The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Make Decisions Today That Your Future Self Will Hate (Hour 3)

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Dr. John Delony & Rachel Cruze discuss: Paying for college without scholarships, Funding an emergency fund with mutual funds, Renting while looking for a home, Why people freak out when we tell married couples to combine bank accounts, What to do with money in a CD, "Can we have fun money in baby step 2?", Getting caught up on bills. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your marriage, your work, your life. I'm John Deloney, joined here by Rachel Cruz, bestselling author and good friend, and we are taking your calls on just about everything. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Gabriel in Pensacola. What's up, Gabriel? How we doing? Hey, good. How are you? Good. Good, good, man. What's up? How can we help?

Good. Thank you. So I am on Baby Step 2. I am just over $5,000 left to pay off, but I'm starting college in the fall, and I wasn't able to get any scholarships or anything, so my only option at the moment, at least that I know of, is to go in more debt to actually go to school. So I was wondering what you guys recommend to do. Not that. Gabriel,

how old are you? I'm 21. 21, okay. What are you studying? I'm going for worship ministries. Okay. How much is the school you're going to per semester? It's $10,000 a year. $10,000 a year. Okay, so $5,000. How much do you make a year? Just over $30,000 to like $35,000. Okay. I'm not over $30,000 exactly yet.

Okay, perfect. So, Gabriel, what you're going to do is get another job, make some extra and cash flow that five grand for the fall semester. Or you're going to sit out the fall semester, and it's just called deferred enrollment. Just think of it, we think of like college as… But you're starting in the fall. He's got until January. You have like nine months, don't you, Gabriel?

No, I'm just saying if you don't make it, then you don't make it then you don't make it right yeah yeah yeah that's fair that's fair um there's this idea of let me just say this out front do not go into debt for a worship ministry degree okay what i'm telling you on that sink in on the back for any reason any reason but also when you know your future is working at a church or a nonprofit, right? And you are unable to say, hey, this is wrong or I'm uncomfortable with this because you have to make payments to somebody else, right? You trap yourself. And I'm just telling you from a guy who got a lot of student loans, the backside of this is not, it just takes your soul from you, man. And I'm also not one of those, dude, I am all, all,

all in on higher ed. Like that was my career. I love working at universities. I think they, they serve a great public good. So I'm not even going to bash them. I just, I'm telling you, you're setting yourself up. And so Rachel's right. If you really want to go look at this like a car or a guitar or a new set of pedals, if you don't have the money, you don't just borrow it. You just don't buy it. So figure out a way between now and then that I'm going to save up this money and make it happen. Yeah, Gabriel, it's almost this mindset.

It's this game you play where you're like, no, you know, you said my only option is taking out debt. Well, that's not an option. set it's this game you play where you're like no you know you said my only option is taking out debt well that's not an option so just take that away and say okay so now what do i need to do to get five grand by the fall and that's the great thing about it's five grand you can do that go get it man if you were talking about 30 grand for some you know private university or something we would have a toll we would have for sure the deferment conversation and say, you'll probably have to wait out a year. You're gonna pile a bunch of money. You're gonna apply next year for scholarship.

You know, it would be, so I'm thankful that it's not very expensive, but you, yeah, you have the time 100% to save up and pay for this thing. I mean, absolutely. And I'd also just sit down with the church where I lead worship now and say, I'm asking for you guys to invest in me

in the same way I'm investing in you and, um, see if they would help out as well. Um, often employers will help with extra education benefits if you sit down and ask them. So I would do that, man. But Hey, take like, I love Rachel. I love that you said that take debt off the table. It's not the only option. It's not an option at all. What is an option is working really, really hard, working several jobs, getting work-study programs, getting a job on campus, asking your church if they will step up.

Yeah, working for the college even too. Working for the university. Yes. There's 50 different options. Because Gabriel, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, 25-year-old Gabriel is going to be like, yes, 21-year year old Gabriel sacrificed worked

extra paid his way through but now I have I have the option to go take a job any job I want right so if a church is is paying you less but it's the church you really want to go work for after you graduate you get to because you don't have bills you don't have debt yeah so it's it frees up so so much so your future self it, he's going to be thankful. I'm telling you. And I may have bought a guitar or two myself with student loan money. With student loans? Just don't do it, man.

