The Ramsey Show - App - Escape the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Trap

Episode Date: September 27, 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 and amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, Ph.D. in counseling, number one best-selling author, and host of one of the hottest shows on the Ramsey Network, the old Dr. John Deloney Show. He's my co-host today as we take your questions at

888-825-5225. Those of you that follow this show closely are freaking out because I'm not usually here on Fridays. I don't work on Friday, but I decided to drop by and do an hour of the show with Dr. John today because I had an unusual thing happen, and we wanted to tell you guys about it and let you know what's happening. Our team, several weeks ago, reached out to the Trump organization and reached out to the Harris organization, Vice President Harris, President Donald Trump, and offered the ability to sit down and have a discussion about ideas. Because I'm sick and tired of all the mudslinging, I'd like to talk about ideas. Because I think ideas are worth fighting over and arguing about.

And if you want to sit down and talk about ideas and do a long-form interview, the Harris Camp has our request. The last word we got was under review. So not been a yes, not been a no from them. But I flew to New York. And at this time yesterday, I was in Trump Tower interviewing President Donald Trump for an hour and or for 35 minutes anyway, ended up being a little quicker than we thought it was going to go. But just to sit down and to talk about ideas and so forth. And it was fun. It was interesting.

I've never done anything like that. I've interviewed presidents or past presidents before, but obviously he is a different one, especially in front of a microphone because he knows microphones and production. He's been on TV for years and he's very cognizant of what he's doing. It's very interesting. So it was fun. It was very interesting. So it was fun.

It was very interesting. Um, you get a different thing off. My contention is this, that anyone that hates someone is just, you know, there's a few people you should hate Hitler. Okay. But he's not Hitler. And there's a few people you, if you want to hate him, you can hate him. But I got to tell you, if you dislike someone's positions on things, if you spend an hour with them and just listen to them and find out their heartbeats and that they have that they love their kids. It's hard to be a racist if you spend time with people of a different color. It's hard to be a sexist if you spend time with high performing people of the opposite sex. It's hard to hate people when you spend time with them. That's my theory.

So and that was my attempt at doing this. So it may be boring as crud to some of you. We had a good time with it. And I think you'll laugh some. And I think you'll hear some things when the interview comes out that you didn't expect. But I also don't think there's anything in there that's like breaking news. I don't think Dave Ramsey has got a scoop for sure.

We got exactly what he wanted us to get because he's a pro. You're not going to get something he didn't want you to get. And they did not ask to review the questions in advance. Actually, an hour before, the social media guy got nervous and said, can I see the questions?

But not Trump's staff. The social media guy was worried about what was going to end up on social media because they're very cognizant of the power of social media. So anyway, it's fun. So here's the deal. It will come out on the Ramsey Network app, which is a free download for your phone or your computer. And it will come out Tuesday on the Ramsey Network app.

And on Wednesday, we'll put the interview out long form on all of our podcast channels and our YouTube channels. Completely free. All of it's free either way. There's no hook in this. There's nothing else. But it was, yeah, I don't, I mean, i do a lot of stuff behind closed doors and go to high security situations i've never seen security like this in my life it was unbelievable

well i saw there was a tweet that went out that was like iran's trying to kill me and he'll never get me and i'm surrounded by missiles and whatever. Right as you were walking in. Just getting in front of that building, getting into that building, going up an elevator in that building, going into a certain room in that building where the president's going to appear later. It's an interesting process, especially with all the crap going on with him in particular. But they are doing their job, that's for sure. Well, I want to say this on behalf

of i don't have a normal job right i'm a youtuber as my son says and a radio host i don't have a normal job but um on behalf of like you say this often if everything was just to go away you and sharon are gonna be fine right like if if some big economic correction you and sharon are gonna be fine you don't owe anybody any money and you've done well we were in a meeting the other day and i i i appreciate as a guy who's just a regular guy i had to go talk to my neighbor yesterday or something that happened with my dog i'm trying to figure out how to get my yard mode for you too yes i'm just as a regular guy living in a neighborhood in a meeting the other day you said what you just said i want to double click on it i'm sick of

everybody just throwing mud at each other and every day you come to work you're the only ceo in america that i know of that still spends three hours a day with their front end customer listening to hurting people all day like i want to get some real answers to some real questions. And I'm like, I want to give both camps an opportunity just to say, okay, here's how I'm actually going to help people with eggs. Here's how I'm going to help people with like the cost of,

it's just hard in life right now. And so thank you for being somebody who at least wants to say, I I'll use my platform to speak up on people who are hurting. Cause I talk to them every day and y'all apparently don't because we're not, nobody's talking about them. Right. And so I appreciate you being platform to speak up on people who are hurting because I talk to them every day. And y'all apparently don't because nobody's talking about them, right? Right. And so I appreciate you being willing to do that. Oh, it's fun. Obviously, we're catching hell.

Of course. Everybody will catch hell for everybody. All the anti-Trump people are just raining acid on our parade. But that's fine. I mean, this is not an endorsement of anybody. I do not worship. I'm not starstruck of anybody. I do not worship. I'm not starstruck. I'm not.

It's not because I'm arrogant or something. I've just been doing this crap a long time. And these people are interesting to me, though, because the type of person that plays at that level is very interesting to me. The level of energy that they have. I mean, he's 78 years old. He spoke in North Carolina like two hours old he spoke in north carolina like two hours before he was in trump tower on in front of our cameras i mean he and he doesn't stop i mean where is he getting all this energy i'll be worn out and i'm 64 but um but yeah and and he's shorter

than i thought he was i thought the guy was massive didn't you you have that impression that he's like six six or something he's not? He's just a little bit taller than me. Than you? Than me. And you're just a little bit taller than George Camel. You're way taller than George Camel. Careful. Everybody's taller than George Camel.

But yeah, I mean, it was interesting. That kind of stuff is interesting to me. So our first question, I'll go ahead and preview it. I just said, okay, Mr. President, we talk to real people every day. Let me tell you what they're concerned about. They're not concerned about a bunch of the stuff you're talking about. The stuff they're concerned about, $7 eggs, $5 gas, 7% interest rates, and house prices going up faster than their wages are going up.

This black cloud that's over our economic situation right now. And we can talk about how it got there. We can talk about what you used to do. You can talk about the current administration, but I don't't really want to what i want to talk about is what you're going to do in the first 90 days to get this black cloud off of america and that was my first question so and i'll ask miss vice president harris's exact same question if we get the opportunity yeah so and i think it's all contact couched with we're still going to show up and tell americans you like you can't wait on them yeah like you got to control what's in your house and by the way if you're out there and you're angry and you're never going to show up and tell Americans, like, you can't wait on them. Yeah.

Like, you've got to control what's in your house. And by the way, if you're out there and you're angry and you're never going to deal with Ramsey again because I interviewed Donald Trump, good. Leave. I'm fine with that. You're narrow-minded and too stupid to talk to. You need to learn to engage ideas and engage things that make you uncomfortable. So, good.

If you're angry because I might talk to Vice President Harris and you're going to leave and never listen to us again, good. See you. Wouldn't want to be you. We'll miss you. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on. Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey-trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely.

Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027 funny they popped that picture up there that's a great picture but it's one of the few times that someone's head glows more than mine his hair just lit up under the light mine usually

shines like a bulb you know we have to put so much makeup on my head to keep it from just glistening right and his hair is like a dadgum halo, which would not be appropriate. Right, right, right, right. But it lights up, and he had us change the lighting because it was even worse than that. That's funny. I like it.

It's a good shot, though. Fun stuff. All right, that's for those of you looking at YouTube. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Danielle's in New York City. Hi, Danielle. How are you New York City. Hi, Danielle. How are you? Hey, good afternoon, Dave.

How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Well, Dave, I'm calling you because I have a question, which is, how do I bounce back financially and get myself ready for retirement? What are you bouncing back from? Well, I have been, I had an accident in 2007, which left me disabled. I had to learn how to walk again.

Wow. And so finally I got to the place where I could do a part-time job because I needed the money that I was getting from Social Security disability. And my pension was basically going towards my rent. But I started doing that and, you know, hurt myself a couple of times, wasn't able to really save up, and then COVID came. I was able to get a full-time job, but it was a temp job. So, of course, that wasn't really enough still to, you know, save anything. But now I finally can. Are you single, Danielle?

Yes, I am. I am single. And you're 57. And how are you doing with the disability now? Are you working full-time, or how are you doing? Praise God, I am working full-time. In fact, I just recently was hired permanently. Good.

What do you make? My salary is $50,600. Okay. And you live in the city, in New York City, on 50 grand? Yeah. I didn't know you could sneeze for the city, in New York City, on 50 grand? Yeah. I didn't know you could sneeze for 50 grand in downtown New York. Wow. Okay. And you've got pension coming in in addition to that.

