage of you. And that just leaves a bad taste in your mouth, to say the least, right? Mm-hmm. The issue is that I have a hard time confronting my dad because i don't think you need to confront him no i think you just need to tell him no that's the thing i told him no and i guess all the things he said about me to make amends it it kind of backpedaled because he went on a tangent telling me that I'm in the wrong and, you know, I'm at fault here.

How old are you? 24. Okay. What's the rest of your family situation? Are you married? No, I'm not married, so I moved out to Arizona to get out of a bad situation, and pretty much I confronted them and told them about how I felt about it, and they pretty much told me that if I make this decision, then I don't exist to them.

Okay. And unless, of course, I need your credit card number. Yeah, unless I stay home and help with the family. Unless you don't exist to me unless you give me money. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michelle, you sound like a very sweet person.

And what you're describing to me, I'm not a family therapist, but sadly I've been around this stuff a lot because it always affects money. And for 30 years I've watched this kind of thing happen. It sounds like you've got a pretty messed up family, kiddo. Yeah. And it sounds like in spite of that that you have a pretty straight head on your shoulders. But any time the only way you can have a relationship with someone is if you give them money.

That's called prostitution. Right? Yeah. I mean, if I have to pay to have a relationship with you, I don't think we call that a real relationship is my point. I know. Yeah. And so, you know, if your dad wants to have a relationship with you and the only way that you're a good daughter is if you give him money, that is not a good dad.

He's a messed up dude. It's weird because I've never really straightforward said that to him, but he assumes that I said that and he got mad at me for, in a subtle way, saying that. Yeah, well, here's the the thing anytime someone doesn't have good boundaries and you put up boundaries you almost always get anger as a reaction because a person who's willing to trespass into your life and inappropriately take things from you when you tell them they can't do that it makes them angry and so when you when you put up a when he kept coming over into your

yard and you put up a fence and said no i i want to have a good relationship with you but you can't cross this fence and and and then he gets mad that says he has boundary problems and i really do think when you learn later on what's really going on. It's not anything you can fix, but just to help you know you're not crazy, I'm pretty sure this guy has a gambling problem. Let me tell you, the second fastest growing addiction in America today is gambling. Number one is online porn. And gambling is right behind it. And so there are two very, very, very dirty, huge secrets.

They're not little secrets. They're big secrets that are affecting the American family everywhere. And so I know these numbers, and I know these people that I've dealt with that are gambling addicts and porn addicts and everything else, and what it does to their money. And if you have gone so far that you have to ask for your 24-year-old daughter's credit card number to give to a casino, that pretty much tells me you have a problem, okay? Okay. You're not a 56-year-old multimillionaire.

No. You're a 24-year-old young lady. This is highly inappropriate. Is this making sense to you? I'm sorry? I said, does that make sense to you? Yeah. Okay.

I'm just kind of torn because... Don't be torn. Don't be torn. Be good to... Be whole and be good to yourself and kind, but do not let people abuse you any further. That's why you left. That's how you ended up in Arizona. Hey, listen, I need you to get plugged into a good church there in Arizona.

Are you already by chance? Yeah, I am. Okay. What church are you going to? It's a Calvary church. Great. Those are great guys. I know those guys I want you to holler at them and I want you to go over there and sit down with one of the pastors And unpack this, and they're going to tell you exactly the same things I just did Because they don't need anything from you, they just want good things for you

I don't need anything from you, I just want good things for you i don't need anything from you i just want good things for you i don't need your credit card number okay and so i but i gotta tell you when when people that are supposed to be the ones that love you your mom and your dad mistreat you on this kind of stuff it hurts at such a deep level and that's what you're experiencing and that's where you're getting the confusion from with this but um that just makes you normal it makes you a sweet kind person but please do not get in a situation where you are giving people money in order to have a relationship that is not a real relationship that's false does that make sense to you do you hear the wisdom in that yeah i just needed an expert opinion because everyone else has been telling me the same thing relationship. That's false. Does that make sense to you? Do you hear the wisdom in that? Yeah, I just needed an expert opinion because everyone else has been telling me the same thing. Good. Well, you sound like if everyone else

is, you've got some other good people in your life then. And so I'm going to send you a copy of Dr. Henry Cloud's book. It's called Boundaries. And jump on his website, boundaries.me. And you'll see some stuff in there. And when you read the first few chapters of that book, you're just going to laugh out loud. You're going to go, that's my freaking family. I know these people. Oh, you're going to recognize them.

I'm so sorry, honey. I know it hurts. Please don't cave. No good will come of it. He won't be helped, the relationship won't be real, and you won't be helped. There's nothing good comes from this conversation. Please.

Please, please, please. Hold on. Kelly will pick up. And check out boundaries.me as well. Henry's site. and recite. Ben is with us in Pennsylvania. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Perfect. I love it.

Hey, I just personally want to say thanks for your work. I mean, it's completely changed my life, and I just can't thank you enough. Well, thank you. How can I help? So, yeah, so I recently just became debt-free and currently in the process of rounding out my emergency fund. I guess my question is I have a pretty affordable rent situation, around 5% of my income, and I'm kind of debating whether, you know, starting retirement back up

or potentially like a baby step 3B, you know, after I finish out the emergency fund. Cool. How much are you paying in rent? Excuse me? How much do you pay in rent? Around $400 a month. That is affordable.

Very cool. What city are you in? Pittsburgh. That's unbelievably affordable. Was it a family situation or what? No, it's a co-op arrangement. Okay. All right.

