The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Repeat Your Old Money Mistakes (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Laura starts us off this hour in Washington. Hi, Laura. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Oh, hi, Dave. Thank you so much. I can't believe I'm speaking to you. This is such an honor. Well, it's an honor for me. How can I help? I'm just shaking. Dave, I'm just completely overwhelmed. My husband and I both are.

We are former FPU coordinators, and we went backwards in a big, big way. Why? And we just want to make sure we're doing the right things why well i was uh finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder type one uh and not able to implement self-discipline a lot so it's one of the symptoms to do a lot of shopping and spending. And I did a lot until everything fell apart in early January. And I had to go into treatment and lost my work at the time. And all of a sudden, the debt really hurt. I'm sorry. And it's one thing to, we made a lot of money and we just spent all of it. And now we have an $889,000 hole.

How much of that's house? So $570,000 is on our primary residence, and $95,000 is on our old residence that we've been renting for a year. We've been spending the last two months getting it ready to sell, and it goes on the market Monday. Okay. ready to sell, and it goes on the market Monday. Good. And we're hoping it'll bring $400,000, which will cover the consumer debt is $223,000. That includes a HELOC, credit cards, a 401k loan, and a line of credit with the bank. So the sale of the investment property gets you back to just your home mortgage? Correct. Okay. Correct.

Okay. Good. And if we get a good price, it'll give us the emergency fund. So we're thinking that we've been talking for a couple months. Like, what would Dave say? He would say, sell the house, sell the house, sell the house. So is that what you would say? So you're selling the house.

Good. I'm with you. Okay. So then you're back to a mortgage. What's your household income? This year it'll be $180 because I didn't work for the six months. What will it be this coming year? $280.

In the coming 12 months. This coming year. Oh, in the coming 12 months it should be about $280. Okay. Because I'm working again. What do you do? I'm a consultant for a particular software. Good for you.

Okay. Well, you guys obviously have the ability to earn a lot of money. And by selling this, everything's cleaned up except the emotional damage that's the part i need your help with is i hear you i heard one of your calls this week i listen to the podcast all the time and i heard hear you say don't look in the rearview mirror but it's really hard especially when we knew better that's the the remorse is so bad because it's not like we didn't know better we've we've listened to you and studied you for all these years while you were going through your manic phase and manic depressive and you go manic and you

go spinning like a crazy person where was your husband in that equation he was not really paying attention um that's part of the problem is the thing the only thing i want to look in the rearview mirror for when sharon and i went through the bankruptcy the only thing we sat down and say it is um yeah we need to forgive ourselves yes we did some stupid butt stuff yes um we feel feel like fools. Yes, we feel condemned. Yes, we feel remorse. Yes, we feel all of that. But that's only profitable to the extent we learn something from our stupidity and never do it again. And that's what we said to each other, Sharon and I. And so that's when we quit borrowing money. And that's when we said we're always going to be tithers. That's when we said we're always going to be on a budget. We don't make decisions without each other.

And, you know, the pain of going through that bankruptcy seared the principles, the positive principles into place, like burned them, like tattooed them, you know, onto us permanently. And so I think you have that opportunity here. And, you know, there's two sides to this equation. As we're listening to you, I mean, what keeps this from repeating? In my mind, it's two things. One is you continue to do the work on your emotions with your counselor. If there's medication involved, by God, stay on it. Yes, there is.

Okay. And with a manic depressive, it's not unusual that it's chemical in the mix. Okay. Not everything out there is chemical that everybody thinks is chemical, but that one is oftentimes. And so stay on your medication. Stay with your therapist. You don't let up on that. And your husband has to freaking stay engaged

he's going to have to be hyper proactive to make sure this that you guys don't slip off into this because he's walking with you're walking with a limp and he's walking beside you holding you up if he just walks away and goes let's see if you can do it this time, and you fall over, I'm going to smack him. You know, because he wasn't paying attention. He could have stopped this. Okay? You were dealing with a mental illness. You were dealing with emotional illness that you were fighting,

and you've gotten the other side of it, I can tell by talking to you, and you're not completely healed. I'm sure there's days that all this. But the idea that you put some guardrails in place to keep from running off the road again is what makes the past okay to glance in the rearview mirror and see. But we don't want to live back there and just beat ourselves up either. I don't sit around and go, Dave, you were an absolute fool. You're a dirtbag. You have no use on the planet.