Just don't do it. All right, let's go to Natalie in Kansas City. What's up, Natalie? How we doing? Hi, John. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for taking my call today. It's a pleasure to speak with you.

You got it. Absolutely. What's up? Well, my question is, are on baby step three and we have about two to 3000 set aside in a separate savings account. We have about 20,000 in several different mutual funds that are non-retirement. One is just the general account for my husband and I, and then the three others are set up for our kids' future with what they want to do with it whenever they do or do not go to college. And my question is, should we take some of that out

right now to build up to our $20,000 for our goal of six months of expenses for emergencies? Or since the market's kind of down right now, and I keep hearing it's basically on sale, should we just leave it in there and just work on cash flowing up to our emergency fund goal? Yeah, that's a great question. How much do you guys make a year? Who we about 65 to 70,000. Okay. You know, just in pure Ramsey gazelle mode, baby steps one through three. It's like all hands on deck everything and we say cash out non retirement investments, specifically to pay off debt. And then when you guys are here for the emergency funds to yeah that that's that's a real option so it's really for you guys what you want to decide okay do we want to wait another probably five six months to build this thing up or today do you

want to cash it out put it aside and then start working on retirement so I mean honestly Natalie if I were you I would want to keep making progress and movement. And because you're not going to be penalized because it's not retirement, they're non-retirement accounts. You know, I know it hurts to be like, man, it's on a down market. So you could even maybe split it 50-50

and say, hey, let's take some out. And then say, you know, in the next three, four months is our goal to have our fully funded emergency fund. You could do that as well. So it's how gazelle intense you want to be. Okay. All right. Perfect. I was just curious about that. So thank you so much. For whatever it's worth, Natalie, if you and I, if I was traded places with you, I would do that. Having had to, I bought a new house, I guess I'm two and a half years in now and I wasn't a brand new house. It was new to me and had a great inspection and everything was good.

And since then I've had to replace a deck and a roof and a front porch and an air conditioner. I would like to have that emergency fund full. I'd rather have the emergency fund full now and have investments for whatever my kids want to do in five or 10 or 15 years. So that's just me. That's what I would do. You can use that for whatever it's worth. Hey, we'll be right back. this is the Ramsey show I'm John Deloney joined here by Rachel Cruz give us a shout at 888-825-5225. My two best buddies on the planet, John King and Todd, showed up today to see me.

And my wife surprised me for Christmas. It was my Christmas present. She flew my buddies in, so it's good to see you guys. It's making my heart full. You're good friends, dude. I know. You should have them on.

They should come in here. I think that would be a terrible idea. Tell a few stories about Deloney. I think we will. Dave worked really hard to get this show off the ground and run it over 30 years and we can end it really, really quickly. Let's go out to Devin in Seattle, Washington. What's up, Devin? Yeah, we are moving in June and I'm a little stressed because it's the first time we were moving from an owned house to buying a new house. And the thought of going back there multiple times to try and find a house is what really kind of stresses me out.

So my thought was, would it make sense for us to sell our house here and then rent an Airbnb out there for a month while we're looking for a new house? I've done that. Or even better, rent an apartment or a house for six months and get to know the traffic patterns and the layout and who lives where and what neighborhoods are up and coming and what schools and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, renting in general, Devin, I think it's a great plan, especially in a new city. for what John just said. I would look at what's most economical, right? If it's apartments and Airbnb, maybe.

Maybe expensive. You'll need to price it out, but renting in general for a year, I think, is wise. It's actually what we recommend people do because you're going to learn the city. And just what John said, you're going to have to figure out, okay, where do we want to be um versus just doing a trip here or there where are you moving that's the thing we're moving back home so this is so you know the area yeah yeah i've been 30 years there so i know the area really well that's the thing is you know because we're trying to decide that and we're also trying to decide if we want to get like a small mortgage, because we'll have a huge down payment coming in. And it's like, do we buy a cheaper house with cash or buy a nicer house that we'd stay in longer and get a smaller mortgage? So it's just all of that

stuff has been kind of stressful on us. So when my wife and I moved from Texas to Nashville, I was terrible. We didn't do it well and and I take full ownership of that I would tell you and your wife to sit down and write down on a piece of paper the points that are stressing you out the most and the ones that you can put off for two or three months after you get there and get settled and let everything exhale and you get through the closing of your house and all the stuff in the boxes and get it shipped out, all that stuff. Get that done, man. And if it gives you and your wife peace to have a place that you walk into and someone hands you the keys and you're only going to move once and this is your home, do that too.

