The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Rationalize Stupid Money Decisions! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, Ramsey Personality, and host of the very popular George Camel show on YouTube. George Camel is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

So, George, sometimes when people think of Dave Ramsey, they think cheap. I don't like that. They think if I'm doing Dave Ramsey, I can't ever have a life the rest of my life. And that was happened early on in my career. I got associated with, you know, beans and rice, rice and beans, junk cars, drive the hoopty, drive the hoopty, never have a life, can't have any fun. And that's all about Dave Ramsey. And the truth is that that's the exact opposite of me. And so we had to try to communicate that to our team. And we started saying, okay, here's the deal.

Yes, you're going to pay a price to win. But the point is win. That's the point. So live like no one else so that you can live and give like no one else drive a car like no one else so that later you can drive a car like no one else yeah it wasn't the end goal you know and so the the goal is not to stay live you know be worth 80 million dollars and live in a cave collect lint and only come out on triple coupon Thursday. That's not the goal, okay? The goal is to be outrageously generous, enjoy the money, to live like no one else.

But you've got to get your crap cleaned up to do that, right? You've got to get out of debt. You've got to get your emergency fund in place. And then you hit baby step four, five, and six, where you're investing and building your emergency fund. And now you're starting the process of living like no one else. You can let your foot off the gas a little and start to upgrade some of the stuff, go on vacations again, all that good stuff. So a couple of years ago, we launched a Live Like No One Else cruise.

And the cruise date was approximately the same date that we shut the entire nation down for the Fauci pandemic. And so guess what? We didn't cruise, which was a problem because, I mean, people were getting on those boats. It was, y'all remember, it was a mess. And so it was so painful for all of us here because we had the thing sold out. It was going to be such fun. I had my bags packed.

It was ready i mean i was we were so ready to go and like weeks you know days before it was it was march 23rd 2020 was the sale date that's when we were gonna go and leave the dock right no no no not enough masks or flattening of the curve or vaccines on the planet to cause that puppy to sail it was done but guess what today we are relaunching the live like no one else cruise we are going baby it just took a little while we're going next year at this time and it went on sale today to the public and as soon as it went out on the public and went out to our you know we sent out the email newsletter from the people on our database and so forth we shut the cruise website down we broke the internet oh boy

so many people want to live like no one else with us so it's jor it's all the ramsey personalities george camel i mean you got seven days of george camel trapped on a boat with you and rachel and jade warshaw and dr john deloney and ken coleman and me i'm gonna be there the whole week that's right and we're bringing some friends with us y'all it's gonna be so fun it's holland america so it's an upscale cruise it's not like walmart on the seas or something this is a good one okay and some of those other ones y'all know what they are not a great value cruise yeah this is not a value cruise. This is a fun, it's an upskill.

Because now you're living like no one else. You don't need to come on this cruise, though, unless you're in Baby Step 4 or beyond. Because that would, A, make us hypocrites, and B, you wouldn't be following our system. Because we tell you not to go on vacation until you're out of debt and have your emergency fund in place. Baby Steps 1, 2, and 3. And we're going to stay with that. We stayed with it last time. The cruise sold out in about, I think it was about four and a half,

five weeks it sold out last time we did it. And based on the response this morning, it's not even going to last that long this time. Well, think about it. Over the last five years, people are in much better shape financially if they've been following these steps. Yeah. They've gotten out of debt since that last cruise.

That's exactly right. And a lot, lot you know the first people we offered it to and we sold a whole bunch of them were the ones that didn't get to go last time so they're so they had they had up until yesterday to sign up and you people didn't know about it so we're going to turks and caycos oh have you ever been to turks sweet that water's so clear makes uh gomer say shazam i'm just just saying. St. Thomas. Oh, the U.S. Virgin Islands. San Juan. The Bahamas.

These are the stops. And again, it's Holland America. It's a first-class ship. And we're going to have the whole ship. It's all just us. It's going to be Ramsey people. That's it. Live like no one else, Cruz.

And I said we're bringing some friends. Stephen Curtis Chapman. How many Grammys has Stephen got? He has five Grammys. I've set five Grammys, 59 Dove Awards, an American Music Award, 50 number one singles, 17 million albums. Those numbers hurt my brain. And a little known secret is he's also just an incredibly nice guy.