You're of no value. You had a finance degree. You should have known better than to go that far in debt and let some bank take you down. I don't talk about that from when I was 28 years old. I'm 59. I've moved on. But I haven't moved on from the lessons that I learned. That's the difference. And so you take the lessons and you go, okay, I just

paid $400,000 worth of tuition after I graduated from Financial Peace University. Now I did graduate studies. Right? I mean, that's what you did, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah mean that's what you did right yes yeah yes yeah that's a good perspective and the great news is you guys make a lot of money the bad news is that means you can mess this up big again if you don't stay working on your stuff and your husband doesn't stay plugged in walking with his wife and using a backbone and being proactive. You don't have a choice. You'll be right back in the same soup again if you don't do those two things.

But if you do them, I think you'll be okay. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I got a call the other day, and I thought it was worth talking about again. It was from a wife looking for life insurance for her family. She asked why I only recommend term life insurance instead of cash value plans like whole life. I usually explain how you overpay for coverage, earn a horrible rate of interest, and don't get your cash value when you die.

But this time, I just had her go straight to Zander.com and get a rate. And then we compared that rate to the whole life plan, and she immediately saw the huge savings. She realized all the things she could do with that money, like paying down debt, investing in a smarter way. That made it real for her. It makes no sense to buy or keep a cash value plan when there are smarter, less expensive ways to protect your family.

That's why I suggest that everyone go to Zander.com or call them at 800-356-4282 and get a free quote. That's zander.com or 800-356-4282. Hey, home sellers, listen up. The surest way to not sell your house for what it's worth is to let it get stale sitting on the market for too long. If your listing goes stale, it's basically like driving down the highway with the windows rolled down and throwing out fistfuls of $100 bills. You do not want this to happen. The main reason between houses that sit on

the market and houses actually sell is the quality of the real estate agent that's handling it and if they know what the flip they're doing and they care then they will actually make your house sell they know what they're doing that's why we endorse only top agents high octane high protein agents all across the country our endorsed local providers are the best in your area. Don't throw away your time or your money with a rookie or somebody that, I just know my mother got her license. I love your mother. She's sweet.

She didn't need to sell your house. She just got her license. It's the most expensive asset you have. You need to get somebody who knows what the flip they're doing. Click ELP for Endorsed Local Provider on Real Estate at DaveRamsey.com, and that'll help you get someone to help you get the house listed and sold for the proper amount at the proper speed. Tony is with us in California. Hi, Tony. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. My honor. How can I help? So my wife and I have been married for two years now. We actually just had our anniversary yesterday. Congratulations. Thank you so much. We make $110,000 a year, and actually we used to make $50,000 three months ago,

so our income went up considerably. Wow. We're on baby step two. We have $25,000 left to pay on debt, and it's only on three things. One is a personal loan, and then two leases. So my question to you is, what would you do if you were in my situation with these two leases? Because one has $4,500 left to pay. That's an Audi. And the other one is $1,500 payoff for a Toyota. So what would you do if you were in my situation? $1,500 to pay it off? $1,500 to pay off the Toyota, yes.

The balance of the lease, but you'd have to turn the car in at that point. No, the full payoff of the car is $15,000. $1,000? Oh, okay. Now that's making sense. Okay, but you don't have any money, right? We have the $1,000 emergency fund saved up, and that's it. Yeah, okay. So, hmm, you're making $150 now, right? $110.

$110 now, okay. Well, obviously when the leases run their course, you're not going to have the money to buy a check and buy the car. And so you're going to have to go get a car loan if you don't turn that car back in. How far off before the lease is end? So for the Audi, we have 10 payments left, and that balance is $4,500. $1,000. No, $4,500.

The payoff afterwards. Oh, the 10 payments of $450. But the buyout at the end of the lease is not $4,500. For the Audi, it's $ 24,000 yeah okay so you got 10 months to come up with 24,000 you're going to be turning that car in right uh and we definitely want to turn it in because at that point it's not going to be worth anywhere near 24,000 okay all right so we're going to let that one go but we will have saved up enough to pay cash for a car right and i was thinking about getting like a three thousand dollar car and yeah kind of like well i mean depending on what you

could save up between now and then how long before the other one ends uh the other one still has two years left 24 months yes all right and how much is the payment on it? It's $244 a month. Okay. And $15,000, $21,000. All right. So have you looked up what you can sell that car for and got the early buyout on that one? On the Toyota, we can sell it for right about the same, at $15,000. Okay.