Are you still getting the Social Security? Unfortunately, no. No, once you're working, yeah. No longer qualified for it. And they stopped my pension. And in fact, that's part of the debt that I owe because according to Social Security Disability, I owe them $52,000, not to mention $17,000 to IRS, $8,000. I had credit cards, but I owe $8,000 on that. And how much is your rent now?

Well, right now I'm living with a friend of mine, so I'm paying $375 a month. But I am trying to get my own place. Because, you know, I love my friend, and I want to keep her as a friend. But I get my own place because, you know, I love my friend. I want to keep her as a friend, but I need my own place. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you do. Okay.

And so you've got a total of how much debt? A total of $87,000. Okay. And a bunch of that is IRS and repayment to Social Security for the time that you were working and should not have received disability according to them, right? Exactly. Okay. All right.

Have you fought any of that yet? I talked to Social Security. They're saying that I can possibly have a forgiving. Yeah. Okay. So I think we need to get someone in your corner that's used to fighting that battle because those battles are lengthy, but they're doable. And they don't come around telling you what all your rights are

and what you can pull off there, but there's some things you can do there. So, and it will, and it might even affect the IRS bill if you refiled an appeal and refiled an amended return on your tax bill. So what I'm going to do, because this is a complicated situation, I'm going to put you with one of our Ramsey coaches and I'm going to pay for it. It's not going to cost you anything. And they're going to come in and look at your situation and go at some of these people and see if we can get this $87,000 down to half of that or something by just working the system. And then we can work through the rest of it and get it paid off

and then start building up some kind of a nest egg because you've got to start working towards a nest egg. And, you know, it's all about cost of living versus what you've got coming in and finding those differences and being able to push that through. So you've had a hard road, kiddo. You need somebody to love you well and walk beside you. And we're just those kind of folk. So you hang on.

I'll have the Christian pick up and we'll get you one of our coaches as a gift from us. And I think they can help you. I really do. It's what they do every day. They help people negotiate all kinds of debts. But when you're dealing with the IRS and Social Security, it's a different spirit over that stuff. So, yeah, different world.

Tell me about the Social Security repayment, Dave. I've never heard that before. Well, if you continue, if you're working and you're receiving full payout on SSI, which is Social Security for Disability. So she was declared permanently and totally disabled by the government. Based on that, they're paying her probably $3,000, $4,000 a month, give or take. Might be more, might be less but somewhere right in there and it's not unusual and based on the fact that she's permanently disabled and she qualifies to receive social security support instead of or in is different than

the retirement you get through social security but then when she went back to work she kind of says double dipped says i'm really not permanently disabled anymore. I've gotten past that. I've worked my way through that with therapy or whatever. I'm able to work again, but kept getting the checks. And so that's not okay. You can't keep getting a check for being permanently disabled when you're no longer permanently disabled. And you've proven that by working. If you had a private disability company,

that you had a disability policy at your work, and they were paying you, and then you went back to work, they would have private investigators following you around with cameras so that they could not have to pay you the disability anymore. Do you know if you have to pay tax on SSI benefits? You do not. So if you're getting 4,000 bucks and that's where some of that taxes came from. So if we can reduce what's owed back

to them, then that might reduce that IRS tax bill. Probably. I'm guessing I'm fishing around in the dark there, but I think that's what I'm hearing. But I can also imagine if you are permanently disabled and we know psychologically spiritually emotionally that going to rehab doing the hard work and getting back out there right is and you don't know if it's gonna work it's good for everybody that's right good for everybody but if you're getting a check for four thousand bucks a month 48 a year after taxes right that means you got to be making you got to go find a job that pays pretty dang well to even get to come off even. Yep. Yep.

That's tough. That's a tough order. Yep. Right. Yep. Our human nature is going to say, why swim upstream? Yeah, because you want to be well. That's why.

I mean, it has to be that way. But if she's making 50 grand, then she took a net loss in her house after taxes. Yep. Living in New York City. She did. And I think she said in her house after taxes. Yeah. Lived in New York City. She did. And I think she said they stopped her pension too early, early with release on it based on disability. So like we had a guy here years ago that was making over 400 and something

thousand. One of our top guys got MS and went home out. He was gone. He later passed away from it at an early age but um went out on disability and the disability people were paying him the policy we have here maxes at 300k or used to i don't know what max is that today and so he's getting 300k man they were fought on him everywhere i bet so trying to figure out if he was doing anything if he lifted a shovel if he got paid for doing anything they were going to disallow that claim so you know we were coaching

him whatever you do no matter how good you're feeling don't work yeah because they're gonna they're they're got the long lens across the parking lot they're going to capture you doing anything yeah so um uh and as because they get defrauded no i get it it's just one of those things that just there's not a lot of winners there right because i know they get defrauded and they want to protect their their money that they swing the pendulum so far that you just have to be paranoid about how you live or you gotta be somebody like you know danielle who says i'm gonna take the net financial loss because I'm worth some different kind of life. Yep.

And I'm going to have to work extra hard because it's going to cost me money to go get well. Well, I just feel better about my life when it's me. That's right. Not some check coming in. Good for you, Danielle. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Kate is with us in Denver. Hi, Kate. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm kind of at a loss of what I should do.

I don't really know how to handle my emotions about my mother's bad financial choices. Okay. Why do you have emotions about my mother's bad financial choices. Okay. Why do you have emotions about your mother's bad financial choices? Well, I mean, I worry about her. It's mostly anxiety and concern. Oh, okay. She's made some pretty bad financial choices throughout my whole life, so not new.

But, you know, she's getting a little older. She should be getting closer to retirement, and her latest issue is leading her to possibly cash in her 401K. And I'm really worried for her, and I don't really – I've asked a few friends and family about what I should do, and I don't really know. I've tried talking to her, and it about what I should do. And I don't really know if I've tried talking to her and it hasn't really worked out. Um, she doesn't seem to listen or be interested in changing. So I just, I don't know. I know it's not my responsibility, but I still feel that concern

for her. Sure. I think your feelings are right. I think it's just what you do next. It's the most important. And if I was you, I'd feel bad and I'd feel scared for my mom and I'd also feel sad that she doesn't trust me. And then I'd have to go do the next right thing. And I wish there was some sort of secret sauce in between that. There just isn't. I think with family, it's the worst, man, because you can't win,

you can't lose. It just kind of is sometimes. And you're heartbroken and you're sad. And maybe a last ditch effort, and Dave, you may have some different thoughts, but is I love the idea of writing letters and here's why. It's something that people can go back to. And sometimes when we challenge somebody or we ask them a question, they hear it through a lens of shame or frustration or who do you think you are? When you write it down, they can go back to it and go back to it and go back to it and go back to it. And that's, I mean, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall because nothing else has worked, but that might work. And just let her know, I love you. If you ever want to talk about money, I know that it's scary. If you ever want

to talk about it, I've learned some things along the way and you've helped me so much. And I'd love to help you with this if you want to talk. Yeah. And then you got to dust your sandals off and go on to the next thing because life's too short. You can't do anything about it. I've only seen a couple of things that have any success at all. And it has to do with the person you're talking to, not with you. But I know what doesn't work. What doesn't work is you sitting down and say, Hey mom, you suck at this and I'm going to show you what to do. Right. That's not going to work at all because you've got the powdered butt syndrome. Once someone's powdered your butt, they don't want your opinion on money or sex. Okay. So I don't care if you got a master's degree in finance, you know, you, they're the one person is not going to listen to use your parents so um a disturbing number of people in my family do nothing i teach and i've got two phds

you know how many questions i've ever received about any of those marital advice zero any of those subjects yeah zero so that's what you run into, what has worked is the same thing as sharing your faith. You can sit down with someone and tell your story. Say, Mom, here's where I was broken. Here's where I was scared. Here's where I was ashamed. Here's where I was running backward with money. Here's mistakes I made with money, And I stopped doing that. And instead,

I did this. And when I got on a budget and I worked it at Snowball, I paid off $57,000 worth of debt in 18 months. And I know you're proud of me for doing that. And I just want to tell you, it's an amazing sense now that I've got a power over this and I didn't used to. That's your story. And no one really gets upset hardly with you telling your story even your mother and sometimes we're doing that with the hope that she will say something like wow I wish I could do that well she just opened the door or man I could never do that yeah you could she just opened the door right and so we're trying to get her to ask you a question or make a comment that gives you an entree into the living room of her mind.

The second one that has worked is if you have a family member or close family friend that is respected by her that is very good with money, she might listen to them a whole lot easier than she will you. That make sense? Yeah, that's really good advice, actually, because there are actually a few accountants in my family that I think she might listen to a little bit more. It's more of like a fundamental difference of opinion. Yeah.