Amazing. We've been friends for about 20 years, and he is a world-class talent and a great guy. He's going to be with us on the cruise. Manit Chauhan from the Food Channel, world-class chef uh winner of iron chef and a whole bunch of other things and she's become a friend in the last few years we've done several events with her uh she was at an event i did that we did just the other day at one of our one of our vip oh yeah yeah the man the food when she she's going to cooking demonstrations all kinds of fun stuff with manit shohan uh dina carter uh country music star extraordinaire.

I don't know how many Grammys or whatever she's got, but she's a big deal. Been around Nashville forever. We're bringing some of the country music songwriters. We're going to do songwriters nights. And these two of the guys, Wynn and Phil, they've written some of the biggest hits out there, like Wynn wrote Waiting on a Woman. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, little song that Brad Paisley did. And so these guys are going to be on there with us. out there like win wrote uh waiting on a woman oh yeah yeah little little little little little song that brad paisley did and uh so these guys are going to be on there with us it's got it's incredible lineup we're going to be talking and doing events and doing uh uh sessions all week and we're going to play together and we're going to uh splash in that blue water that's on top of all the normal world-class cruise entertainment and we're bringing stuff on top of that well it's our crew i mean they're gonna have their little dancing people and all that but but i mean i thought i was gonna get their normal thing right but we're gonna do our dog and pony show baby this is it ken coleman and i are gonna do a little routine are you out there yeah we're working on a

little banjo it's kind of an irish jig oh please don't we'll save that i'm gonna veto but we do have a world-class magician and comedian, Nate Bargetti's dad, Steven Bargetti, is going to be joining us. He's a hoot. He's amazing. That's how Nate got funny. You've seen him open for Nate. Yeah, he gets it from him.

And then Carolyn Xavier, a hilarious comedian who even Dave loves. Oh, man. Well, I was the one who recommended her for this. Recovering Californian. Yeah, Recovering Californian. She makes fun of the South and tells Californiansians like this is a stick of butter they use the whole thing when they cook it's stuff like that right so she's funny as card i love it it's gonna be great y'all it's gonna be march 22nd through the 29th so about a year away a little less than a year away 11

months away and if you're in baby steps 4 and beyond and you want to go with us it's the live like no one else cruise it opened to the public today we already broke the internet once let's see if we can do it again go to ramseysolutions.com slash cruise and uh get your cabins and tickets and all that stuff before while you can't last time we did this the whole thing was gone in just a couple of weeks few weeks so. So we're going to remind you about this thing. But as you can tell, we're a bit jazzed about it. And even though it brings back very dark and deep and horrible memories. But aside from that, we're very jazzed about it.

So it's very cool. This is going to be fun. I can't wait. Go get your tickets. RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. We'll see you there. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way,

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And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America.

We're so glad you're here. Alex is in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, Alex. How are you? Hello. How's it going, Dave? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up? Nothing much, man. You know, I've been following you for a couple of years, man. You know, I've been making great strides and I'm at a point where I'm questioning whether or not I should finally treat myself and just get a new car that I've wanted for a little bit. Okay. All right. Yep. So you've been following us. What's the guidelines that we use? Uh, obviously not taking on new debt. Okay. That's

one. That's good. What else? You know, that's, um, you know, paying off your mortgage, you know, all that, all that good stuff. You know, I've been, uh, working on all that. I've been really chugging along the last couple of years made, you know, what I feel is amazing strides. And I'm just like, you know what, I feel like I need to reward myself, man, you know, and get, are you, are you out of debt completely? Um, not completely, but like in a position where like, given my income, the debt that I have is very minimal. What debt do you have left? So I have a house, uh,210,000, $220,000. I owe $85,000 on it. I got a rental worth about $120,000 that I owe $60,000 on.

And that's it. I have a credit card that I owe $2,000. That's my business credit card for my rental company. But that's it. That's good for you. And what do you make a year, household income? So household is around $250. I'm the bulk of that.

I make $220. My wife, she makes about $30. Okay. All right. And what is your net worth? Well, I got probably, do you include my houses and my 401 and everything? Well over $200. Probably between $ between $225,000 and $250,000, best guess. When you say a new car, are you talking about a new-to-you car or a brand-new car?