The key is to write this stuff down and get it out of your heads because she's going to have a picture of what this looks like. You're going to have a picture of what this looks like. And that misalignment is what's going to cause so much chaos. And it's going to heighten the stress. It's going to amplify stress that's not really there. Okay. And so whatever your decision is, if I'm you, I would do exactly what you just said. I would call somebody with Airbnb and say, I'll rent it out for the whole month for this price. Will you take it? And they'll probably say yes,

because then they won't have to turn it over four times. And then you can go, ah, check mark, and then get your stuff sent to a storage space for 60 days, and then you and your wife can figure out where you're going to move. That's what I would do. Okay, cool. Yeah, no, thanks. It's been one of those things where it's like technically that increases the price of the home by a couple thousand dollars. There is no price on soul tax, brother. I would rather pay a couple thousand

extra dollars and be able to breathe and still be married. It's a good point. Yeah, and Devin, remember, buying a home for most people, it's the largest financial investment that you're going to make. So any amount of just like taking a deep breath, slowing down, you're good, you're good, you're good. You know, if you can have a little bit of margin in that space, even if it's for that month, it's going to be worth it because you're good. You guys, you guys are wise. You're smart. You sound like you're on top of it. You know what you're doing.

So, yeah, just taking a little bit of time is totally fine, especially with, you know, you're not buying a $5,000 used Honda, right? I mean, like, this is a home. So it's like you want to take your time with it and make sure that it's exactly what you guys want. Mathematically, it works in all of it. You'll have more peace when you just slow down. Okay. All right. Thank you when you just slow down. Okay.

All right. Thank you very much for your advice. Absolutely. Thanks for calling. All right. Let's go to, you know what, Rachel? You had something go viral on Instagram the other day. Tell me about it.

Oh, yeah. I did a reel where you dub your voiceover. you're talking to me like i'm like i'm seven no i'm trying to i'm trying to get the words where i'm like i don't even know what it's called i don't know how the internet's working i don't know uh and it was a taylor swift song it says horrified looks from everyone in the room and so and then you put on the reel like what is the thing you say that people just look at you crazy? So I put, of course, when you get married, combine checking accounts because it's the one piece of advice I put out there. And everyone's like, oh, my gosh.

And of course, everyone's like, oh, my gosh. And they got so mad. Do we have the clip, James? Oh, there's no sound. Oh, they can't do it for licensing reasons. Oh, man. Okay. T-Swift will come after you yeah

sorry t swift don't mess with you you're good go and go into her t swift don't worry about me uh but she's not yeah she's not worried about me but yeah but the the hate is the the despise of this piece of advice is still out there john i mean and it always will be when you say it out loud what what's like and you have tons of women who follow you like hundreds of thousands they come after they literally come after you they get so they're all team rachel until you say you need to share your accounts they get so mad so the one is a very more fear base but is a reality for a lot of people it's divorce that if you combine all of your money he can take it

all and then you have nothing you know you have no autonomy you have nothing so it's this future fear of if a divorce and then the other one is yeah we just fought all the time so now that we have separate accounts we don't fight anymore like and i'm like yeah because you're not talking about it yeah you just duct tape over the cancer and let it. I mean, I'm like, oh my gosh. So those people, I'm like, okay, the fight you're avoiding is the fight you need to have. Like that's what you should be fighting.