No, it's not. It's not a fundamental difference of opinion. She sucks at handling money. Yeah. It's not a difference not very much it's not a fundamental difference of opinion she sucks at handling money yeah it's not it's not a difference of opinion she's just wrong yeah and what we've got to do is get she's got bad information and she's acting on it yeah it's not like better be happy now than plan for the now that's that that's just that's a four-year-old yeah you know i'd rather be happy now than plan for the future has not worked well. And she's not happy.

She's using that as an excuse to buy crap she can't afford with money she doesn't have to impress people she doesn't even really like, and she's going to retire broke. Now she's painted herself into a corner as cashing out a 401k. So her system sucks. Her belief system sucks. So for her sake, if anybody could inject a new set of software into that brain to where she started looking at this differently whether it's an uncle or an aunt or your story opens up a thought pattern for her or maybe the maybe the desperation

of now she's looking at i'm gonna have to retire and eat alpo something opens her up to be able to talk then that's the best thing that can happen to her because i mean why did i go broke because i was stupid the stuff i was doing was freaking brain damaged and that's what made me go broke so i mean i got a phd in dumb i know exactly what it looks like and that wasn't a difference in opinion. It was stupid versus smart. That's not a difference in opinion. That's just right and wrong, evil and good. And so, yeah, there is truth in this world. The law of gravity works for everyone, you know.

So, yeah, but I think you can push right up into the edge of this as long as she feels how much you love her while you're doing this. But you can't smack somebody in the back of their head unless you got your arm around their shoulder first. You got to have a quality relationship. Here's a heavy other side. We talk about your emotions feeling out of control often they are feeling out of control and we cast that on somebody else so you think you're emotional about your mom's expenditures or the way she's living i bet if you spent some time with it you're actually emotional about what this is going to mean for you later you're going to be faced

with am i going to pay for mom am i going to take be faced with am i going to pay for mom am i going to take care of mom am i going to let my mom eat so you're casting it on her right now because you're watching it but really your body knows this is going to be in your lap in five years 10 years 15 20 years so i think a lot of the emotional exercise that you can do the only thing you can control here is go ahead now and make some boundaries about what this is going to mean 20 years from now are you going to pay for it are you just going to start putting a put a sinking fund away to take care of mom one day or i'm not going to do this i'm going to make peace with it i'm going to end it but you can decide what your boundaries are going to be and think about that stuff into the future and begin to control that because that's really all

the control you got yep absolutely good question kate and um a lot of people in america are facing those exact same emotions with their parents and or their grown kids some of you are what we call the sandwich generation you're getting squeezed by broke parents and broke grown kids and you're squeezed right in the middle and uh all the baloney is coming out with a squeezing i can tell you that so i thought you said deloney for a second no good just below i said baloney i'm careful to enunciate that word around you all right good because you have a you have a you have a serious psychological work hearing from my feelings you have a wound around that it triggers you i know right so hey the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget every dollar makes

it simple to plan spending track track expenses, and keep the pulse on everything. Every dollar is upgraded and iterated almost every month. We have a whole floor of people working on this software all the time. It is the world's best budgeting app. Tens of millions of people are using it. John, you said you guys had an interesting experience the other day doing an EveryDollar webinar. You and George, was that what it was? It was me and Chris Campbell. Yeah, it was. It's just amazing watching people walk through that thing and there was the number of people who jumped in who were baby step seveners who were buying it for offering to buy it for the people who are just over their head and wondering what i can't breathe what i do next generous

people sitting in the webinar and pretty amazing that was cool it was i've never seen that never heard of that but it was pretty rad pretty rad that's neat but it's folks who have been through it they use it and they realize oh this was a path to freedom for my family i'd love to pass this thing on yeah pretty cool man neat this is the ramsey show hey you guys i'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact,

they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join, and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country, so you can bank in person wherever you live. But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds

and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us.

If you haven't heard, the Ramsey Network app is where you get the last segment of the show every day. We moved it onto the Ramsey Network app. You can download the app for free. We've got all kinds of other stuff on the Ramsey Network app. It's completely free. We don't charge a thing for this. And it's where the Trump interview will hit first on Tuesday. And then it will pop up, that Donald Trump interview that I did yesterday in New York

will pop up on podcast and on YouTube on Wednesday. So never fear. You'll get it wherever you are, but if you want to download that, one of the things you can do on the Ramsey Network app is ask a question. This one comes from Candace. We aren't high-income earners, but managed to set up a college fund for our daughter from an inheritance we received 15 years ago.

College fund has enough to attend her number one school and pay cash however she has a full tuition scholarship to a different state school that will provide a good education but she still wants to go to her first choice school do we encourage her to go the cheaper school and save forty thousand dollars or her dream school i don't know what school is going to only cost forty thousand maybe a year maybe a year um so i was just pulling up some data here so by the way john has a phd in higher education yeah so i'll let you i'll let you wait in on this it's been a few years so ultimately here's here's kind of the breakdown there is a what they would call an earnings premium by selective institution but here's you got to drill into what it means what does that mean if you go to a fancier school you do there is some data that says you come out with a higher

salary but what they don't tell you is those fancier schools self-select so if your kid has earned a full ride then her test scores are good she is a hard worker and what they say is that premium dissolves when you factor in test scores like grit and all these other things so so meaning if you select thoroughbreds only for your school of course your school that's exactly because of who you selected that's right it's a pre-selection because the thoroughbred can run fast no matter which school they went to that's right so ultimately i think what if you look at it all across the board, what a premium school, however you want to call that,

is there may be a premium classmate selection, meaning you're more likely to sit by Elon Musk, who's going to start a company, and they're going to call you because they're friends and you all room together. Whereas if you go to a state school, the chance of that happening, you might have less thoroughbreds everywhere there might be a few thoroughbreds in here and there all i have to say is this um if you've got cash

if it's a if it's an incredible institution yada yada i don't have a problem with it what i do have a problem with is a 18 year old saying this is my dream and you spending money on that thank you if your kid gets into yale and you want to say okay yale's got a premium they got the best architecture program in the world i'm all about that if your kid says the i felt at home at this place and it made me feel warm and fuzzy it's my dream and this other school is saying you can come here for free my kid in my house is going to go to the school that's there for free. Yeah. And so I'm not going to be drug around by my kids, quote unquote, dreams. Yeah. I think you need to continue to have a conversation with them about what they're getting for what you're spending.

That's a great. And if they cannot have that conversation logically, I'm going to override them. That's called parenting. But because it's my freaking money by the way. I'm not yours. So, um, we're going to talk about that. So you can come out this way and buy a house right after you graduate with the money we had saved for college. And I love that. That to me is a really compelling educational expenses and housing coming out of school. Those are the two things that will make it tough for a new grad.

We can take that off the table. We all went to the University of Tennessee, and the Ramsey kids were required to go to the University of Tennessee for lots of reasons. But I'm kidding. Not really. Yeah, not much. But anyway, one child who might be named something that sounds like Rachel

actually applied to an out-of-state Southeastern Conference college, which shall go unnamed, which was $14,000 more a year to go to basically the same level of education, maybe even less, for $14,000 more simply because it went across the state line. Can we click on that real quick? And I just said, I'm your father. Not paying? No, I'm not paying for it.

So there is actually a move where public state schools, because their tuition in state is often capped or they have to go through the legislature. So they have a premium on out-of-state students that they can charge for the same seat. Because you're not a citizen of this state, I can charge you an same seat a because you're not a a citizen of this state i can charge you an out-of-state tuition fee and there's actual recruiting efforts to go get those kids as though their experience would be so radically different but they go after your

18 year old saying i know you are next to ut knoxville but if you just cross the state and look at our state school madness one of the worst ones was i talked to a girl here on the air one day who was in South Carolina, and I said, won't you go to South Carolina? She said, no, I want to go to Mississippi. I said, why do you want to go to Mississippi? South Carolina's a good school. Mississippi's a good school. They're both Southeastern Conference State Universities.

I mean, it's a fairly close baseline. We could argue about little stuff. But I mean, why? What is it that could argue about little stuff, but I mean, I'm like, why, what is it that's drawn? It's my dream. Why is it your dream?

Same kind of crap. Right. And I'm finally, I'm like, what? She said, the houses in Oxford are so beautiful. This is why you're going to spend 14 grand extra to look at other people's houses for four years.

So I'm just like, like, where's your parents? Someone needs to take your little self and say no. No little self. You can't do that little self. Bad plan little self. So I mean, to answer this, if my kid comes to me and says, Dad, I got accepted to Stanford. I want to study computer science and whatever.