Brand-new 2024 Ford Maverick. You know, as much as I'd love to get a $70,000 Sierra, that's just dumb. So, you know, I want to be modest, get a truck that checks all my boxes, that isn't too crazy, and is very affordable. So, yeah, the truck's only $27,000. So, you know, like it's a new truck for the price of used trucks nowadays. Alex, you are a grown person, and you're certainly allowed to do whatever you want to do. What you're asking is not illegal.

So you get to do whatever you want to do. To be very clear, though, if you'd spent more time than I thought you had listening, we teach folks that new cars go down in value so rapidly that you shouldn't buy a brand new car until you have over a million dollar net worth. And we've taught people that for 30 years. So I would buy a one-year-old truck or a two-year-old truck, if you can pay cash for it, in the guidelines that you're talking about would be just fine. Yeah. So like I could, it's basically like, should I save up my resources over the next like few months instead of

dumping them into my mortgage and pay cash for it or just keep dumping it to my mortgage and just stride it or just keep dumping it to my mortgage and just stride on for another year. No, if you want to keep paying down the mortgage, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing that too and not buying the truck. But if you're going to buy the truck, you're going to pay cash for it. So you're going to have to save up, right? Yeah. So pretty much put pauses on the mortgage. The extra payments on the mortgage, you're going to slow down. Because that's what we teach you to do at Baby Step 3. Because this kind of is a want for you.

It's not really a need. But let's pretend that it was an actual need, that you were driving a $2,000 car, making $250,000, and it was really time for you to move up, and you're on Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, right? Then we would tell you to just slow down how much you're putting on the house so that you could upgrade the car to something reasonable, because a $2,000 car in your situation would be unreasonable. Right, George? Yeah. And the other piece here is are you currently investing 15% into retirement?

Yes. Okay. Good. So beyond that, how much cash do you have? Well, I got about six, seven grand in my emergency fund savings. I think it's like $ 6,500 to be exact. And then in my checking, I only have, honestly, I think like 1,500 because I budget very strictly.

And anything extra pretty much at the end of the month just goes straight into the mortgage. That's how you got those low balances. You're killing it. You're doing great. Yeah, like I bought this house two years ago. The loan was $180,000, and I'm already got it down to, you know, $84,000. I love that.

I love that. What are you driving now? You're going to laugh at me when I say this. I work from home, so I got a 1994 Chevy F10. Okay. Because I just, I just worked the gardening, and then when I got the, you know, the rental property, you know, just for like getting stuff for that, because, you know, me and my friend are, you know, fixing it up and so forth.

You know, we got a really good deal on it. That's why I got it early, because it was like, you know, too good of a deal to pass out. Yeah. So, Alex, so what our recommendation always is, and I'm not laughing at you, but I think you've done a great job. You paid down very aggressively on these mortgages. That's excellent. So if you want to slow down the payment on the mortgage a little bit or just make regular payments on the mortgages for a few months and pay cash for a one or a two

year old truck, I think that's just fine. I would not recommend you buy a brand-new truck because when you drive a brand-new car off the lot and you hear that sound as you leave the lot and pull onto the street, when you go across the curb, it goes, that sound is $10,000. That's how much you lost right then. And by the time you get home, it's almost another 10. So the new cars just

lose so much of their value so fast that we don't recommend you take that hit unless you've got a net worth of over a million you can stomach it at that point and there are some prerequisites here alex you need to pay off that credit card debt before you do anything you have the money sitting there you got 7k in the bank pay that off now that leaves you with 5k i think you need to beef up that emergency fund i missed them i missed it He said it's for the business and all this, but if you're playing, I wouldn't be playing that game. I'd get rid of that. Get you a debit card, cut up that credit card. Time for plastic surgery too, Alex. And I think the emergency fund needs to be beefed up because he's only got 5K at that point. We need to get him closer to probably 15, 20, 25.

You need to be at 20. Then we can start saving up cash for the car so we need to get the credit card done get a debit card build the emergency fund up to that then save up for a car and pay cash that's that's the order of events and all of that well you can slow down making 250 a little bit you've done a great job overall all we're doing is fine tuning just a little bit a little bit of polish right here but the ingredients are there all we're doing you've got all the right things and the good news is you're paying attention and you're really thinking about it on a lee is with us in sacramento hi on a lee how are you hi i'm good good how can we help so i have a question about my mortgage and i didn't know at the time of buying our home that you guys don't recommend manufactured homes but we currently have a mortgage on it,

and I am debating on whether we should throw our savings at that mortgage or keep it in cash for when we decide to sell, trying to pay down the mortgage quicker on the principal. Okay. Well, overall, the concept is that every day you keep it, you're losing money because it's going down in value. So when we decide to sell would be like three weeks from now. And it's not looking great for equity.