Very cool. or what no it's a co-op arrangement okay all right very cool and um so what are you making a year around a hundred thousand good for you how old are you uh 31 okay you're single single yes okay well you're doing great yeah i mean if you go ahead and start and stay in that rental situation start investing and stay in that rental situation for a while, that's not the end of the world. The only thing is, long-term, you want to have a plan to buy. But, I mean, if you don't buy for three or four years, that's not the end of the world. Yeah, a part of me was wondering, I know you don't really suggest this,

but I have a long-term interest in, obviously, real estate, and listening to your show and just since forever kind of in real estate but was wondering whether it would make sense to possibly buy like a small rental um and continue to rent in the current situation i'm in instead of buying a house i just wasn't sure what your thoughts on that may be no i'd probably start with owning my home and getting it paid off and having that free and clear and then from there start buying paid for rentals after that but okay i mean you kind of lose the advantage if you are renting i mean it's not the end of the world either way the point is this that long term there's two or three

things about owning the home you live in long term i mean i'm talking by the time you're 60 and through the most of the scope of your life. Okay, I'm going to talk about the next three months. All right. But long, long term, when you own your home, you stabilize the most expensive part of the typical household budget, which is housing. When you rent, it goes up every year. In most cases, you have a very unusual rental situation so that takes some of the pressure off of that but still throughout the next 30 years if you owned a house you would have stabilized the cost of housing in your budget and if you were a renter

it goes up virtually every year okay and so that's thing one thing two for home ownership is it is one of the two data points that showed up in almost every one of the millionaires when we did our large everyday millionaire study is to have a paid for home in 10.2 years was the average the other thing was they steadily invested in their 401ks and roth IRAs and so forth and so since those two are two big millionaire data points, I'm going to want to lean on those two if one of my goals is to build some wealth. And so you stabilize and you build wealth with home ownership. It goes up in value.

It becomes approximately one-third of the typical millionaire's net worth as their paid-for home. So a lot of the millionaires we talk to say had a million-five net worth, $500,000 paid-for home, and a million in their 401 case. That was a lot of them. Like thousands and thousands of them fell just right there. And so when you've got that in the back of your mind, you're going, okay, I'm 31. There's no panic, but by the time I'm 35, I need to be on this train somewhere, and so you just kind of work it in that way, and you'll be fine.

Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jalen is with us in Alabama. Hi, Jalen. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? So I'm a senior at the University of Alabama, and thanks to you, I bought my first car. I saved up $5,700 and bought my first car in May. Good for you. Thank you. Thank you. But it did wipe out my entire savings because I'm putting myself through school. My family helps when they can, but I pretty much pay the bulk of everything by myself.

So my question is, I really want to like be financially responsible. I have the EveryDollar app. I'm learning the budget and you know do all the things that you've taught all of us to do um should i start paying off my student loan debt or should i start investing and saving like how do i prioritize what's the best thing to do so you graduate when may yes sir with in what? Communicative disorders and a minor in human development and general business. Cool. What are you going to do? I really want to go into Peace Corps

or AmeriCorps. I don't really want to work a traditional 9 to 5 because I'm hoping and praying to own my own non-profit one day to help, you know, people and stuff like that. So when you go into Peace Corps, like you're describing, is that a salaried position or is this a volunteer position? Yes. So it's a volunteer position, but it's paid.

Oh, okay. And they end up giving you a stipend towards your education if you decide to, you know, go to grad school or MBA or whatever you choose to do. Okay. And so what does it pay? $10,000. $10,000 a year? Yes, and then you're in the program potentially for two years,

which is not a definite. It's just something that I'm looking into right now, but I don't know yet. Okay, and how much debt do you have? Right now I have $25,000 worth of student loan debt. Okay. The $10,000 also includes housing because you'll be on the field somewhere, right? Yes, sir. Housing and food as well? Yes.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. There's not much. You're not getting much return on your investment other than it is a wonderful thing to do, and the return on investment is in your heart, not your wallet, okay? Okay. And if you've got a long-term plan, so it just gives me pause to say, hey, you've got a four-year degree.

You're a sharp young lady. You're getting it done. You've got $25,000 in debt hanging over your head, and then you say $10,000 instead of saying $50,000 coming out of school. And I went, oh, darn, you know, for you, you know. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do this. I'm not sure you should, though. So I'm going to put a question mark over it because when I heard it it made me stop and go okay you got a great heart you really want to help people that is a great motivation you got a big why in your life i love that about you um but i also don't you know you

can't do this for very long because you're going to have to make some money and clean this mess up okay i mean you might do it two years you might do it one year you might not do it at all You can't do this for very long because you're going to have to make some money and clean this mess up. Okay. I mean, you might do it two years. You might do it one year. You might not do it at all, but somewhere in there because you've still got a $25,000 mess to clean up. No, you don't need to be doing any investing at all. You need to just be piling up money and get ready to make this transition in May from a college student to a Peace Corps person or to the career you choose, if that's not it. And then any money that we have helps you make that transition and helps you begin to pay down on your student loans at that point.

We're not going to pay anything into investments until these student loans are clear. Yes, sir. Okay. But you did great saving up for that car. You may be making more than $10,000 while you're in school, it sounds like. When you pay $5,700 for a car, that didn't come from a $10,000 a year income. So I don't know. Just to think about, again, I don't want to blow up your dream.

I'm stammering a little because I don't want your dream to turn into a nightmare either. So it's not a 10-year plan. It could be a 2-year plan. It could be a 1-year plan. It could be no plan. Somewhere in there. Jennifer is with us. Nope, Jennifer is not with us. She's with us, but I'm at the end of the hour, which I was sleepwalking through this time.

Distracted, trying to figure out what to tell that young lady. She's sharp, and I want to help her. And I'm just thinking, I'm going to mess up her dream. $10,000 ain't much of a dream. Back and forth, right? There you go. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back. 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.