And I have the money saved up to send myid at Stanford, and he can articulate here. I don't have a problem with that at all. Not all day, every day. Exactly. But if he says, Dad, I want to go to University of North Carolina, and I live in Tennessee, and he got accepted at UT Knoxville, I can't do the math there. It's illogical. I mean, if you're going to study marketing and logistics, or let's just say supply chain,

which the University of tennessee has one of the top schools the nation university of michigan is one of the other ones okay on supply chain if you're going to study supply chain you're going to come out of university of tennessee making probably right at 100 grand right now with that degree yeah if you want to go to vanderbilt and study the same thing you're going to get a substandard education at vanderbilt on that particular subject yeah and you're going to pay 75 000standard education at Vanderbilt on that particular subject. And you're going to pay $75,000 a year instead of $12,000 a year. Now, that's stupid to say that you went to Vanderbilt

because my upper lip is sunburned because I went to Vanderbilt and my nose is in the air. You know, that's just bull crap. That's just stupid. I'm not against Vanderbilt other than their football. And yeah, you know, that's just bull crap. That's just stupid. Okay. And there's, I'm not against Vanderbilt other than their football, which they don't play well, but, but the, uh, I mean, I, I, there's, I've got a niece that graduated from Vanderbilt. She had a free ride there. Yes. And then went on to be a lawyer and as a partner in a law firm, you know, and so great.

That's awesome. No problem with that. But don't go there, you know, and you know and and you know kick in your false falsetta right accent as you're doing it because i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna write you up because i mean i went to university of tennessee and people that work for went to vanderbilt work for me so i know it's not necessarily better all the time okay so that that you gotta think this stuff through logically you have to put some critical thinking to it a can you pay for it if you can't pay for it's off the table b what's the opportunity cost on this money what could she buy if she goes

to this other school and then what's the benefit if she goes to the famous school the dream school right so to speak but yeah be careful with that word dream uh because that may mean my boyfriend's going there that's that was yes yes I'll just leave it at that. You're correct, sir. And there's a 100% chance of breaking up with that boyfriend. Just like right at 100. It's like 90 something. The statistical evidence is really bad.

So I'm kidding, but not much. So yeah, be careful if you're following your love around and it's costing you 20 grand a year. Okay. It's a bad plan. You can buy a lot of airline tickets for that crap. So, yeah, be careful if you're following your love around and it's costing you 20 grand a year. Okay. It's a bad plan. You can buy a lot of airline tickets for that crap. So think this stuff through. Moms and dads, get involved.

It is your job to keep your kid from doing something that's going to cost them a decade of their life. And by the way, I have a freshman in high school. It starts now. I'm shocked by it, but it it starts now and so that means the conversations around your dinner table have to start now i started when they were six because we taught them to sing rocky top just depends on how early you want to brainwash or indoctrinate or manipulate or teach whatever you want to call it john just whatever you want to call it here what's that great uh there's a great homer simpson quote that says the best part about being a parent is you get to teach them to

hate the things that you hate oh that's alabama okay now did you know half of your listening audience just like like almost like like subconsciously just shouted out roll tide they couldn't help it. It just came out of their armpits. A visceral response. It's going to be a great football game this Saturday, I can tell you that. This is the Ramsey Show. From the Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show.

I'm Jade Warshaw. Your host next to me is Dr. John Deloney. We're going to take calls about your life and your money. We're going to help you build a life that you love. We're going to help you build wealth. We're going to help you with your careers and your relationships. It is a live show, so you can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll get you in on the line.

All right, John, you ready to get into it? Let's go. All right, Kristen is in San Antonio, Texas. What's up, Kristen? Hello. What's up? Yes. So my question for you, I'll get right to it, is my husband and I did a boo-boo.

Whoa, it's not that kind of show. What did y'all do, Kristen? Well, financially. All right. So we had a high amount of debt and we had the brilliant idea prior to hearing about Dave Ramsey, of course, to do one of those lovely debt consolidation companies that basically, you know, we pay into, I mean, into it and then they negotiate, I guess, the pot that we have contributed to. And now we know Dave Ramsey and it's an, uh-oh, we shouldn't have done that, but we're not sure what we should do. We have

$3,000 put in the pot already. What's the total debt that you've consolidated? $37,000. Okay. So they're saying they set up a payment plan for you where you pay X amount a month, right? Yeah. And it's a lot of our income. $831 a month. Okay. And what is your income every month? Well, I am self-employed, so it's kind of iffy, but we go about, I would say about $6,000.

Okay. And so your thought is like, all right, how do I get out of this? Because you're also paying them something, right? Oh, yes. How much of this goes to them? So basically the last time I talked to them, they basically said we have about $3,200 in the pool, I guess you can say. And after three months, we still haven't heard anything as far as them negotiating yet. But we're also working on our debts, other debts, just small things that we are doing the debt small ball to and have a budget and we're sticking to it. But we're also house

poor. So that takes a lot of our income as well. What percentage is it on your mortgage? 40%. Okay, okay. It could be worse, but that's pretty tough right there. 40%, you're feeling that in a major way and you've got this consolidation in a situation

where you're not really able to control it what happens if you don't pay what you've said you will pay you know i'm what i have all i've i should have asked them that question but my the only thing they said is if you do decide to walk away you will get your money back okay okay okay Okay. Okay. So they're, they're pooling the money. They haven't actually put it towards any of the debt yet. Correct. And, and it's, we're kind of deciding, okay, do we, do we just keep the money in there and keep on pooling or doing something? So Jay, Jay, Kristen, I'm going to ask Jay this question because she knows more about this than I do. But my understanding about most of these companies is they will hold your money.

They wait until you default. So they're crashing your car for you. And then the credit card companies will sue you or who you owe money will sue. And then they will take the money that you put in that pot and use that to say, what if wrote you a check for three thousand dollars today but you're the casualty you get what i'm saying yes and so they come off looking like the hero but they crash your car and then using your money instead of paying the payments that would have kept your car from being crashed then they come out and be like look at what we did for you but you're on the side of the road with no car and everything's in ash. Yeah.

100%. Because we have so, we don't have enough to pay like all, there are three separate credit cards. Okay. So that's all this $37,000 is? That's what the $37,000 is, is three separate credit cards? Yes. Okay. Here, if I'm in your shoes, if I wake up in your shoes, I'm trying to get out

of this because in this situation, you want to have control. And I feel like right now you don't have the control that would probably give you more peace. Um, that's, there's two like big red blinking lights here. That's one big red blinking light is you can do that for yourself. Like if you said to yourself, I'm just going to crash my credit and then I'm going to do this, you could do that for yourself and still be in control of it. I don't think it's to that point. I don't think you do have to default.

I think you can just pay these people above what you owe them and pay it off relatively quickly. You make seven, you net $72,000 a year. So I think you can make this happen. And you mentioned that you have a side business or your own business, which also lets me know there's no ceiling to what you could be earning. There's a way for you to increase your income. Am I right?

Yes. And I work every single day. Excellent. Excellent. So if I'm you coming away from this call, I'm going to if they said, hey, if you walk away from this, you get your money back. I'm going to go back and say, I don't want to do this. And I'm going to try to get out of it. If they give you some sort of runaround or there's some fee on the back end, call us back. We'll help you with it. The house is the other big glaring light. It's 40% of your income. How long have you been in this house?

Only a year and a half. Okay. And did you get in at 40 40 of your income or did something happen and your income plummeted or the payment went up what happened income plummeted my husband and i moved from a different city and we had to find a place to live um and that was the one available and we're like okay we can do this. And then they stopped us over time. That's tough. I don't see a pathway for you to clear this debt in a way that makes sense and keep this house.

Do you? I really don't. I mean, we're working as much as we can. We're budgeting what we can. I mean, but it's just not making a good dent. You know what I mean? There's not much margin left over. Yeah, it's that classic hole to shovel ratio. And what makes us faster is that bigger shovel, right? Because I'm guessing you're at of beer buns budget yes and then we we have about about 40 no 60 in you know equity obviously um so we basically break even and i guess we could rent but man it's hard to we have two girls it's hard to how old are you kr am 43. Okay. If you were my sister, I would tell you to do that

exact thing. Okay. And here's why. I would want that break even. Mathematically, it feels like, oh my gosh, we're just at zero. But that zeroing out is, I want you to think of it as like a set of chain cutters and you just cut a chain so you yeah you're right you don't have you don't have anything but nobody's got you right do you know what I'm saying and that in your home is a different kind of piece than what you're living with right now yeah I'm with John. I would get out of this home because for many reasons, A, you just, even if you called in here and everything was great, you didn't have any debt, da, da, da, da, but if it was 40% of your income, that is bondage. That is a burden. That is not a blessing that a home should be. And even if you were debt free, having a mortgage that's 40% would make it tough to get

where you need to be financially and accomplish your other goals. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week, in the middle of all that grief, like it's just it is it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much

because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. All right, you're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls. If you want to get in, it's a live show. You can get in where you fit in. 888-825-5225 is the number you can call about anything pertaining to your life and your money. And we will hook you up with the best possible advice that we can come

up with. John and I just pool our resources and come up with the best possible solution. I'm definitely the shallow end of that pool. It's fun. We have a good time. Michelle's in Buffalo, New York. Oh, what's going on, Michelle? Yes. Hi. I just wanted to say, before I ask my question, we're debt free. That's awesome. How much did you pay off? Oh gosh. Uh, let me think. I think it was close to almost 30,000, maybe 40. Um. It was just a couple of cars and a couple of credit cards. And I just went after it. Well, we went after it. How long did it take you?