I'm sorry, say again. Just based on the pricing. Start again. I was talking over you. Pricing right now, we're not looking great for selling right now. Um, it's kind of a lull in the area we're at but um that's why i'm debating on if we should be paying down the loan with the money i'm saying that regardless of a lull in the area in real estate every day you own a manufactured

house it's going down in value trailers go down in value yeah and so the longer you hold it the more you're going to lose okay so i'm going to be thinking about putting this on the market very quickly now there's nothing rental wise that we could even really afford for the same amount well you're losing money every day that you sleep in a trailer don't talk to me about there's no rental property in sacramento california okay you're losing money every day that you own a trailer a trailer is a car you sleep in these are two back-to-back calls on depreciating assets. So you keep it as long as you want, and you rationalize it as long as you want.

But every day you keep this, your finances are going the wrong way. So don't rationalize that stupidity. Don't do it. You know, you need to be thinking about how quickly we can get out of this thing. Even if you don't have equity, it's going to be a stupid tax you pay to get out of the situation the equity's going down it's getting negative and negative and more negative every day it's what it does it's just yeah sorry i've got friends that are in the manufactured housing business they're like dave quit trashing us i'm like i'm not trashing you you sell something that

goes down in value i'm just stating a fact. That's it. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. This is a fun day on The Ramsey Show. Some days we just sit here and do what we're supposed to do, and other days we get to have a lot of fun today is get to remind you guys it's national financial literacy month and that's a big deal because financial literacy is a big deal ever since i started talking about this stuff everybody says why don't they teach this in high school why don't they teach us in high school well we do we sell high school curriculum called foundations and personal finance 48 of the high schools in america have now taught it at one time or another we've had almost eight million students go through it it's pretty cool so we're actively working all the time texas is in adoption right now so south carolina and uh

they're putting in you know we're one of the approved curriculum and so the teachers and the administrators and the people who are purchasing the curriculum for the different schools. It's now required subject to get out of high school in those two states. And it is in several states. Thank goodness. It's good. You ought to learn how to balance a checkbook. We'd have better congressmen if they learned how to do that. So it's good.

And we're biased, but we have the best curriculum. Oh, definitely. It's because the other stuff is dry, boring, and not even right. Ours is fun, funny, and is correct. And actually teaches you how to win with money and avoid debt instead of accumulate it. Here's how you build your credit score. Don't! Okay, that's good.

That'll work. That was easy. So there's that. All right. So, hey, one of the cool things that happens is we have companies and institutions and groups come alongside us and sponsor the curriculum to go into schools that can't otherwise afford to pay for it. And so we've got local businesses that do that. We've had other groups.

One of the groups that came alongside us is the Air Force. Now, that's pretty stinking cool. And the Air Force is one of our big sponsors on it. And so we've got Lieutenant Colonel Brian Ewing from the U.S. Air Force on the line. And I want to talk about this a little bit. Brian and I have gotten to spend time together a couple times. How are you? How are you, Colonel Ewing? Hey, I woke up today and I'm getting paid, so life is good.

There we go, man. Well, we're honored to have men and women like you on the payroll. Thank you for your service. So you guys with the Air Force have been sponsoring this for quite a while. How did you hear about the idea that you could sponsor the Ramsey curriculum and the Air Force decide to do that? So I've been, you know, following you for quite a long time. Back in 2008 and 2009, my wife and I, we got debt free. And thanks to your curriculum. And, you know, we just kept looking at that. And then, you know, seeing where we could help.

We taught or I should say facilitated FPU all over the world, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, states all over the country. But then when I got into Air Force recruiting, I said, man, how can we how can we do something better and do it for the youth and get upstream of, you know, before people get into those troubles? And so, yeah, I was talking with your folks there, the education team, Ryan Davis, Jeff Martinez and team. And they told me about this Foundation of Personal Finance and said, hey, we have this. And if you guys want to come alongside us, you can. And so a couple of years ago, we said, well, let's dip our toes in the water. And we sponsored three schools there in the Tennessee area. It went amazing.