But have you got the early buyout on the fleece? Yes. It's $15,000. Oh, the early buyout is $15,000, not at the end? No, no, no. At the end, I would have to pay $11,000. Okay. Okay, so the early buyout today is $15,000,

and you could get rid of $6,000 worth of lease payments by selling it for $15,000. Yes. Yeah, let's go ahead and sell that one. And let's replace that car with a cash car as soon as possible. And then during the 10 months that you're driving the Audi before you turn it in, you save up for the next cash car. Okay. Yeah, that clears both of them within 10 months that's the that's the strategy took me a minute to work my way back through this barrel of fish hooks sorry about

that but yeah there's a lot of stuff going on here so the the good a good rule of thumb is if you don't have much time left on your fleece you're usually better off just to continue to rent the car and then turn in at the end that's the. The other one has got 24 months, and that's an extra $6,000 out of pocket. And, you know, it's still going to sell at the end of that time for what it's worth. Or you could just turn it in. But right today, you can sell it and lose nothing. You don't have to write a check to sell it today. And you get rid of $6,000 worth of payments?

Yeah, let's get rid of that. And then let's go rid of that and then let's go get you a car get a car to replace that one first and then during the 10 months remaining we'll get a car to replace the Audi and then you're making plenty of money you don't have any payments you're going to start saving and moving up in cars with cash I don't want you to drive these junky cars we're talking about for very long because you're not going to need to you're making good money and you can save up quickly and pay cash for them. But that's not an excuse to go into debt.

Sonia is with us. Sonia is in Texas. Hi, Sonia. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I'm so nervous to talk to you, but I'll get right to it. Okay. So we are kind of in a situation where our mortgage is on two houses. One is a primary residence. One is an investment property is about $420,000. We have cars, two cars of $25,000 credit card, $8,000. And between my husband and I, we take home about $7,000. The problem we're facing is when we bought the investment house back in February, we bought it in a school zone, so like in a school town, college town. And we decided to rent it out. It's almost like a dormitory to multiple people.

But then the city that we live in came in and told us that they wanted us to cease and desist because it's zoned for a single family house. And so we've listed, we're not able to rent it out to multiple people. So we've listed the house for sale since June, July. It's still on there. It hasn't. And since then, we've been making about almost $5,000 in mortgage payment every month. And it's come down to where we might be. We're not going to be able to make our payments anymore.

Why? And we don't know what to do. Why can't you make them anymore? Because, I'm sorry? You make $7,000 a month. You can pay the bills you gave me. Like the mortgage payments alone are about $5,000 a month. I don't understand how... Okay, I'm sorry.

One more time. How much is owed on the investment property? $238,000. And how much is owed on the investment property? $238,000. And how much is owed on your home? $182,000. Okay, and so what are the payments on the $238,000? $2,100 a month. And what's the payments on the $182,000? $1,700.

Okay, I got $4,000. Matter of fact, I got $3,70000 i didn't get 5 000 we pay utilities on okay the investment property and the investment property is a 10 bedroom house so the utilities come up to like yeah you know just but it's 3700 bucks a month and you make 7 000 you pay the other bills. You're disorganized. You're disillusioned. Your dream turned into a nightmare, and you're wanting to throw in the towel. Throwing in the towel is going to cost you a lot more than hanging on and getting this thing sold.

Get this house in the college town cleaned up and get it sold. Price it and sell it. I agree with you it needs to go, but you cannot afford to just throw up your hands in frustration and declare that I can't pay the payments. You can. You need to get on a budget. The numbers are not right here. This is the Dave Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Rebecca's with us.

Hey, Rebecca, how are you? Hi, Dave. Great. How are you? Better than I deserve. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live?

San Antonio, Texas. Very good. Awesome. And how much debt have you paid off? I paid off $40,000 in 18 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? About $62,000 to $70,000.

Very good. What do you do for a living? I'm a special education teacher. I work with students with visual impairments. Very cool. Good for you. Awesomeness. Love it, love it, love it.