Yeah. Since 2021. So, roughly like three years. Yeah, three years. Very cool. Hey, real quick, Michelle. Unfortunately, Jade and I have been repeatedly told you can't pay off debts in New York. It's too expensive.

Yeah, it's just impossible to do. Are you sure you did the math right? I know, right? It was hustle, especially this summer. I was working six days a week. I was working anywhere from eight, know, eight, nine hours. I just didn't stop. My husband, of course, was working full time as well.

We went without a lot. Not a lot of going out to dinner, not a lot of clothes shopping, just the necessities, you know, what we actually needed. Looking at home, you know, the typical stuff that you guys talk about and just doing it. Listen, here it is again. The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately. We've been trying to tell people that. And you did the hustle.

And so you got the dream. I'm proud of you. Really excited. How can we help you today? My biggest question now that I'm on baby step number three, my house, I have about seven and a half years left to pay on my house. It's roughly about $95,000. And my daughter will be graduating from high school in about five years.

So I'm trying to figure out what the best choice is because I know if I hustle again, I could pay this house off in about two years. But yeah, five years is looming over me and I want to make, you know, a decent dent for her so that she doesn't have to have any school loans at all. So you're saying if I go hard in the paint for two to three years, I don't put anything aside in a 529. I can have this house paid off. Yeah, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't because there's a reason that these baby steps are in order. And that's ultimately to serve you best. Right. Some people don't have somebody that they're going to have to put through college. And so, yeah, they could skip forward. But in your case, I mean, you said it out of your

own mouth. You want her to be able to go through college without taking out the loans. And so you will be set up. The plan allows you a position to be able to do that college without taking out the loans. And so you will be set up. The plan allows you a position to be able to do that. Right. First, we're going to get six, three, let's say three months put aside for you. Maybe it's six months. You get to decide that you'll start investing 15 percent into your retirement because you're putting your mask on first. And then you get to say, all right, what can I afford to put aside for her while I'm still affording to do my 15%? And then you might decide what that number is. And another thing that's really going to inform this is what school you guys decide on.

Because that, John, school choice is everything. Choosing a place you can afford. Where does she want to go to school? Please say she doesn't know because she's only in eighth grade. Well, yes, but we actually have been talking about it and we have been talking about state school. So roughly, you know, one state school is roughly in full, I think it was like close to $60,000 for the four years. And the other one was just about half. It was actually a lot cheaper. So it kind of depends on what she wants to go for. Yeah. Listen, I just want to remind you that paying off the mortgage is super important. I want you to do that. I want

you to accomplish that. You will accomplish that. But there is not a mad rush to the finish line on that. Baby steps one through three, you are biting ankles to get, you know what I'm saying, past that finish line. But for the other baby steps, it's not like that. You don't have to, you don't have to go to those extents. Like you said, you've got seven years left on it in a normal frame. You've got seven years before this house is paid off. I think that's pretty freaking awesome. And so you don't have to crush yourself and you don't have to put your daughter's paid for education at risk in order to make that happen faster. Here, John and I say that that is not part of the plan. It is not a requirement for you. And I wouldn't do it.

I would put that money aside. I would take care of a baby girl. And then you will be living in a paid for house shortly after that. And it's not going to take you seven years. You know that. Yeah. There's no way. Yeah.

No kidding. No kidding. That's why I'm so eager to get it done because i'm so close i know so um in the same way that jade and i are often arguing with people um probably unsuccessfully that i don't care about the interest rates like that this is a psychology game and just trust us just pay this. It works for millions of people. The same principle applies here, and that's this. I get that you have a math problem and you've got an energy right now about you.

We've just done this so long that if you try to baby step to your house with just maniacal intensity, what we see is people burn out and they just say, screw it. Yeah. And so I,

I don't see it. Jade and I can talk to you till we're blue in the face. Um, and I'm going to tell you, I go, I go over the top on my, um, on,

on a mortgage, right? I go over the top on it. And, um, I still can't treat it like baby step two because then my house isn't a house we're living in. See what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes sense.

I think your next psychological move is to practice slowing down just a wee bit and realizing you're not losing the momentum. You're not losing anything. Now you're starting to settle into this thing. It's like when you're in a race car and you hit the gas real hard for that first, you lose your breath, and then your body catches up up and now you're cruising. That's where you're

at now. You're still going real, real, real fast. It's just, you're not running for your life. Yeah. And if you really do think about like numbers and opportunity costs on this, let me try to play this out outside of my own brain. If you said, okay, instead of, let's play it the way you thought you wanted to play it. I'm going to go balls to the wall paying off this mortgage and I'm going to have it done in two years. Well, if you did that, then suddenly you don't have enough money to pay for baby girls college outright. So the next thing you do, you're looking for student loans. And the interest on that is going to be worse than what you would have.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like if you really are looking at the numbers on it, I'm like, there's no way in the world I'd want to set myself up for the interest on a student loan payment in order to pay off my house a little bit faster. Because some of those loans, you're at 8%. You know what I mean? So I definitely, for many reasons, but that's just another reason that came to my head. If you're a person who's really like playing a shell game here, which I don't think you are. I just think that you're excited about your house. I don't think this is a numbers thing for you as much as it is,

as a, I just want to be free. I want to be done with it. And I can relate to that 100%. So yeah, just keep, keep on trucking. I think what John said is right.

You're going to be done in less than seven years. I think you're done in four years. And I think you've got a chunk thrown away for your daughter's college. And then I think you can help cash flow and y'all can work together on cash flow and the rest of it. That's what I think will happen. I like that. I like it. I like it.

Thank you. Thanks for the call. Can I just tell you we're proud of you? Thank you. I appreciate that. That's amazing. It's amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Good for you.

Very, very good. All right, John, we have the Ramsey Network app. If you don't know about it, you can go over there to listen to the final hour of the show. But you guys also are able to turn in questions over there. And so we have one. This person says, we aren't high income earners,

but managed to set up a college fund for our daughter from an inheritance that she received 15 years ago the college fund has enough to attend her one school and pay cash however she has a full scholarship to a different state school that will provide a good education but she still wants to go to her first school choice do we encourage her to go to the cheaper school and save 40 000 or her dream school thoughts school? Thoughts? Yeah, Dave and I were talking about this in a previous hour. Yeah, it's a long, complicated thing, but at the end of the day,

I'm not ever going to fund an 18-year-old's quote-unquote dream. I want to know if you have the money to pay for an elite school and there's a reason to go to this elite school. My kid wants to go to this elite school my kid if wants to go be in uh you know social media god he's a social media guy doesn't want to do that we're coming up on the break here's this if you have the money to pay for it and there's a reason to go to

that school and it's and it's thought through great otherwise go to the free school and help your kid put a down payment on the house when they graduate. Love it. This is The Ramsey Show. What's going on? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. And today's question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Politicians make a lot of promises, and sometimes they might even keep one or two of them. But if you're in over your head with private student loans, don't rely on the government. Contact YREFI. YREFI refinances defaulted private student loans and gives you a low fixed rate that's built for you. So go to YREFI.com slash Ramsey today. Again, that's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. This may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Jill in Michigan.

She writes, We have two children and I work full time to bring home about $4,000 a month plus some random bonuses. My husband only earns an average of $600 a month from his commission only job. Together, this is not enough to pay our bills, much less our debt. We've already cut spending, but we have a $900 a month debt payment that he didn't tell me about until he was in over his head.

All of this is wrecking our marriage, and I'm trying so hard not to be resentful. How do I get him to see that I'm not meant to carry all this on my own? He's supposed to be the biblical head of our family. What do you think, Jade? Oh, gosh.

My husband only earns an average of $600 a month. That's the problem beyond anything else. It's not even a thing of biblical head of house. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, if he was single, he couldn't live on that. So it's just not like,

right now looking numbers wise, I'm going numbers wise, there's an income problem, period. No matter who brings the money in, by the way, he or she, it's a numbers issue there. But then there is obviously a relational issue

because she's viewing him in a light and in a gender role um and he clearly doesn't see it that way well it's a respect issue like she doesn't respect the guy and yeah i think you're right i think it's less about the role than as much as our family's struggling and you don't care that our family's struggling and that could be a dad not helping change diapers at night that could be a dad yeah i think my 14 year old makes 600 a month so i i don't know how this works out this way yeah but to me this is somebody who is um lost respect in a man who's going to watch his family drown and just be sitting sitting on his couch not making any money and so then you start coming up with stories and ideas.