And we had such great results. We said, well, let's expand it over to Oklahoma and a couple other states. We went to 10 schools. And then this past year, we just went crazy with it and, you know, said, hey, we want to go after about 100 schools. And we were able to sponsor 92 schools thanks to your partnership. Wow. Well, thanks to your partnership. We appreciate you, Colonel Ewing.

Appreciate the Air Force coming alongside. And that's 92 schools. And that's 1,000 students probably or more that are going to go through this curriculum because of you all. And in the process, they're going to hear about the Air Force and find out that if you want to go to college debt-free, the Air Force can cause that to happen, right? And so they learn. It's a good partnership in a lot of ways, right? Yes, sir.

I think it's a phenomenal partnership. You know, I've been in schools and homes, you name it, all over, you know, everything, all over the country. And what I hear from these young people is they're hungry, right? They're hungry for information. They're hungry for opportunities. And I call it the, you know, it's kind of like a dog with a cone on his head after a surgery or something.

We have this cone of knowledge that we just don't know about. We know what mom does and dad does. If you're lucky enough to have both of those, it may be a teacher. But what we want to do is open them up to take that cone off and tell them about different opportunities, both on the educational, the job opportunity side, and whether they come in the Air Force or not. Let's set them up for success. And the teachers and the counselors are saying, hey, Air Force, come talk to my students. And so everybody wins in this, from the student to the parent, to you guys, to us. I mean, our communities are better because of this partnership.

I love that. And the ripple effect, Colonel, is amazing. I just met someone yesterday. I was at the line of the coffee shop, and she said, hey, are you the guy from that Ramsey curriculum? I went, yeah. She said, I love your stuff. I was able to pay cash for a car because of you guys.

I learned so much. I'm budgeting. And so the ripple effect, we'll never know, as these people start families and affect their communities. So thank you for what you guys do and the big part you play in that. Yeah, thank you. And all of the businesses out there across America that sponsor Air Force is one of our larger sponsors with 92 schools. But all of you businesses that sponsor out there and cause maybe the high school you graduated from, you make sure those kids get the curriculum, you know, that kind of thing.

A lot of you jump in. You can get in touch with us and jump in if you're out there listening and want to join this crusade of teaching the youngsters. I kind of have this idea if we could teach them all to be financial literate, it could possibly change the nation. It would be one of the things that did anyway. So very cool. And so, Colonel Ewing, thank you so much.

Thanks for the sponsorship. Thanks for your personal friendship. Thanks for your heart and for your service for this nation. And we really, really appreciate you guys coming alongside us. And thanks for taking a little time with us. Thank you all so much. You know, like I said, I hope this, as I've said to your team before, I hope we keep this relationship going and if we can grow it in any way.

And like you said, if people want, there's schools out there that want it. Hey, we've got a little bit of money left in the coffer, believe it or not, and we'd love to sponsor more schools. So airforce.com or however they want to reach out to us, to your team or to us, we'll be happy to grab some more schools so that we can keep this going. Well, if we haven't spent all your money, we'll find a way to do it, brother. We're about to break the Air Force website. Yeah, so here we go, man.

That's awesome. Yeah, go to ramsaysolutions.comcom slash sponsor that's where you would go if you have if you're a teacher and you need the curriculum the air force just offered to sponsor it for you maybe you got a handful more because apparently we need to get over 100 we only got 92 so there we go dave likes round numbers yeah well apparently colonel ewing does i'm just saying and we don't argue with it we salute when the lieutenant colonel comes in the room. You salute, buddy. That's how you do it.

And we appreciate you in all seriousness. And if you want to sponsor or help these kids out, RamseySolutions.com slash sponsor will do that. By the way, in honor of this month, we're giving away for our teacher appreciation giveaway, Ramsey Education is. One teacher is going to win a $5,000 vacation. You don't have to be teaching the curriculum. You just have to be a teacher in the classroom, not a homeschool teacher,

a teacher in the classroom. You homeschoolers are real teachers too, but I'm talking about classroom teachers. Okay, so $5,000 vacation for one. Two more teachers are going to win a $3,000 vacation. No purchase is necessary. To register for that, go to RamseySolutions.com slash teacher. And we all know a teacher, so send them a link go to ramsey solutions.com slash teacher and we all know a teacher so send them a link to ramsey solutions.com slash teacher and say i hope you win that's cool so someone in line a youngster she was working the register she had just oh so she's

