The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Look for the Easy Way Out (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm out. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality, best-selling author of the book Redefining Anxiety, is my co-host today as we talk to you about mental health, about relationships, about money, about life right here on The Ramsey Show. Dustin's going to start us off this hour in Kansas City. Hi, Dustin, how are you?
Starting point is 00:01:07 Good, how about you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I haven't done any drastic decisions, but I know we all hate timeshares, and I just kind of wanted to get your opinion on Disney's timeshare, because I know that one's a little different than the average timeshare. It just sucks less.
Starting point is 00:01:26 Right. know that one's a little different than the average time sure it just sucks laughs right what just hey this is just two guys talking forget that there's a couple million people listening what what are you doing man why are you calling this show uh well you know i always go to dave for advice i talked to him a couple months ago my father-in-law's been trying to get me to get into bbc um disney vacation club and you know i always want to run my thoughts by dave before i do anything oh you're awesome yeah yeah okay i appreciate that absolutely i like that very kind of you um no disney is the best of the worst but this is not a spectrum i even want to live on yeah so um if you want to go to disney it's wonderful just go down there and rent your hotel and uh you don't need to be putting your money into timeshares timeshare is the is a legalized fraud uh and you know again the disney plan is
Starting point is 00:02:16 is it is the best plan of all of them but they all suck this just sucks less and i appreciate your father-in-law um he obviously thinks it's not but he's wrong um and my father-in-law's tried to talk me into doing a couple things too that i still love my father-in-law but i didn't do those things yeah when you say he's pressuring you what is that what is it like paint me a picture of that i don't want i don't want to say he's pressure i mean he's he's been in since 94 okay and he's gone every year, so it's paid out for him and his opinion. He just, the last couple years, he's always brought it up in conversation, and my wife and I have always brought it up in conversation. So we're just sitting here, sitting around,
Starting point is 00:02:57 talking about it while we were in Disney last week. And I got to thinking. Okay. I actually thought you called that you're making a joke this is a you're this is a heartfelt call i apologize for making a joke i thought you were playing with us um yeah i like i'm with dave i think all of our father-in-laws want the best for us and they have a picture of what the best is and they and they encourage us either loudly or subversively but yeah you got to go with what's right yeah my father-in-law's daughter that's married to me doesn't vote like him.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Oh, yeah? And neither do I. Has he tried to convince you? Of course. Yes. But we gave up on that many years ago, and we just decided that we're going to be friends anyway, even though he's wrong. Which isn't so. It's just – but I have lots of friends that are wrong, that vote the wrong way.
Starting point is 00:03:43 But, you know, it's the same kind of thing, man. I mean, here's the thing. The bottom line of Disney or anything else, when you're buying a timeshare, you're buying air. You do not have ownership. You're basically prepaying for a hotel room for 30 years. Do you have a 10-second, what's the difference between a Disney one and everyone else? Like, why would somebody say that? Disney is one of the only ones i think it may
Starting point is 00:04:06 be the only one that i've ever actually witnessed you being able to sell it okay there's enough of a market for them that you can actually sell them gotcha you can't give the other ones away yeah much less sell them you can't they're all over ebay for a dollar you know wow and so they're they're they you know they have they lose they lose 100 of their value now disney does not lose 100 of its value but so you actually have an exit you actually can sell the thing and exit if you wanted to on a disney one and that's simply because it's disney and they've just created such a strong market for their horrible timeshares right you know but they're just not as horrible as the
Starting point is 00:04:45 others and the numbers are better i mean that what you pay for what you get and it all works out better but um especially given that there's an actual ability to probably a market for you to sell it in later but if you just run the numbers out and just say okay i very few people like almost no one does what your father-in-law has done which goes every year for their two's Disney right uh we go every year somewhere for a lot of years but very seldom is it the same place you know over and over and over it's one of the problems with buying a vacation home right is you trap yourself into that same location again and again and again and again you better love it you know and i just um i think he's wanting you to live his dream yeah and it made him happy and he wants that for you but that
Starting point is 00:05:33 doesn't mean it's a wise purchase so good question all right brian is in baltimore hey brian what's up how you doing good man how can we help? Very good. Well, I'm a registered nurse at a small community hospital in Baltimore. And right now the trend is to go agency to make two, three, four times as much money. And I'm really trying to figure out, stay with the, you know, stable, reliable job in Baltimore or take the chance and potentially travel for more money. What is the downside of traveling for more money? Instability. Whether or not the jobs are available.