So what kind of debt was the $40,000? Dave, I was just normal. I had a car loan. I had credit card debt, like any credit card you can imagine. I had those, like 10 of them. I had a family loan, and I had a loan I had co-signed for. Okay. So, you kind of like collected credit cards.

I think so. I was a collector yeah definitely so when you look back on it which one which one of those cards that you look at and you go they're all stupid but that one that one is really stupid oh man it was probably like a walmart card i mean walmart credit card i just it feels like an oxymoron right there. Exactly. Like I was, you know, just to even buy a milk, you know, a gallon of milk, I was swiping a Walmart credit card. So, I mean, that was... And then the interest rate was just super high.

Kind of shows the insanity of the whole thing. Exactly. Yeah. So how old are you? I just... My birthday was last week and I turned 38. Well, happy birthday. Thank you.

Very cool. So you're cruising along, single lady, everything's going pretty good. What happened 18 months ago that jacked you up? Well, a lot of things happened, but I have to take it back to the, you know, course of my life. I, you know, I grew up, I guess I'm one of those type of people that likes to learn things my way, in which turned out to kind of be the hard way.

And I grew up, I'm one of six kids in a large family, and I grew up hearing these stories of my grandparents talking about how, I think my grandma was like the originator before technology of every dollar. She told these stories about having this box with cans, six cans in them. My grandpa would come home, give the $24 that he made for a month or something like that, put it in there, and when the $6 for gas was gone, you walked. And you always paid cash for everything. And you just live below your means and my parents were the same way we live below our means always had things um pre-owned and

never borrowed any money so then um you know i just got released when i was 18 into the world and didn't have a plan and just decided hey normal, normal looks cool. So I guess I'm just going to go with normal and not what these backgrounds that I had from my family. So just started racking it up and just living normal. And then I'm on a road trip back from somewhere with my mom. And your show comes on. And she's one of those, I call them smart people that like to listen to talk radio. And I was like, wow, this, you know, sounds cool. She, I'm like 18, 19 years old.

And she was like, well, you don't have any student loans, right? And you don't, you're not, you don't have any of this and you can just pay everything off. And okay, mom. Okay. So I just went on living life and living life. And then finally I just, I couldn't, couldn't do it anymore. I was drowning. I was.

But what happened 18 months ago? Well, 18 months ago, I mean, it was just really just I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I tried Dave-ish for a really long time. I tried Dave. Okay, I'm going to do it this way. I know I can be smarter than him. So 18 months ago, prior to that, there was a breakup, and I was having to get on my feet and do things on my own and figure it out. And so there was a period of kind of like where I needed transformation,

and I was finally ready to embrace your program. So 18 months ago, it was just like game on. It just started. I just did all your principles, did everything you actually teach. You ran out of energy trying to do your plan. Exactly. And you said, okay, I'll submit. Yep.

Uncle, uncle. Remember that? Uncle. Yes, uncle when you're wrestling. Yes. Exactly. Yep. It was time to just do it, and I didn't want to live like that anymore.

I didn't want to be normal. I wanted to be one of the debt-free people, just live my life. Some of the best things that ever happened to me happened when I surrendered. Yep, exactly. Good for you. Well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? So the key to getting out of debt, there's two things.

I say you have to live below your means. You just have to live below your means. One of the, I started working... What did that mean that you cut out? Oh, well, the biggest thing was that I tried your plan doing it where I, I would pay everything and live a little bit and then if I had any extra,

it would go to debt. So I was like, oh, okay, whenever I have extra, after I've spent the whole month, I might live a little bit, and then if I had any extra, it would go to debt. So I was like, oh, okay, whatever I have extra after I've spent the whole month, I might have a little bit. The biggest thing that I had to do was, like, my debt got paid first, and I knew I was going to pay that. But what did you cut out that you used to do? You said live on less than you make before you were spending it all. Yes. What did you cut out? What did you quit doing?