she was a high schooler oh she is currently in high school yeah she said hey last year i took the curriculum and so i run into these people all the time. One guy, I was in a Target once and he just yelled at me, Dave Ramsey. And I went, sure. George Campbell. But I knew exactly what he was saying. And again, I went, how do you know? He said, I went through the curriculum and they're actually enjoying it. They're engaging with it. I did a Zoom call with a class this week, you know, 60 students out there asking questions and the teacher has been doing this for 15 years now he's been teaching this stuff and it's just amazing the impact we can have on this next generation to be the preventative medicine instead of the emergency surgery you've done on the show for 30 years telling people to amputate the tahoe so i walked in sharon and i were dropped by best

buy she was looking at a washer and dryer and so we go in there sunday afternoon there's nobody in there's right before closing time and we walk in there's a young There's nobody in there. It's right before closing time. And we walk in. There's a young guy, like 16, 17 at the front. They've got greeters or whatever. How can we help you or whatever? And I'm like, Washington, right? He points that way. Your day, Ramsey. I'm like, gosh, you're 16.

How do you know that? He goes, curriculum. Same thing. I went through your high school curriculum. And he goes, and your YouTube stuff, man. It's great. And so we get ready to leave. We walk out.

There's a girl standing beside him, also 16, 17. She goes, I'm so into your YouTube. And I'm like, I walked out. My wife said, you're just a YouTuber now. That's all you are. That's it. The Bono of personal finance. Used to be cats chasing lasers.

Now it's bald guys. There we go. YouTube has moved along. Whatever keeps you relevant. There you go. This is the ramsey show thanks for being with us america george camel ramsey personality is our co-host george there is a way that the uh listener the viewer can help us and we need their help we do what is

that way well it would be subscribing to the show what else following following the show liking commenting engaging sharing clicking the buttons that's it the buttons all of them the podcast the youtube buttons what is it what is it um deloney calls it the internets oh gosh the interwebs i think he likes to call them interwebs. The YouTubes. He thinks it makes him seem younger. YouTube's like there's more than one tube. The YouTubes.

There's many. Yeah. And so. Leaving reviews, that's important, too. I think he does that on purpose. Do you think he does that on purpose? I think he does it to anger the youth of America, just to rile them up, make them feel something. He wants to sound like an uncool boomer.

Yes. And he's not. He's actually cool is the problem. That's the problem, yeah. Gosh. So subscribe, follow, leave a five-star review. Those one-star reviews are not helpful. You're just a little troll.

We know who you are. I don't like this shit. My little troll. And so... Don't be a little troll. And so, yeah, be a five-star. Be a hero. Be a five-star.

Be a hero. Be a hero. Five gold stars. Remember when you were in first grade? Five gold stars. They probably didn't do that, but they did it when i we had oh yeah we got that's where this whole thing came from by the way we're little kids they used to give us stars but yeah so anyway now i'm still a little kid asking for stars there you go and so and follow and hey by the way share that's a big one let people know about the show. Thank you for that. Wendy is in Phoenix.

Hi, Wendy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm slightly terrified to talk to you, but I'm happy. It's just me, Wendy. Don't worry. Gotcha. We'll let George be nice to you.

I know. I hear you telling people what a mess they've made of their lives now. They're stupid, and I know you're going to say that's me. No, we're going to be nice to you, Wendy. What's up? What'd you do? Okay, so my husband and I have $320,000 worth of student loans. What? And we've been paying on them for almost a decade, and it's just growing.

Wow. More and more. Who's the doctor and it's just growing more and more. Who's the doctor? He's a foot and ankle surgeon. Oh, that's good news. And so he does make, I know he has a good shovel. Good. But he doesn't feel like that because everything goes towards his debt,

but it's just growing more and more. What's he make? He makes $180,000. Did he just get out? No. It feels low for a surgeon. Yeah, really.

He's in podiatry. He's a clinical surgeon. I know. But they don't charge less. That's what I mean. The what? I know, but they don't charge less. I mean, that's about where. Okay, so let's pretend that he's making $200,000 because that sounds low. Okay, good. $180,000.

Do you work outside the home? I work part-time with special needs. Okay, and thank you. That's wonderful. And you've got $320,000 in student loan debt from getting his MD. And what else do you have in debt? Well, we do have two cars that we are planting off. Yeah, how much do you owe on the two cars? It's $20,000 total.