Starting point is 00:06:18 You're single or married? Married, three kids. Okay. So time away from family would be a downside. It would be the same time either way. Three 12-hour shifts. You don't see them anyway when you're doing 312s. Not really.
Starting point is 00:06:36 I miss bedtime on the way home. Yeah. So you would go to another city, do 312s, and then have four days off? Potentially. There are local contracts available. Okay. So when you say instability, I don't see an end of nursing coming anytime soon. What instability are you afraid of?
Starting point is 00:06:56 Well, with my full-time job, I know what I'm doing from January to December. With the agency world, you take 13-week contracts, and you don't know if you have a job at the end of that 13 weeks. Gotcha. Have you ever met somebody who didn't have a job at the end of a contract? Yes. One of my friends just recently had her contract terminated. Okay. And then she was able to pick up another job, but it took two weeks to get it. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:29 Well, unless you, you know, okay, let me start with this. The premise that I operate on, and it has served me well, and I teach it to other folks to operate on it, is security is not based on your employer. Security is based on your ability to take the skills and education that you have into the marketplace and earn a living. Your security comes from you, not from your employer. Paycheck is a false security. And if you've ever run a company and you had to make payroll,
Starting point is 00:08:04 you'd know how false it is because, you know, a lot of a company and you had to make payroll you'd know how false it is uh because you know a lot of these places are scrambling to make payroll so in your case your security is based on the fact that you're in nursing and there's always been a shortage of nursing as long as i can remember and there's always been a place you can land as long as i can remember so unless there's a real reason to not take triple the money i'm going to go take triple the money for a while give this a run and work some 312s and hit some financial goals and if that becomes untenable then go hunt you a quote unquote stable i wouldn't use the word secure but i would use the word stable past 13 weeks weeks, regular job. But I'm going to give it a run.
Starting point is 00:09:00 In an uncertain world, being a good steward of your money is more important than ever. While some circumstances can't be controlled, there are items within your budget you can take charge of, such as your health care costs. For nearly 40 years, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, has provided a budget-friendly means of sharing for medical bills when our members need it. Learn more by visiting chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Christian Health Care Ministries is a Ramsey Trusted Provider. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. This is The Ramsey Show. Brendan is with us in Cleveland, Ohio.
Starting point is 00:10:10 Hi, Brendan. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I am working on baby step number two, and between my Christmas bonus from work and my two child tax credits
Starting point is 00:10:23 and income taxes coming up, I'll have about $16,000 all at once, like within 30 days. My question is, should I use that to pay off my car, which is my most expensive debt because it is 16,000 or pay my two, but they also total 600,000 or I'm sorry, 16,000, and that would only save me about half per month. So the total of the two levels that I could pay off with that would be about $200 a month, where my car is $490 a month. So you have $32,000 in debt. You're getting ready to have $16,000. Which do I pay off?
Starting point is 00:11:00 What is your household income? It's hard to say because I get most of it through travel. I work a very irregular job. Will you pay taxes on in 2021? $90,000. Okay. And so how fast are you going to pay off $16,000 left over, making $90,000? Well, I haven't.
Starting point is 00:11:23 The other wrench that gets thrown into it is I go to school on the side of my GI Bill pays as well. So when I start school back up at the beginning of the year, I'll have more income as well. So it'll be quicker. I will have more income, and it'll be a lot easier to pay stuff off. Either way, regardless of your two options, you're going to have $16,000 laying there with a $90,000 income. How fast are you going to pay the $16,000? I mean, as soon as it comes in. No, honey.