Like, yeah, you're just sweeping it under the rug. And so what is under that? So that's always my push. And so the quote unquote easy way out, it's just like, I'll just have my money. He has his money and we can just live our separate lives financially and just go. We don't have to ever have a hard conversation about it. There's never going to be conflict. We're going to just run these two lanes. And you know, and you know this, John, I mean, you have even all the studies on it, but when you

combine your finances, it's more than just combining bank accounts. It is combining your life. You are saying to someone, I am with you in this marriage that we are one in every aspect of our lives, including our money. And so you have to have the conversation about who are we going to be? Yeah. Where do we want to live? What kind of life do we want to have? Where are we going to go on vacation? What kind of cars are we going to drive? What do we want for our children? Or do we want to not have children? You have to have all those conversations and if you keep separate lives you just you're just glorified roommates who hook up right i mean you're just not in this thing together together no yeah and

there's the date the research data came out um that that couples are happier couples are happier when they're on the same page and it's like it's like no kidding well we've said before like if you can share a bed and share genetics with your if you could grow a kid running around you should be able to share your money and i get that it's hard and i get that you know opposites attract and and all of it and if you know of course the asterisk is always if you are in an abusive relationship or there's an addiction i mean if there's something there that you need to protect yourself that is one thing right but for majority of couples out there, it's just this whole idea of, oh, I'm just going to have mine. He's going to have his, and we're going to just run these two separate lives. And it trickles down into your marriage. You know what I mean? Like you are a whole person. You don't just

have the money side of you. The way you operate and the way you think and make decisions is in every part of your marriage, and that includes your money. So being unified is so key. And the couples that win long-term with money and win faster are couples that say, we are a team. We're going to work together. I love it, love it, love it. At 888-825-5225.

If you're mad at Rachel because she just told you to combine your income, give us a shout and we will tell you that you're wrong. We'll be right back. Thank you. anytime the price of eggs is making headlines you know you're dealing with a wacky economy rachel guess what we have in our house chickens yeah i'm not gonna flex that we're rich but we have in our house chickens yeah I'm not going to flex that we're rich

but we have lots of eggs you're one of those the chickens are crushing but even news about layoffs chicken prices on again off again recession crazy high interest rates are no reason to give up on your money goals

we're here to give you a plan for your money join us on the Building Wealth live tour as we show you how to build wealth and, drum roll please, and keep it. Join Dave Ramsey, George Campbell, Rachel Cruz, and Jade Warshaw in Indianapolis on February 16th. Then Dave, Ken Coleman, me, and Jade Warshaw in Austin on February 23rd. And then we're going to go to Salt Lake City with Dave Ramsey, George Campbell, Rachel Cruz, and Christina Ellis. And finally, we will close out the tour in beautiful Anaheim on May 2nd with Dave Ramsey, Ken, me, and Christina Ellis. Tickets start at $49, or you can get a four-pack of tickets starting at $175. There's going to be programs going on beforehand.

Me and Ken do our show live. I think, Rachel, you and George, you all going to do Smart Money Happy Hour? There's a chance. Depends on the venue. But yes, possibly. It's just going to be so fun. It's fun.

It's just mayhem. These events in the fall, they sold out completely. They sold out. They're selling out. Yeah, it's happening. The attraction is picking up on tickets. So make sure to get them if you're in these cities or travel. Travel to the cities too. And they get picking up on tickets, so make sure to get them if you're in these cities or travel.

Travel to the cities, too. And they get off the rails when we all get together at the end, so it's a lot of fun. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash events to reserve your seats for Building Wealth Live. Let's go out to Alex in the NYC. What's up, Alex? Hey, how's it going, John? How's it going, Rachel? Good.

Thank you so much for having me. You got it, man. What's up? So this time last year, I decided that I needed to make some spending habit changes. And I decided to start paying off some credit cards. I have a total of 10. I paid off eight. I have two left. A little bit disappointed that a few of them are still on my credit. But my question is, while I was doing that, I was saving money. And just last month, I put $6,500 on a CD. And I also have $5,000 cash. And I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing with this money that I put aside. Do you guys have any suggestions?