And you've got to be doing this and you should be doing this. That's somebody who's desperate saying, you're watching your wife and your kids suffer and you're not doing anything about it. Okay, then I agree with you. Tell me this because I can't begin to get into the mind of a male. I'm a woman. It's a very simple, simple, simple box. Not a lot going on up there. said it not me uh what happened what has to be going on with a a guy to sit and watch this happen because my brain goes to wow my dude must be down in the

dump like something's got to be going on that you would be able to watch that and feel either helpless to do anything about it or ostrich syndrome something's going on that he's just not dialed in yeah i mean i don't know i don't know if it's a matter of shame i don't know if it's a matter of um like a delusional guy i don't know if he if there's more to this story that he also is drinking he has gambling issues yeah because what's the 900 a month debt right or if he's playing video games with his buddies i don't know underneath all of that so i think the generous thing we can say is he started a commission-only job and it hadn't worked out and move on he is really struggling with depression he is he is ashamed to look at himself in the mirror and it's hard to shift out of that okay that's the that's the generous the ungenerous is he is a spoiled brat man child and jill's been his mom way more than she's been his wife

and he's beat down she's beat down and here's the deal at the end of the day and i'm going to say this um and not unapologetically this family is not they're not in a position, I don't care. You have to get up and help your family. There's just a, there's a period to it, right? I agree. So you can go get some counseling. You can go get some support.

You can go get some care. Your family's drowning. You got to quit this commission only job. You can go make more money than this by a long shot. You can four or five X this at McDonald's, right? Yes. And so. That's why I said it. he must be somewhere deep and dark if you or delusional or delusional or delusional and i've met those dudes who are like no bro i got a plan i got this thing and and so they're always scheming always whatever so there's a lot more to this and let's just let's just go

ahead and be fair across the board it may have have been, he may have realized after two kids and Jill's hard on him that he lives in a failure factory. I can't please you. I can't do anything. I'm just going to, here's the deal. None of that matters. Your kids are struggling. Your spouse is struggling.

You got to go make some more money. And I love how you said it. You couldn't support yourself on this much money. At least pay care of yourself, right? So all that to say is um there's a time to mourn there's a time to grieve and there's a time to struggle struggle struggle i'm with you and you gotta go you gotta go figure this out okay so we've talked about this from the point of view of what he needs to do she's the one who wrote the letter how do i get him to see that i'm not meant to carry this

alone you don't you can't um i think she has to she has to i mean going back to if it's generous if he's really struggling right um hey honey i'm gonna go see a counselor and i'd love for you to join me like i'm gonna be a part of your healing process because i know you're not well and i see a light on the other end of this thing um if he's a man child who's gambling too much or drinking too much playing video games too much or whatever yeah because nine hundred dollars a month that's like a thirty or forty thousand dollar bill somewhere at least yeah that's a chunk right so um she has to do the next right thing which is make sure my children are safe yeah right and so i've got to start creating a world where we are okay and that's where i've got to start doing my four walls stuff right and sometimes you can do that inside of a house sometimes you got to start creating a world where we are okay. And that's where I've got to start doing my four wall stuff.

Right. And sometimes you can do that inside of a house. Sometimes you've got to leave a marriage because this goes back to that fidelity thing. I think we think about fidelity is off always about like romantic cheating. I think fidelity is a way bigger thing than that. I agree. I agree.

You can cheat on your spouse at a golf course. You can cheat on, you can not be a person of fidelity, integrity by not working, by just laying around playing video games, right? That is me not being committed to this. I'm choosing somebody else or something else over you. That's right. Yes. That's fidelity. So all I have to say is she's got to be honest about he's not coming around. He has no interest in us. He'd rather drink, he'd rather gamble, he'd rather do other stuff. So I have to do the next right hard scary thing which is i got to protect me and my kids and that stinks and that's hard and nobody wants to go down that road so she needs

to get with a professional in her local area and begin to map out what that looks like my hope is he's a man who's stuck and he's not doing well. And her choosing to not beat him up and not choose to disrespect him, but choose to walk alongside him and say, hey, I'm willing to go help you get well if you are. That's my hope and dream about this. But there's just a lot of unknowns here. There's a lot of unknowns. And I think that's the hardest part about anything is she can't,

she's not going to be able to make him do anything. And as long as that's the focus, we're just stuck. And nobody's ever been truly deeply shamed into behavior change. No. Ever. Might last for a second. And that's not change behavior. That is, I will do what I need to do to get you away from me. Right. In fact, that's a further repellent. So the only thing I've ever seen here is a double

down on connection, which is hard when you have no relational capital left or um somebody choosing to say um i gotta i gotta take care of us i gotta take care of us wow that's a tough situation very very very tough yeah oh well we're hoping for you uh by the way better help is a place that we recommend if you are looking for counseling you could check out there and try to get some of the help you need. Because I do think in situations like this, it's really important to get like an outsider to kind of just have their opinion. Right. You get so close to it and you're looking at it and you're so close to the situation. It's hard to see it for all the facets that it has. So call our friends a better help if you got nobody else. I mean, I mean, if you have somebody else call our friends a better help.

But that's a great place to start. And they can see within 48 hours and um they can get you get you cracking on on getting well oh wait my goodness gracious that is a tough stuff well in the meantime i can tell you guys that let's switch gears here a little bit john and tell people that time is running out to book their cabin if they're interested in the live like no one else cruise that's coming up it's going to be here before you know it, March 22nd and 29th of 2025. And 90% of the cabins are full. So if you haven't booked yet, consider this your time to book. It's an amazing cruise. I can tell you, I worked in the cruise business for 15 years and Holland America is one of the best lines out there. So don't delay Holland America's new Staten Dam ship is where we're going to be cruising Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Bahamas. We we're going to be cruising. Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico,

St. Thomas, Bahamas. We're all going to be there. There's amazing pools, amazing spas, amazing lounges, pickleball courts. We're going to be living our best life together and celebrating with you because you're debt-free. Book it today. You can go to RamseySolutions.com

slash cruise. Hey, you guys. health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. 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.

All right, you're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. This is a live show about your life, your money. If you ever had a question or you're just wondering, you can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Christian will pick up the line, screen your call, make sure you're not some kind of a psychopath, and we'll take your call. It'll be really fun. We'll probably take that call too. Yeah, we will. It's okay. Everybody's welcome here. If George can work here, we'll probably take your call.

That is correct. All right. Jessica is on the line. She is none of the things that we just described. She is just fine. What's going on, Jessica? Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk this through with y'all. So we are in Baby Step 1. After my gig shift tonight, I'll have 700, me and my husband.

Oh, yeah. But I know it's really exciting um but baby step two is getting me a little worried um my my husband took out student loans and that was something that was like his domain so I wasn't aware of how much he owed besides before the student loans we owe about40,000 in various debts. But last week he told me that he owes $35,000 for student loans. And I really understood what you all mean by you can't breathe. Yeah. Wow.

It was just, it's fine. Just I want to know how to proceed because there's nine different loans. Some are subsidized, some are unsubsidized, and there's different payback plans. But there's also a disclaimer that the income-driven repayment plans might not be an option. I'm just so confused. I don't know anything about all this. Jay's going to walk you through all this. Can I just tell you to do one thing? It's not a pet peeve of mine, but it's just like a thing that happens. I just want to free you from it, okay?

This is not fine. And I think you have a habit of feeling something and then immediately putting a lid over it because somewhere along the way, it was your job to make sure everybody else was okay in your world and you're not allowed to be mad at your husband. You're not allowed to be mad at your, okay, like I feel be mad okay like i feel it and then and i cover it up it's not okay this sucks it's scary okay and you're allowed to be mad and you're allowed to be frustrated with your husband

for not fully disclosing all this stuff you'll probably have that conversation but i want you to be able to feel your feelings because that's going to be some of the gas on this fire that's going to get you out of this mess okay how long you been married five years okay and are are the student loans from before or it kind of sounded like he just took these out uh no we met in college and i knew that he was taking out loans but he he really didn't know how much and he just kind of signed the paper and you know that's what i did yeah so you're just like in shock because you're like i thought we had one amount and it's double what basically what i thought yes that's exactly it yeah oh yeah okay yeah listen that deserves an argument it does i give you permission to fight a little bit about that uh anyway um listen let me go back on that because john you're right like these are real things and

you have to kind of get it out in the open and like sift through it yeah when you say like i can't breathe but it's okay and it's not okay it's not okay and drop your shoulders there you're not a bad wife you're not a bad partner you're not you're not disrespect like man i wish you had to sign those papers and here we are so we'll solve it but when you just put a lid on everything here's the promise in counseling we call it leakage it will find a way out and usually it's at a real inopportune time it's at an in-law's house like after dinner it'll come out so you get in the habit of saying no i'm allowed to feel my feelings i don't get to i don't get to treat you bad i don't get to be disrespectful but i i'm allowed to feel disgusted i'm allowed to feel scared to death i'm allowed to feel angryusted. I'm allowed to feel scared to death. I'm allowed to feel angry. And then we're going to be about solving this problem. Is that fair?