Starting point is 00:11:51 I mean the second $16,000. Oh, probably within nine months to a year. Yeah. How about six months? That would be better. Okay. So, if you're going to pay it off in six months, it doesn't matter which one you pay off first
Starting point is 00:12:10 because it's all going to be gone in six months. And your question seems to indicate that the math is going to cause you to get out of debt faster, and neither set of math is going to cause you to get out of debt faster. What's going to get you out of debt is you're leaning in on the debt. You make $90,000 a year, and you're going to have only $16,000 left after all this, so you're going to do it. So having said all of that, I'm going to pay off my car last.
Starting point is 00:12:32 I'm going to work the debt snowball, smallest to largest, pay off the first two, and then I want you to pay that car off by June. I want that $450 a month to haunt you. Yeah. Just let it. It's already done. Let it just come after you like a month to haunt you. Yeah. Just let it. It's already done. Let it just come after you like a neighborhood dog and drive you crazy. A neighborhood dog?
Starting point is 00:12:51 I don't know. I was trying to sound tough. I'm not very tough today. Man, I was trying to flex a little bit. Dave's like, really? Most of my neighborhood dogs are friendly. We got rid of the other ones. We live in different neighborhoods, Dave.
Starting point is 00:13:03 We live in different neighborhoods. No, I mean, the neighborhood I grew up in, we didn't put up with that stuff. Nick's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, Nick, how are you? I'm doing well. How are both of you? Better than we deserve. What's up?
Starting point is 00:13:16 So I am 26. I'm making $60,000 a year. I really want to go to law school. That's what I've always wanted to do. And with the good school that's in my city, I can just cash flow myself in the evenings. But I do still have undergraduate student loan debt of $100,000, and I don't know timing-wise if I should take a few years to first pay that off and then do the law school or do it now and let those go into Furman. And on one hand, obviously, I want to get out of debt.
Starting point is 00:13:46 I'd set them into Furman and cash flow law school. Okay. But only if you promise and swear and whatever other blood oath you can take that you will not take out a penny of debt for law school. Oh, not enough. I'm a finance degree. I work in a hedge fund right now. I know, but you have $100,000 in student loan debt,
Starting point is 00:14:10 so you've done it once. I've been kind of deprogrammed since then. Okay. Then if you will commit to remaining deprogrammed, then yes, the temptation in law school will be, hey, why don't you just go ahead and study? Why don't you slow down a little bit? Here's some student aid.
Starting point is 00:14:25 I've been there. The temptations are real. If you can promise that, then knock it out and then be done. Yeah, it's okay to push pause and finish. Just don't continue to do harm, to John's point. And it wouldn't hurt to go the other direction a little bit and start to begin to pay down while you're in law school, while you're cash flowing. But cash flowing in law school debt-free is job one. Job two is start to reduce the debt.
Starting point is 00:14:47 Ellen's with us in Chicago. Hi, Ellen. How are you? Doing good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Starting point is 00:14:57 I am having a problem. 2021, nor 2020, has been very kind to me, even though we are just on the edge. I hate to say the edge because it's going to be a problem in another year, um, of paying off debt. Uh, my aunt passed away last month and she left me as the beneficiary of one of her insurance policies and when the dust settles I should say once we get all the paperwork straightened out and I get everything it looks like I've got three thousand000 coming in and the temptation, what I know, what I should do, everything should go on our debt that's left. You know, it's not going to pay off the debt by far, but it,
Starting point is 00:15:55 it's another $3,000 that we are getting ahead. Uh, the problem is there's all these things in my mind going, no, there's this shiny thing. And I know I have mental issues. I know I have problems with impulse. This is an ongoing thing. I've got medical treatment, medicine. I've got that antidepressant, I should say. I'm seeing a counselor weekly on this. Are you married? Because, yes, I'm married. It sounds like, can I say something that's going to be hard to hear?
Starting point is 00:16:40 Yes, John. It sounds like you're planning for failure, and I want you to plan for success. And it's easy to plan for failure when you feel like you have failed yourself over and over and over again. You feel like that? Yeah. I can feel this. I can hear the shame through the phone.
Starting point is 00:16:57 I want you to let that go and set that down. It's nonsense. You're here. And the beautiful thing about being right here is you can own what happened in the past, and now you can say, starting today. And if you plan for success, you're going to stumble along the way because you're practicing a new way of living.