How much do you have in credit cards on those last two credit cards? I have about $2,400. Okay. So if I were you, Alex, I would cash out the CD and I would pay off the credit cards today. I would take the remaining money that you have, and I would just put it in a good money market account and start building up your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. And that's going to be your jumpstart to doing that. And then your next step will be to start investing 15% of your income into retirement. So for CDs, I mean, yeah, there's just no you know rate of return certificates of depreciation i know well most of the time they don't even keep up with inflation so yeah and i just opened a money market account at four percent the other day yes just the other day

it was 3.9 or something yeah yes and you know and i would get a money market account with check writing privileges quote unquote what they're called so you'll get a debit card with it so you can do usually up to like three transactions a month if you ever need to dip into it. But hopefully you won't have to because it's just for your emergency fund and hopefully you won't have to touch it. And then, yeah, and then I would start investing. But I think it's, you know, you did a great job of just putting some money aside. I just think you can put this money to better use than it just sitting in a CD. Let me ask, can I ask you, what made you not pay off the remaining two credit cards and put this money in a CD? Well, when I look back at my credit and I saw that all the payments, like the credits of cards that I paid were still on there, I was just like, this is kind of pointless.

So I kind of slowed down a lot with that. So don't let somebody else's paperwork problems keep you chained up. Okay? At this point, you've decided you're not going to borrow money anymore. So your credit score is kind of useless because all your credit score is, it's a dating score for your relationship with debt. And you broke up with that you're done so i i wouldn't lose any sleep maybe look at that in a year okay but i i wouldn't let that yeah like they're taking too long to roll their stuff off or they're gonna roll off in 90

days or whatever their policies are who cares dude i'm not letting them guide my decisions and especially i'm not going to hit uh here's the way i'll ask it the way dave would ask it would you ever go to your credit card and pull 6500 off of a credit card like cash get cash advance on a credit card and put that in a cd no okay pay your cd off i mean pay your credit card off okay and then with the five thousand dollars cash that i have should i just leave it in my savings my regular savings account that's what rachel was talking about yeah i would no i would put that in the money market account as well money market okay okay i mean have some buffer in your checking account you know because you have that margin there so have a little bit of buffer there but i would put yes everything

into just a money market account and start building up that three to six months of expenses for an emergency fund. Very cool, man. All right. Let's go out to Lorena in Toronto. What's up, Lorena? Hi, hi. Thank you for taking my call. You got it. What's up? Um, so I've been listening to you guys for the last two months. And baby step number two, our takeout pay is $8,000 a month. Now, my husband thinks that he should have $100 allowance a week. What do you guys think about that? You're bringing us into a fist fight, man. Real cool. What do you think about that

um okay here's here's the rule of thumb when it comes to baby step two the deeper you are willing to sacrifice your lifestyle the faster you're going to get out of debt so he wants a hundred dollars a week how much debt do you guys have? $73,000. Okay. And that's consumer debt. That's not including our house. That's not including your house. Okay. Yes. And how much do you make a year? Well, him? No, both of you. Both of you combined is $160,000. as you know, Canada has a lot of taxes. So you bring home $8,000. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, so basically... You only bring home $8,000 after $160,000? Yeah. Oh, my sister. Okay, sorry. It breaks my heart. So basically, I want you guys to look and say, okay, that's an extra $5,000 a year that could be going towards paying off our

debts, right? So, you know, and people talk about, you know, do we put a little bit of money in out to eat? Do we still kind of like, you know, do some stuff? So the people that are just gazelle intense, and that's where we lean, where we're like, get this debt out. You sacrifice your lifestyle. There is no just, oh, we're going to just go have some fun no no it is so intense you're cutting out everything everything is laser focused and you go go go go go for a short amount of time right i mean you guys will be able to get this paid off um what within probably 18 18 months ish and so being able to look and see 30 months yeah yeah but be able to to map it out though and then say okay what if we took on extra income an extra job and made some more so i want you guys to really flesh out these numbers because where it's just like oh it's just 100 bucks a week

pan that out to say okay what is this really going to cost us in the long run and be realistic though about your budget too that is one thing some people that get so gazellentense like we're only going to spend 28 dollars oh you know on groceries a month and something and you're like no no you got to be realistic about your life you want your budget to work for you so your kids are eating raw spaghetti yeah yeah so be realistic but a hundred bucks a month for fun money is not gazell intense or it's 400 bucks a month for fun money that's i mean yeah 100 bucks i'm sorry a week yes 400 yep and let me say this lorena if if you and him sit down and say hey we're gonna forego quote-unquote fun money um and we're gonna make lunches here at the house you're gonna going to have to tell your buddies at work.