$20,000 between the two of them. Okay, what else do you owe on the two cars? It's 20 total. 20 between the two of them. Okay, what else do you have? That's it. Well, and our mortgage. And how much do you owe on your mortgage? $480,000. Okay. All right.

Okay. Well, you haven't done too bad. A lot of people, when they graduate from med school, get what I call doc-itis, because they've been holding their breath for 16 or 17 years, doing nothing but going to school, and they graduate and go, da-da-da, I'm a doctor. I'm going to go buy a bunch of crap I can't afford. And that's what they usually do. That's doc-itis.

And so they buy a house they can't afford, two BMWs, and a Mercedes as a spare and start going on vacations and still have $300,000 in student loan debt. You didn't do that. You only got $20,000 in car debt. That's good. So y'all have been fairly conservative. But you're making $200,000 a year. So how much can you throw at the debt if you get on beans and rice?

Well, that's the thing. I feel like we are on beans and rice nice and I'm emotional. I'm sorry. We have a lot of things that we're paying for, for like our kids, that aren't covered with insurance. What's what you have special needs children yourself? Well, I do, yes yes but then three of my kids all struggle with um depression anxiety suicidal ideations and so a lot of a lot of our our disposable money goes straight to therapists because not all that's not always covered by anyway i'm getting off topic no that's part of the topic i mean you got got your hands full So how old are you guys? I do. I'm 43, both of us are.

And you have three children, and he has, I mean, are they yours from a previous marriage? We have four children. One has special needs, and then the other three struggle with mental illness. They're all from my husband and i like um we um first marriage um anyway so finally i got my husband on board as he read your book um because he was content to just make the minimum payment and income-based routine and and live like that I got the picture now. How can we best serve you today, ma'am? Okay, okay. So I would like to sell our home. It's increasing so much value,

we could list it for 1.1. We have a few comps, a few realtors telling us that we won't be able to sell it unless we put in a backyard. And my gut is telling me not to listen to them and just sell it as is because we will make enough to wipe out our student loans, have the three to six months of financial reserves.

We could rent for a while and just start building wealth and save for when we can do a home with a 15-year. I would do that as a last resort. Really? Not as a first resort because moving is very expensive, and you have to replace it with another place to live. And you've got a lot of kids. You need room for six.

So I would not do that until the two of you had sat down and done your every dollar budget together and gotten some peace about where the money is going because in talking to you it feels very chaotic there's not peace on the subject and it's going everywhere it feels out of control and so the selling of the home feels like a desperate slash a leap a lunge rather than a carefully thought out wise decision because we've done everything else we can do and we're stuck am i missing something no okay all right that's where all the emotions coming from is the chaos and the sense of hopelessness there's no no i can't see a light at the end of the tunnel unless it's a

train coming at me so i want the two of you to sit down together before you give up your home and lay out and say okay we're going to budget for the therapist we're going to budget for the special need we're going to budget for the special need we're going to budget for food shelter water clothing transportation we're going to lay all that at the two of you together and then we're going to see how much of this debt we can knock off and oh by the way you're probably going to pick up some hospital shifts and things honey on the weekends and get your income from 180 to 280 and so we can knock this out quick and keep our home. Because I think that that's probably really what needs to happen. But until you've

worked a plan that the two of you are working together and you're making all the progress you can make and you've squeezed every sacrifice out of that budget that you can and you've worked that plan for four or five months and you still aren't making progress until you've done that i wouldn't sell yeah and part of that i'm gonna we're gonna gift you every dollar premium and it's gonna be real simple it's gonna take you about a half hour for the first one get the bank statement you and your husband together list out all the expenses that could happen in the next month list out all the income that's coming in it's probably going to be more income than you realized and more expenses than you realized, but that'll at least give you a picture of reality and help you take the next step. Stop investing for retirement. Stop going

out to eat. Stop going on vacation. Write it all down. Honey, you're just stuck, and no, we're not going to yell at you. We're going to help you, okay? And y'all can do this, Wendy. I think you've got numbers that'll do it um i don't know what you're spending on all these various issues with the children but other than that your budget sounds very doable so i want you to dig in and really put numbers to all of these issues and then see where that leaves your family if after doing that for five or six months and you're from from a point of peace you make the decision to sell the house i would this is the ramsey show Bye.