Starting point is 00:17:15 You're practicing a new way of thinking. You're practicing a new way of being in a relationship with yourself and other people, but you're practicing it. And just like LeBron James will will take a thousand shots today at practice and he'll miss a chunk of them just so he can hit more shots in the game i want you to practice it i want you to start by saying i'm going to put this three thousand bucks i'm going to honor my aunt because i'm the kind of woman who honors her family members and their stewardship of their money i'm gonna put on debt it's the right place for it to go and then you may have to set up a
Starting point is 00:17:44 roadblock or two you may have to make sure it deposits into an account that you don't have access to or give up your atm card for a season uh your debit card for a season whatever that looks like but set up a roadblock or two for yourself yeah a good way to do that is get people you love in your life and say to your husband um i i want you to hold my hand so that I write the check and it goes to dad. And I want you to walk with me and help me do this. And he can't say, oh, no, honey, it's yours, you do whatever. No, I need your help. I need you to walk with me and give me the strength to do the smart thing.
Starting point is 00:18:22 Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think you can do it, Ellen. We've paid off $100,000 so far. Over $100,000 so far. I take back what I just said. I know you can do it. I know you can. You know what else indicates that you can?
Starting point is 00:18:41 That you called here. You called here, yeah. I mean, somebody who couldn't wouldn't have called here but you called here you just want us to remind you that you can do it ellen that's our job we remind people stuff they already know that's right ellen i want you this weekend i want you to get an hour by yourself for two hours and i want you to write your aunt a letter tell her how much you love her how much you're grateful for and how much you're going to miss her and tell her what you're going to do, and how much you're going to miss her.
Starting point is 00:19:06 And tell her what you're going to do with that money. That money is going to go to continuing to pay off your debt so that you and your husband can be free. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Next week on December 22nd, we will do our last live show of the year, meaning that between the 22nd and the 2nd of January, you'll get best ofs, which are actually better than when we're here. That's why we call them best ofs. So be sure you tune in.
Starting point is 00:20:08 But anyway, our tradition around here is on that last day, on this case, December 22nd, we do our annual giving show to encourage generosity, to promote a lifestyle of generosity. To give is better than to receive. The most fun you'll ever have with money is giving if you've been the recipient of outrageous generosity someone gave you something that changed your life or you were able to do something for someone and it just made you cry it was so fun i want to hear those stories because america wants to hear those stories now i know if you were the giver you feel like you're not supposed to brag, but I want
Starting point is 00:20:46 you to brag because God did it. You didn't do it. He just did it through you. Shut up. We still want to hear your story, but call us and make us cry. So the giving show. If you have a giving or receiving story that is not $30 left as a tip, I'm talking something where just something real happened, okay?
Starting point is 00:21:03 Big or cool or fun that's kelly she comes running in something guess what i did guys guess what i did yeah give a ten dollar tip we're like way to go kelly way to go kelly that's better than all right so what you do is you go to ramsay solutions.com slash ask ramsay solutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line. Kelly will get back to you, and you can share your generosity story on The Giving Show on December the 22nd. And we need some good stories. You guys call in with those, write in with those today. ramsaysolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line.
Starting point is 00:21:41 Martin is in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Martin. How are you? I am fine. How are you, David fine how are you david better than i deserve what's up well i inherited a property not my myself but my wife is the only child of her parents property we lost one of them in july of 19 and the second one in december of 20. we learned that there is a mortgage against the property, and right now we were told there's a moratorium for the COVID because my father-in-law passed away of COVID.
Starting point is 00:22:15 But we're concerned of trying to take on the back payments and all that on the property and how best way to handle it. So you're on. I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry about your loss. Thank you. your loss hard for your wife how long you guys been married yes over 30 years yeah so these are like your parents too then yes yes yeah yeah she uh as far as that goes uh my mother-in-law was like second parents to me they they always treated me well yeah i loved the whole time no no disrespect no nothing we always just got along we even traveled together whoa that's cool with my mother-in-law and her in-laws we would had a massive massive wreck out west on a convention trip that i won
Starting point is 00:22:58 but we won't go into that and they were all in the motorhome with us. So this house has a lot of emotion in it, is the point. Yes. I don't believe my wife would really want to live there. We have a home very similar to it, a few blocks away. Yeah, but just selling it is hard. Oh, yes. Yes. Mathematically, financially, that's what you should do.