And I've had to do, I did this years ago. I would just take my lunch when we went, when my buddies went to get chips and queso or something, I would take my lunch with me, which was embarrassing and absurd. And by the way, when they were my good friends,

nobody said anything. I mean, it was just, is what it was. You're going to find that he's going to get frustrated and he can channel that frustration getting a third job, getting a fourth job. I'm sick of living like this. So I'm going to accelerate. I'm going to go make more money than fine.

I'm not going to just kind of settle in. I'm going to go get rid of this debt so I don't have to live on $100 a week allowance, man. It's a short 18 to 24 to 36 month pain point, man, to live the rest of your life with peace. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. Today's scripture of the day is Luke 638. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over

will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. And Frank says, no one has ever become poor by giving. Love that quote. Hey, this weekend in the Ramsey newsletter, we've got six benefits for filing your taxes early. That's me, Rachel. I am an early tax filer.

I like that thing. Oh, I was like, are you being sarcastic? No, no, no. I like that thing. I am too. I'm late on everything in my life. But taxes. Except for, I like that thing.

Done and gone. This one is for all you procrastinators out there. The IRS, y'all may not know this, so this is going to be news to some of you. The IRS is not the most efficiently run government agency. Shocker. The DMV is. Early filers avoid processing delays.

Listen, not only can you check it off your to-do list, but another perk of filing early is also possibly getting your refund sooner. Nobody likes to loan the government money. Subscribe to the Ramsey newsletter at ramseysolutions.com slash newsletter and receive it in your inbox every Sunday. All right, let's go to Chris in La Crosse. What's up, Chris? I've got a question for you guys um we are behind on all of our monthly bills because of some

medical issues that we've been dealing with what happened between both my wife and i my wife had a reaction to some of her medications um back in may and it was causing massive cramping and stuff and and some high cholesterol and about a year ago year and a half ago i slipped on a floor at work and uh tore my lateral meniscus off my knee and i had to have surgery in october i'm sorry um so and i got back to work in november but i'm on reduced hours and stuff and we're like behind on like almost all of our monthly bills, like a month or two behind. And when you guys did that live stream of the building wall thing, I ended up just happened to watch it and got the Financial Peace University. And I sat down and tried and watched it with my wife.

And she got kind of excited. She's been putting off getting involved in it. But after watching it, she got excited about excited. She's been putting off getting involved in it, but after watching it, she got excited about it, but we're kind of puzzled. Do we start Baby Step 1, or do we get caught up on everything before we start Baby Step 1? I would get caught up on everything after Baby Step 1. I would build that emergency fund and make sure you have that cushion there, and then before you do the debt snowball,

get current on everything. So that may be a little bit of a delay for you guys, but getting current is going to get your head above water. And then you're going to be able to really look at your debt. So walk me through some of your debt and your medical bills, the numbers. I've got medical bills. I don't even know where we're at on those. I've got to go through and figure that stuff out because we've got stuff that's gone into collections. We've got stuff all over the place on those. But I've got a toolbox because I was an auto mechanic that I'm probably about a month behind on, which I'm actually going to be looking at getting rid of.

Some credit cards, car payment, rent, electricity. Are you behind on all of that, Chris? Yeah. Okay, so I thought it was just the debt. Okay, so I would get current on your four walls, which is food, utilities, transportation, and your rent. So that's A1 for you is to get current on all of that, first and foremost, okay?

How much do you guys make a year? What are you bringing home a month? Mine varies because I work a rotating four on four off schedule okay um so when i just did our taxes last year it was like 93 okay and how far are you behind on rent a couple months i believe okay have you talked to your is it have you talked to your landlord are you in a house are you in an apartment what's your situation we're in we're in a house and he's not worried about oh he's worried about it but he's not going to evict us or anything like that we we know this place is secure okay i would get that in writing chris okay get that in writing okay um hey listen brother you

gotta go get it i'm sorry rachel dude you've got to go get a job like right now an additional job deliver pizzas you got to get current on your rent right now okay this like ah bro we talked it's cool i'm telling you right now you're gonna end up with up with a note on your front door and a lock on it. Okay. Make this like somebody's trying to break into your house, and you are getting out of bed to get into a fight. That should be pulsing through your veins, dude. You cannot be like, just, oh, it's cool. This is your home. Yeah. It's your home.