Just everything. Anything, like, just living life. I wouldn't go on any vacations anymore, staying home, cutting the lifestyle, finding ways. I don't think that it was like a huge sacrifice, but I would find ways to do things without spending money. Like go to the park with the kids instead of taking them to the movies and just different frugal strategies that I could try. Okay, good. Good for you. Well done. Proud of you. Who was your biggest cheerleaders? So I had a lot of cheerleaders. I actually, I took Financial Peace University once and then I took it again. So definitely that those coordinators of Financial Peace

University, my family was amazing. I did work extra. I worked summer school and tutoring, and so they would help watch the kids. I finally started dating again, and I had someone that looked like we were going to go have a future maybe. And I said, well, if you want a future, we're going to Financial Peace University. So we went again. And so he was definitely a good supporter, a good cheerleader. I worked with a girl, Rochelle, and she was the one that told me like, oh, we live on half we make.

And I was like, huh? How do you do that? And that's how she paid off. And it was just nice to have her at work every day. We'd talk and talk about frugal ways and paying off debt and nerd out on Dave Ramsey ways. Very cool. Very proud of you. Thank you. Well done.

Very well done. Good job. All right. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. That's the next chapter in your story. You're going to be a millionaire now. Yep. You're going to keep doing this. Yes. you're going to be a millionaire now yeah you're going to keep doing this yes you keep doing it you're not going to try to figure it out yourself

again nope never tell your way works well done well done good for you i'm so proud of you thank you excellent excellent job all right rebecca from san antonio texas forty thousand dollars wait a minute who's? These are my kids. Oh, my gosh. Hey, kiddos. What are their names and ages? So this is Maximo, and he's eight, and Olivia is six. All right.

Very cool. Very cool. All right. Rebecca and the kiddos. $40,000 paid off in 18 months, making $62,000 to $70,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! I love it! Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Well done. Very well done, you guys. Excellent job. Excellent job. Man, that's fabulous. So done, you guys. Excellent job. Excellent job. Man, that's fabulous.

So proud of you guys. Here's the thing. You can do this. You can do it. I'm talking to you. You can do it. Just go on Dave Ramsey, or go on YouTube and go on our Dave Ramsey Show channel. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these debt-free screams.

You folks have now downloaded over 100 million hours of the Dave Ramsey Show on YouTube alone. That puts us in the top 1% of all YouTubers. And it's completely free. Go watch these screams. You can do free go watch these screams you can do it did i mention you can do it did i mention it's free you can do it this is the dave ramsey show Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 4.2, Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Stephen Covey said, it takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it, and appropriately act on it. Well, the Borrowed Future podcast exposing the student loan debacle, the student loan epic plague that is facing America is busting out. The second episode of it came out of Borrowed Future Podcast, which is eight episodes, came out last Monday. We are trending and or in the top ten of almost every version of podcasts out there. Check us out on Apple Podcast, of course out there check us out on apple podcast of course check us out on google play of course on spotify of course you're going to see us everywhere and

another one drops on monday so once a week every monday for eight in a row we're going to have eight mondays in a row you're going to have another version another episode of this Borrowed Future podcast. I will tell you, some of these will make you sad. Some of these will make you mad when you start figuring out how predatory this industry is. Everyone that has a child that might ever go to college or has ever gone to college should listen to this podcast. It will blow your mind, the stuff that we have uncovered. Borrowed Future.

Jump on Apple Podcasts right now or Spotify or Google Play quickly. Borrowed Future. Already 2,500 reviews. And one reviewer said, this podcast is revolutionary. Lives will be changed and a generation will rise up that says no more i highly recommend this podcast to america by far the best podcast on the market thank you reviewer we appreciate that we agree rob is with us in pennsylvania hey rob welcome to the dave ramsey show hey dave thank you very much for taking my call. My honor, sir. How can I help?

I just finished the Total Money Makeover, and I'm about to start Baby Step 2. I am one of those people that is crippled by student loan debt. I'm currently sitting around $118,000 in debt on student loans. I went to one of those fancy private colleges. I have about $12,000 on a car loan. What's your degree in? It was going to be history education. Going to be.

You didn't graduate. Well, I did, but when my last semester came to student teach, the student loan department said that they weren't sure that I was going to be able to pay back the money with the degree that I earned. So they kind of dropped me. So I ended up, you know, going through finding work. So you never got your teaching certificate? I never did, but I did go back and I finished my history degree. I paid cash for the last class I needed, and I ended up finding myself into manufacturing management afterwards.