Starting point is 00:23:27 You should sell it. Sell it? Yeah. Okay. Because the chances of you having reverse engineered this and said, hey, I want to buy a house that has a bunch of back payments on it and get in there and fix it up and rent it is about zero. You weren't looking for this. It landed in your lap.
Starting point is 00:23:47 Right. minute um is about zero you weren't looking for this it landed in your lap right and um the other thing i'll go ahead and tell you not mathematically but emotionally um it represents the past not the future and if you want if you want if you want something that is a keepsake, it's not a piece of real estate. Okay. It's her Bible or a piece of her jewelry or his old truck even. Mm-hmm. You know. I understand.
Starting point is 00:24:16 But it's not a piece of real estate. And so your picture of the future doesn't have this house in it. But it's also smart to say out loud that you're going to cry when you sell it. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. No doubt about that at all. It does need some up. They've lived there over 40 years.
Starting point is 00:24:36 And, you know, so I looked at that possibility of fixing it up and renting it and, you know, having the income from that. But it's going to be all on me. I don't believe my wife really wants to spend too much time there. So backing out of this, were you planning on getting into the rental home property business? Well, with it being so close, yes. No, no, no, no, no. Before this happened.
Starting point is 00:25:02 Right, before it happened. Oh, before this happened, no. Before this happened. Right, before it happened. Oh, before this happened? No. Because what you're trying to do is make the best of a hard situation, right? How can I best honor this memory? And here's the thing I could do with it. What I don't want an inheritance to turn into is a job, a second job for you that you weren't planning on. You know what I mean? Right. And if you did the math on the real estate, on the rental property versus you just selling it, how many months would that of just cash would they hand you in a check?
Starting point is 00:25:32 If you just said, I'm not even going to fix it up. I'm just going to go sell this thing as is. And we are going to have a neat celebration with the money and the proceeds. We're going to do something with that money that's going to honor the legacy of my in-laws, my wife's parents, and then we're going to go from there. Yeah, give yourself a little bit of emotional room, but by this time next year that house needs to be gone. Give yourself a little wiggle room. You don't have to rush. There's nothing on fire, but there's nothing driving this,
Starting point is 00:26:03 except at some point they're going to foreclose if you don't make up the back payments, but that may push you to do it sooner. But, you know, if I'm you, I'm going to go ahead and start my estate sale planning after the first of the year and get the thing cleaned out, get it swept out, get on RamseySolutions.com, find our real estate ELP, have them come over and start planning it,
Starting point is 00:26:22 and, you know, when the grass gets green, let's try to get that thing on the market and take advantage of this up real estate ELP, have them come over and start planning it. And, you know, when the grass gets green, let's try to get that thing on the market and take advantage of this up real estate market and see what you can do by doing very minimal work to it, as minimal as you can. Don't make this your new hobby. But it is fair to say out loud this process is going to be hard because it's a part of the grieving of the loss of her parents because now there's the loss of the house, and that kind of makes it like final. There's a finality to it, yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:53 And it's just you need his personal finance. It goes with the territory. So good question. All right, Micah's in Cincinnati. Hey, Micah, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, John. How are you guys doing? Great man, what's up? Well, so I'm a relatively new listener and my wife and I are on baby step
Starting point is 00:27:13 two, getting out of that debt and I was wondering, I've got a vehicle for myself and for my wife. I actually live in Jamestown, I'm like an hour from Cincinnati, so it needs to be reliable. And hers as well. She's got long travels too. But I still owe $10,000 on my truck, and we owe about $20,000 on her car. And I also have an ATV that we owe way too much, like $10,000 on. So I was wondering if it would be worth downsizing any of those three vehicles, or because they are doing well for us and they are reliable and all used um would i be worth just holding on to at least the car and the truck and maybe selling the four-wheeler what's your household income um base between the two of us is around
Starting point is 00:27:58 150 and you make more than that what's your what's your household income as long as our overtime is open which covered's been screwing up i can probably come in around And you make more than that. What's your household income? As long as our overtime is open, which Kevin's been screwing up, I can probably come in around $175,000. Okay. Well, none of this is out of line. Even the ATV is not out of line. But, you know, what you do have to do is you're going to have to get really serious about cleaning up $40,000 worth of debt while you make $175,000.