Yeah, totally. All right. You're worth all that. So good. All right. So you're on Baby Step One, got the $700, life is good. Listen, you've been given a little bit of a, you didn't know that money was there, but it doesn't change the plan and it doesn't change the course of action from here. What it does change a little bit is obviously it has the potential to change the timeline here. And I think that's really the disappointing part that we're dealing with is you probably thought, oh, we'll be done at X date. And now it's pushed a little further on. What is what is the income between the two of you?

With my side digs, I do. It's about sixty two hundred a month. OK. And that's combined with both of you? Yes. Okay. And right now, have you projected this out? I mean, I know on Every Dollar there's that really cool financial roadmap planner where you can kind of go in and say, okay, it'll project for you with the numbers that you say. Here's the date that you'll be done with Baby Step 1. Here's the date you'll be done with baby step two. Have you projected that? I'm too scared to look at it. Oh no, girlfriend. Like that's what gives you hope. You got to see these numbers in real time because then you really have control. When you see the numbers, you can, you can look at them

and go, that's, I don't like that. And I can change it. But if you don't look at it, then you can just go through life,-ti-da and you land where you land and you end up where you end up. And I think that you are the type of people who, once you get your head around the facts of what it is, you'll go, oh, that ain't it. Like, we're going to put the pedal to the metal on this. We're going to make more money. And so please, please, please use that calculator. Use, you know, we also have just a Ramsey Solutions debt payoff calculator. You can use that. But knowing the numbers and knowing the truth around the situation is a game changer.

That is what puts the game back in your hands. Yes. Okay. Okay. And then suddenly it's not a monster in the closet anymore. Right now it's a monster in the closet. You don't know how long it's going to take. All you know is you got some bad news and it made you feel a type of way, but we can take that and

we can use it as ammunition if you do what John said, which is you walk through the emotions around it. But then we get out the calculator and we actually find the real numbers and go, okay, this is the dragon that we have to slay and here's how we have to slay it. Yes? Yeah. Do you have every dollar? I have the free version. Okay. So Christian, we'll pick up, we'll make sure to get you into the premium version, at least for a little while. We'll give it to you for free. And then you can decide if you like it and if you want to keep it. But that I'm telling you, I think for you with the motivation that you

need, premium is going to be the thing because it's got the transaction tracking in there that you can do. It's got the paycheck planning in there that you can do. It's got the paycheck planning in there that you can do. It's got the financial roadmap, which is what I said. That's going to keep you super duper motivated so that in the face of kind of the striking news, you can stay upbeat. You can know what your path is and you can actually get out of this. Yes. Okay. Awesome.

Thank you. I love this for you. But I think it's important to call this out. So she mentioned there's $35,000 new dollars, and they're broken up into 14 different little loans. We're just going to put those loans as though they were credit cards. They're just going to go in order of importance, smallest to largest. Who cares about the – we're just going to start at the bottom.

Yep. And I actually get excited about loans like that. Oh, yeah. Because they're going to get a lot of momentum real quick. 100%, John. I couldn't agree more. What John says is exactly right. And if I could add a little piece to that, because she did mention some of the government

plans like save plan and things like that. Hey, I know save plan has been a taboo word around here, but I can tell you if you are intensely working the baby steps, signing up for something like that can actually be helpful in order to lower your minimum payments. Because with the debt snowball, you pay minimum payments on everything. Then you put the extra money on the smallest debt, right? So having lower minimum payments behooves you for the moment so you can put a whole lot on the smallest debt and get it gone fast. So Jessica, in your case, I would do that. If you can apply for it and get lower minimums, yes, ma'am, because you're the person who's about

business and who's actually going to pay off these loans quickly. Now, if you're the lollygagger, John, if you're the one who's just like a free ride, I'm going to take it. Don't do that because those student loans are going to be around forever for you. And I hate that I have to even play both sides of that coin. but for those of you who thought i was just saying jade said to go to save plan no i know i'll tell you all day long if it's go if if you're going to a safe plan or you're going to the repayment plan whatever i i always suggest people sign up for it don't rely on it yeah sign up for it but if it's so that you can go get that tahoe that's why that's what i'm saying don't do that yeah you're playing yourself

go out to eat more no but if it's going to let you get some more breathing room so you can take that extra cash and pay off more crap faster? That's right. All day, every day. All day, every day. So yeah, for Jessica, I would definitely do that. And to John's point, when you do have student loans that you're paying off, and there's lots of them,

sometimes they'll roll several into one payment. But if you look closer, they are individual loans with individual account numbers. And so when the time comes, you pay the minimum payment, satisfy that, satisfy the interest on that. But when it comes time to make that extra payment, make sure you're calling the payment in because sometimes you can't do it online. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

But go through and say, OK, I want the extra payment to go on the principle of this individual itty bitty loan, not on the principle of the entire group, because if you do it like that, you'll never make progress. And you'll be out here frustrated, wondering why it's taking so long to pay off your loan. So there's a way to do this. There's a method to that madness. Hey, if you want to finish the show, we got another hour to go, but you have to go to the Ramsey Network app in order to do it. But don't worry, all you need to do is go to your app store and just Google Ramsey Network app and you'll see it. And you can log in there whether you're on Google or whether you're on Android or whether you're on Apple. You can get in where you fit in. It's absolutely free.

We'll see you over there. This is The Ramsey Show. From The Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. And this is the third section of the show. So, John, we're inside of the app. We're behind the screen. We're behind. We're in the app.

We're inside the app. Let me out! The truth is, yeah, if you're on the app, thanks for listening. We're glad you're here. This is my worst nightmare being stuck inside an app. I know. There's not much air in here. James has been dreaming of this moment forever. Man, I would love to live inside an app. I know. There's not much air in here. James has been dreaming of this moment forever.

Man, I would love to live in an app. It's good. Very good. Let's move on. All right. So we're still taking your calls. They're still live. You can still call in 888-825-5225 to get on the line.

John is in Los Angeles, California. What's going on, John? Hi, John. Hi, Jade. Thank you so much for taking my call. No problem. I have a little bit of a doozy for you guys. I think it combines both a financial and sort of a life problem.

So I'm calling in wondering if I should maybe marry my girlfriend in order to get a U.S. visa. Marry her in order to get the visa? Yeah. Tell us more. So I am an international student here in the U.S. I go to a top university here in L.A. And I've been put into a position where I have applied for jobs and I've gotten some opportunities to work where I would get paid. So I've been,

I've gotten these job opportunities in which I would get paid over $120,000 a year out of college. However, I've had three of those opportunities, all of the opportunities I've had so far, retracted because I'm not a U.S. citizen and I don't have a green card. Okay. And they won't sponsor you? They won't sponsor me, yeah. So one of the alternatives that i have kind of discussed was the possibility of marrying my girlfriend and uh she said she would be okay with that but not only do i think that maybe as much as we are great together and we are happy i think i might be too young for that. I'm 21, she's 20. And there's another side problem that is she isn't from such a wealthy background. And my family has a little over, has in the range of $20 to $35 million in assets.

Your family does or her family? My family. Where are you from? brazil brazil okay okay so your family's wealthy yeah okay um and her family is wealthy uh her family isn't her family isn't okay um so you're feeling like that's all there's a lot going on here um number one let me just put this out here and then we'll talk backwards from there uh don't use her yeah don't use her don't do that um that's not the right choice um for many reasons you're talking about her like she's a business arrangement yeah Yeah, don't do that. So I think where you're at,

you're in a desperate situation, clearly. Otherwise, you wouldn't be even considering things like this because I think you're a good guy and I think that you're just looking around and like,

what can I do? What can I grab? Like trying to find anything to save yourself from not being able to stay. I think my worry is I could go back home and I could work from there and have a good job there. But I want to stay with her here. And I want to try to find a way to make that possible.

Listen, obviously, 100%. I think anybody in any situation where there's somewhere where they love, they love the people, they love the opportunity, they have a special somebody, yeah, you don't want to be forced to leave that. So there's nothing about that that we don't understand. But to be clear, no, you shouldn't marry someone that you don't love, that you weren't planning to marry anyway, just to be able to get a visa. And neither of us would tell you to not marry somebody because you're 21. In fact, I would tell you the opposite.