So you have a history degree, undergraduate for $118,000? Yes. Okay, and what do you make now? Our household income right now is about $73,000. Okay, and you're working 40 hours. Is your wife? She is working close to 40. She has two part-time jobs that she's working right now um one and that's usually in the morning one in the evening what does she do i'm working 40

uh she's an hr uh team member for a retail store okay so she's not got a great job uh yeah it's yeah it's you know you're just just you know it's not a full-time job number one number two it doesn't pay much right right that's what i mean so i'm i'm the majority household income uh if not all of it and uh i just picked up a second part-time job uh for about 25 hours a week uh to try and chip away at some of this good what are you making it um uh it's just it's just a retail store for you know ten dollars an hour eleven dollars an hour but you can probably do better five hundred dollars a month you can probably do better than that tutoring kids on history probably make 25

dollars an hour doing that besides that you have a history besides that you have a desire to teach yeah i i did i actually really wanted to um and then life just didn't work out that way. Well, I mean, you can do this as your side hustle. We can set you up as a tutor, go visit some local schools and teach history, find out what the curriculum is that needs to be taught so they can get their classes passed. And you can make $25 an hour doing that, man, getting high school students through history. Okay. Promise you can.

And so, anyway, let's work on that and do better than $10 just at a settling. And it sounds like you're just now kind of getting around on top of this. And so, what is your payment on the 118? Two of them are federal loans, and one of them is a private loan that i consolidated um with uh because i was getting ripped off by sally may at 13 so i transferred it to a sofa loan at five and a half um so i got a much better rate on that so i tried to save some money on that good so what are your payments on the student loans what's the total uh they total about a thousand dollars a month a little over okay and what's your house payment uh it's about 900 almost okay good and you got a car payment and that's it right now

how long you've been married uh it's 300 uh but we just hit six years okay all right so what we're going to do is roll up your sleeves and we're going to increase your side hustle or work on your wife's career increase her income so that you're going to approach a hundred thousand up from 70 uh and we're going to be on a really tight budget a detailed written game plan on every dollar uh because we're looking for a hundred and thirty thousand dollars over the next three years four years forty 000 a year for uh three years gets you out okay and i set a plan for five years um at most yeah but i was also thinking to my question my main question was i have about 900 days of deferment time on my federal loans it doesn't do any good wondering if i should there's no point in deferring it we're trying to get rid of it you'd only defer you'd only defer it if you can't pay it deferment gives

you no benefit whatsoever it just puts it off it kicks the can down the road okay i didn't know if it could be the money that i could use to start my debt snowball to pay off the car the credit card and then start really you should be able to find that anyway because we're increasing your income and tightening your expenses. There's more room in this than that. So you've got the car at $112,000 and $118,000 is $130,000, right? Mm-hmm. Makes you debt-free, okay? So $45,000 times three years, and you're out of debt.

But that's a lot more than you're paying now. But we're increasing her income, we're increasing your income, and we're putting you on the tightest of tightest of tight budgets. And it's not going to all happen at once, but if you can average that, if you can average $45,000, you can be out in three years. Okay. And if you don't average that, you can be out in three years. Okay. And if you don't average that, you'll be out in four years. Five years is too long on this.

And see, all I'm doing is dividing 130 by three. That's all I did. Okay? And I'm saying $45,000 out of 100 means you're living on nothing, but we've got to get your income up and your outgo down and really lean into this, and you can turn this around. And the other thing is, I think what's going to happen is both of your careers are going to mature during this two- or three-year period of time, and by mature, I mean they're going to move more into the zone of where they're supposed to be, and your incomes are going to come up

because now you're really focusing on it because now you have to. And so, very cool hey thank you for the call i appreciate you joining us so the moral of the story is don't spend 118 000 to get a history degree from a private university period. Unless you pay cash. If you pay cash, you can afford to have this luxury, but you're not going to get a return on investment on that. And I'm not mad at people with history degrees,

but there's really basically one place to make a living with a history degree, and that's a teaching certificate, teaching in a high school, unless you go on and get your master's or your Ph and you teach at the collegiate level, at the university level. Otherwise, your history degree doesn't have application in the marketplace, and you end up working for a manufacturing organization, which is what he's doing. He's not a bad guy. This is what's happened to everybody in America. So we have to stop and we have to think, folks.

It's exactly what this Borrowed Future podcast is about. That's why I'm pushing it so hard. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace,

Christ Jesus. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com.