Starting point is 00:28:25 This is just financial laziness that you make that kind of money and have this debt laying around. Am I wrong? Well, we just got our jobs within, well, significant rates. We were on my income of $43,000. Oh, then I withdraw my insult. I withdraw my insult. So what I would do is I would say, I'm going to get really, really serious as if I had to buy a $40,000
Starting point is 00:28:55 item to save my child's life. Like, I'm going all in here. Like, crazy. Totally focused. And I'm going to knock this debt out really fast and keep all these items Well, a couple of days ago, I shared a big announcement with you guys, and it's almost sold out. We are having a big event here in Nashville called Wealth Building for 2022. Rachel Cruz, George Campbell, and I will be speaking. It is a large live event, Thursday, January the 13th. Tickets are on sale and there's about just a handful left. So if you want to go and you want to learn about wealth building and building wealth is a big hot topic right now. Everybody's trying to figure out how to be a
Starting point is 00:30:18 millionaire. Everybody's trying to figure out how to get rich quick. Everybody's talking about one thing, building wealth, building wealth building wealth building wealth and so we're going to talk with you about it because and teach you how to really build wealth january the 13th here in nashville it's a one night special event tickets are just 15 bucks uh you can go to ramsey solutions.com slash events get yours i would suggest if you're the moment you hear this that you jump on the website and do it because you will just have a few moments left. The tickets, they're just a handful left, and they're going to be gone. I'll probably announce a sellout tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:30:51 So, yeah, go ahead and get your tickets now. January 13th, me, Rachel Cruz, George Camel, speaking, teaching you on wealth building for 2022 at Ramseysolutions.com slash events. Seth is with us. Seth's in Los Angeles. Hi, Seth. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how's it going?
Starting point is 00:31:12 Better than I deserve. How can I help? You know, let me just first off start by saying that I really appreciate all the information I've been able to gain just from watching your videos from the past couple of weeks. And I've been, you really do give an inspiring stance when it comes to finances and stuff. And as embarrassing as my situation is, or I feel like it is, I thought that you would be the best person to help in this regard. Well, thank you. Basically what I've been going through is, and just give you a little bit of background, I'm the only one who works in my household. It's me and my wife, newly married. We just hit our one-year anniversary on Sunday.
Starting point is 00:31:53 And basically, what I have is a auto loan, you know, one of our biggest bills. That's just causing me a lot of headache. I've had it, you know, previously before I got engaged and I got married. And, you know, as a single person, this car was, you know, just right for me. It was something I liked. It was, you know, I'll be honest, it was a little bit fancy or at least flashy in my opinion. I really do enjoy the car, but as of now being married and a little bit more mature, the car itself and just everything that I'm bringing with it isn't something that I can maintain anymore. So my question is, you know, is it a good idea to kind of give the car up,
Starting point is 00:32:38 or is that just something I'm kind of rushing into just as a last minute option, or I need some information on that kind of. By give it up, do you mean a voluntary repossession? Yeah, exactly. How much do you owe on the car? So as of now, I called in, and I owe roughly around $22,000 for the car. Have you looked up what it's worth? Yeah, I looked up what it's worth.
Starting point is 00:33:05 Just recently this weekend, we took it over to a couple of places, CarMax, Toyota, just a couple other places just to try to get, you know, a sense of what people or what they would give us for the car. And so right now the consensus is that, you know, $13,000 is, you know, the amount that people would give just because of all the problems it has with it. It has a check engine light. It's an Audi, so it's a really nice car,
Starting point is 00:33:33 but it's luxury and the parts are expensive. How old are you? 24. Okay. Well, the car market is unbelievably hot right now. Did you have a car before that you owed more on than it was worth that you were upside down and you rolled the negative equity into this deal? I did, but it was under my parents' name.