There's no reason to pay off your debt if you get nowhere to live. Okay? Okay. And you hear my, like, dude, I'm trying to... And that same intensity that John has is towards utilities and all that too. You gotta have water. The hard part about me getting a second

job right now is because of the restrictions that I'm on because of the work-related injury. I don't know how that would work as far as getting a second job right now. I don't know. Maybe your wife has to and you're're going to have to trade some roles. And it may not be a physical job. Maybe you do something at your computer overtime,

sitting at home if you're worried about disability. But yeah, it's going to get bad quickly, right? Sell your toolbox, dude. Sell everything that's not bolted to the floor. But you've got to get current on your rent, man. You're about to be homeless, dude. And we just hear this all the time, dude. Sell everything that's not bolted to the floor, but you got to get current on your rent, man. You're about to be homeless, dude. And we just hear this all the time, dude. And is your rent, what percentage of it is from the take-home pay that you have today? Because it may be too high of rent too, Chris. You guys may want to look at another place that's

really cheap to live. It's about $900 a month. And how much are you bringing in a month? Very specific right now with everything, disability, everything. I bring home probably about 700 a week and my wife brings home about 800 every two weeks. Okay. And let me get this right. You had a knee injury, a pretty gruesome one, but you had a knee injury.

Are you not back up and walking around? You're still on work disability? I am. I'm weight-bearing. I'm finally weight-bearing. I've been weight-bearing for going on six to eight weeks now. But I'm still, the nature of the tear, it isn't just like a normal torn meniscus where they could go in and trim it and it'd be back to normal.

This actually tore the entire meniscus off the capsule of the knee. I can't bend it past 90 degrees. Are you in physical therapy now? Yep. Okay. All right. It may be that this is a harder long-term shift where you need to think about, am I going to have to change careers?

Am I going to have to go to community college or get online and get some new skills? Am I going to have to learn some new things? Because moving forward, I'm going to have this disability. What I don't want you to do is just to wake up and this be two years from now. See what I'm saying? And because you're going to be homeless, dude. And life dealt you some hard, like a bad set of cards. There's no question about that. You honestly don't even know how honestly the bad set of cards. There's no question about that. But if you just keep... You honestly don't even know

how honestly the bad set of cards I've dealt with, my wife and I have dealt with in the last seven years. I couldn't, I mean, you and I could sit down and go just have chips and queso, dude, and I know you could blow my mind.

I'm not going to even, I 100% know that. Here's the deal. Those things happened. They happened. And here you are. And the only thing you can do anything about is what happens next.

Okay. Right? And it's real easy to be like, this happened, this happened. Dude, that sucks and it's hard and I hate that for you, man. I would hug you if you were sitting here. And yet, you can do nothing

about what has already happened. You can get on the phone this afternoon and call the hospital and get a list of every bill you owe them. All the bills they sent to collection. You can get online, pull a credit report and find out everybody you owe money to and face that reality. Put it on a piece of paper and say, okay, you can call your landlord and say, how much money does it take? So you see what I'm saying? This is about you taking ownership of where you are and where you're headed. Not what has happened to you. I mean, what's happened, you've got to own it. It's happened. Don't live back there, man. I'm worried about you. And I

want, Rachel, we want you to be well, okay? And you can do this, Chris. We've heard every story you could ever imagine. Yeah, hang on the line. We're going to send you the EveryDollar app here, and we want you to use it as y'all start making money, and it's going to help you guys learn, practice learning, getting control of your money. Hey, that's another hour in the books here on The Ramsey Show. We will see you soon. Be kind to one another. We'll see you shortly. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramsaysolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation.

That's ramsaysolutions.com and click Get Started.