Starting point is 00:34:02 But you rolled negative equity into this deal? No, no, no, no. And with this deal... So this car, what year is this car? It's a 2015. Okay, and what'd you pay for it? Oh, it was a while ago. I believe out the door it was like 26 to 28, somewhere like that.
Starting point is 00:34:26 I'm not buying the 13. The 13 is a bad number. You're getting snookered. Yeah, I feel the same way. Honestly, when I took it to CarMax, they just said it had, because of the engine light, it has a ding or a scratch you know towards the towards the rear of it as well and um you know there are some some underlying problems with it i guess that they had inspected and that's the number that they came and gave me and from underlying problems or what
Starting point is 00:34:56 um well so so far from what i know um when i start the car it starts to you know stutter and stuff like that and i I recently had to replace What do you make a year? I make roughly I make like $4,100 gross Do you have a baby? No, no
Starting point is 00:35:17 Why does your wife not work? She got hurt a couple years back and that's a whole another situation but basically her her right shoulder is you know a bit of a a bit of a nuisance to her and it's constantly coming out of the socket it's it's a long story but she's basically unable to to work her job well a physical job probably but she could get a job. Oh, no, 100%. I mean, that is something that I...
Starting point is 00:35:46 Because you guys need money. Okay, here's what's going on, okay? You're looking, and it's human nature, and I do it too, so I'm not picking on you, but you're looking for the easy way out, and the voluntary repo is not the easy way out. And 13K is absurd on this car. There's something wrong with this story. So what I would do is take it to a mechanic and pay to have it fixed and if that costs you 500 bucks good spend the 500 bucks get it fixed get the check engine light off get the stuttering going away then all you got's a
Starting point is 00:36:14 scratch and then the car suddenly magically going to be worth 20 and then you're two thousand dollars in the hole you go down the credit union you $2,000, and you sell the car. Yeah. Because if they take this car and sell it, they're going to sell it for $8,000 on the repo lot, and they're going to sue you for the difference in 22 and 8, known as 14. You lose control of the price when you give it to them, that it sells for. Therefore, you are going to dramatically increase the amount you owe that you're in the hole. So what I'm trying to do here is to work you out of this hole.
Starting point is 00:36:55 I mean, you might even be able to sell it for what you owe on it if you fix it. Go get it fixed and sell it, But don't give it back to them. Because if you give it back to them, you're going to have a $14,000 lawsuit on your hands where they come after you and sue you for the difference on this. And then you're going to be calling me up, how do I settle a deficit on a car repo? And you've got a car repo on your credit. And your wife needs to go get a job so that we've got money to fix all this stuff. And I want to tell you, your entire disposition, it may just be how you roll through life,
Starting point is 00:37:29 just kind of a low-key guy. As Dave said, it sounds like you're looking for what's the least painful way to get out of debt. And I'm kind of thinking about this. Maybe if I just – you've got to run, dude. You've got to say we're done with this, and we're going to be finished with it. And, okay, I can't work on my shoulder. I'm going to get a job with health insurance so I can have surgery. I'm going to get a job selling stuff from home.
Starting point is 00:37:53 We're going to have to fix this thing. And it sounds like you all have some marriage challenges. That's a whole other conversation you said. It says you got some mental health stuff going on, some physical stuff going on. It's all this, well, you know, it's just going to be this way next month and the month after that and the month after that until somebody says no more. Seth, there's an old book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. That was a perennial bestseller. It was a bestseller month after month, year after year after year by Stephen Covey.
Starting point is 00:38:21 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. year after year after year by Stephen Covey. The seven habits of highly effective people. Habit number one, they are proactive. They happen to things instead of things happening to them. And that's what John's describing for you. You need to get in that mode where I'm going to happen to this car thing. I'm going to happen to these things. There are things here you can control and if you control the controllables you're going to end up with a better life real fast too yeah like it after yesterday right now get after it
Starting point is 00:38:56 light it on fire baby let's let's just see it burn not the car your life don't burn the car steven that's not what i said this is the ramsey show have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

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