If that's the person you want to be with, then figure it out. And I wouldn't tell you to not marry somebody just because you'll have different economic situations. There's ways to figure that out. What you're doing is you're trying to use her like a business arrangement. And then you're seeing all these business partnership challenges and Jade's right. At the end of the day, she becomes a pawn in a bigger picture. And I know you want to just be around your girlfriend.

I'd rather see you go to graduate school or something like that and go about it the right way. You're just going to find yourself in a mess, dude. And here's the deal. I've also worked with international students for years my heart's broken for you because you came here you did it right you followed the rules you did everything right you're a top student you're clearly somebody that i want in my community because of these businesses want you to contribute and i'm going to be selfish i want you to be my neighbor because i want your tax base right i want you a part of this thing and right now they won't let you. And you found somebody you love. The whole thing sucks. And I hate that for you. And listen, I am not an expert on visas and how

to get them in your situation anyway. If you want to work on a cruise ship, I can help you out. But in this case, I really don't know. So if you were to, obviously you were here because of education and you were allowed to be on whatever situation you've been on because of your education, right? Yeah. Okay. So do you know, is there a next step? Like, let's say you go back to Brazil for a while. Is there another way that you can come back here on a different sort of visa and work for a certain amount of years? Not immediately, no. So I have two options. I can find a job and then I can stay here for an

additional three years. Okay. But that job has to sponsor you, right? Not initially, no. Not for the three years. Okay. What's wrong with that option? To buy you time. Companies will still deny to take you in because in three years they'll have to sponsor you and uh they they're kind of hiring you long term these big firms with uh big salaries they expect you to stay longer so they they won't even hire you if that's the case even though they they have three years sponsorship fee you know so you've tried that is what you're saying and they won't hire you because of that yeah how many places have you tried that with uh with places i have gotten a job offer for uh three or four but i have applied to multiple jobs uh in the past year probably

over 100 jobs i think and uh most of them like even hesitate to give me an interview because of the future sponsorship requirements. Have you met with your international student office at your university? Yeah. Yeah. And they're not able to direct you anywhere? They are. So there are some other opportunities I could look for, but they wouldn't be working with what I want. You know, I would be working in other areas that I would say I wouldn't be happy working.

Would it be temporary, though, until you can get what you need to be here longer term is is that part of it maybe so one option i have considered as well is maybe working a job that would pay me significantly less i could sponsor me in an area i don't like then i could consider doing an mba program listen if that buys you some time why not why not try it because at this point the girlfriend move is off the table. That never should have been on the table. And we're not going to make you feel bad about it. But that's just true. Like that's not even part of this equation. And so, yeah, there's got to be more than one way to skin a cat here. And if it requires you sacrificing to win for a little while, that could be worth it. I'm not saying it is. I don't know what your top priorities are. And I don't know what your opportunities are back in Brazil. But this is a decision you're going to have to

make. But using other people to get it done is just not part of the equation for either John or I. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. It's Friday. It's rainy outside here in Franklin, Tennessee, and we're happy that we are here on the mic with you guys. There's no place we'd rather be taking your calls about your life and your money. So if that's you, there's still time you can get in 888-825-5225 is the number to talk to myself or Dr. John Deloney. Can I talk about this cool thing? Do it. Kids don't have to accrue the biggest debt they're ever carried before they even start their career. And UJ just wrote a book.

He released a new money book for every teenager called The Graduate Survival Guide, Five Mistakes You Can't Afford to Make in College. Going to college, I'm somebody, I'm still high on college. I know some of y'all listening are like, I'm high on college. I'm saving for my kids to go to college. And everybody, I won't on college. I'm saving for my kids to go to college. And everybody, I don't say that. I want my kids to go to school, but I don't want them to leave school and have their entire lives burned out before they even start. Right. And so tell us about this five mistakes you can't

afford to make in college. Yeah. I mean, I think there's five key things that if you can get through college and not mess this up, you are set up for life. And there are these five mistakes that I made. And I really don't want, John, someone to have to learn the lessons the hard way like I did when they can just learn from me. And so we go through, we talk about student loans. Like that's a big mistake that myself and my husband made that we paid for long after we graduated.

We talk about things like credit cards, signing up for credit cards. When I came out, I had 20 credit cards. That's ridiculousness. But you had 20 free t-shirts and some pizzas. Listen, I didn't even get any free t-shirts. When people talk about that, I'm like, where's my shirt? I got me some dope t-shirts. I didn't get a shirt. I didn't get a pizza. I just got the debt.

Okay. So we're going to talk about credit cards. We'll talk about how to buy a car in cash and other dumb choices to avoid. John, I am famous for taking out a student loan and holding back some of it as quote savings. And then I did the same thing. And but then I bought a car with it. And I thought that I was buying a car in cash. I thought I was doing it right. Yeah. Well, I'm glad dumb choices is not like keg stands and stuff because that'd be a whole other book. That is a whole other book. Good. But yeah, I walk through all of this. and the best thing about this book is this quick read it's easy to to read it's you could skim it and get all of the information you need truly it reads like a

magazine it reads like social media it's the size of a journal you can just pop that in your east pack backpack but it's a hard book and it's hardback. And here's what I know that has surprised me, even after working in colleges for two decades. Yeah. My 14-year-old freshman is asking questions about saving for college. And what does this look like? And why would I go to this school over this one?

And they're doing college fairs already. He's 14. This, I can't think of a better thing to hand a 14-year-old, to hand a 13-year-old, to hand a 17-year-old to say, hey, start thinking about this stuff as early as possible. of a better thing to hand a 14 year old to hand a 13 year old and a 17 year old to say hey start thinking about this stuff as early as possible yeah and thank you for not writing a dense tome that no kid's gonna read no this is a good book to that that parents and kids can walk together

with it's great it's easy to digest do it together thank you if you want to get it you can get the grad survival guide at ramsey solutions.com slash you. All right, let's head over to the phone lines. We got Tish in Shreve Point, Louisiana. What's going on, Tish? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. How can we help? Yeah, basically, I'm just wondering

how I can motivate my boys to perform well in life without making them feel like they are never good enough for me. Tell me some more. Well, my background, I come from my dad's foreign. He was from Jamaica, older, old school. And I grew up kind of basically both my parents were blind. I grew up in a really broken upbringing. I was raised pretty much by my dad and my mom. She really didn't want me in her life. And so I think that through a series of events, the Lord was just so good to give me women in my life to be a mom.

And I just saw a better way of life. So it was me and my younger brother, and I have several older siblings who I lived with back and forth growing up. Well, my brother, he went on the road to prison, and he has been in prison, in and out of prison all of his life. And then I got heavily involved in a church and I went the way of just trying to figure out how to have a good life, create, you know, once I got married, just trying to do everything I can to change the trajectory of where my brother went. And so I've had really great examples in my life. And so, but when you become a parent, you kind of, all the bad emotions and just your upbringing comes out. It's what your body remembers, right?

It's what you know. Yeah. And so I grew up with my dad, very angry. He loved me and he did the best that he could, but there's the rejection from my mom. Then with my dad, nothing I did was ever good enough. How old are your kids? Yeah. My oldest is 12 and then my second one is 10 and then seven and four. Okay. I want you on a day-to-day basis, every single day,

I want you to grab both all of those kids individually by the face. I want you to put your hands on either side of their face and there's neuroscience behind this and yada, yada, yada. You don't need to know all that. I want you to look them in the eyes

and if you can, put your forehead on their forehead. And I want you to tell them, I'm so glad that of all the people on planet earth God picked me to be your mama okay and I want you to do it until either they say please stop touching me right which most boys ain't gonna do that and until their shoulders drop and here's what we're doing. We're doubling down on connection first. Okay.

And most of us, most people that I've sat with who had really hard upbringings and they have done everything they can to transform that, they look at the performance, the things I did to get where I am and really that's a proxy for

do you see me and love me now? Yeah. And the way we're going to break generational curses like this is those boys are going to know come hell or high water mama loves you and every day i thank god that i get to be your mom and from that foundation we're going to have high standards we're going to be both a loving and connected parent and we're going to have high standards and those those behaviors are not going to be their way to get mama's love because mama's always going to love you no matter what you can't you could you don't have the power to break that and by the way you don't have the power to make me mad you're 12 you're not that strong you can't affect my emotions and you're just not your job to prop me up but i do have high

expectations and here's here's the deal you get to make some choices and you're just not your job to prop me up, but I do have high expectations. And here's, here's the deal. You get to make some choices. If you choose to do well in your schoolwork, then you're going to choose to be able to watch TV or whatever things you have set up in your house. Um, in our house, um, I've told my son for years, I will pay half of whatever thing you want to buy. And so I think Dave Ramsey calls it 401 Dave, right? Um, we call it 401 dad like I'll pay half but that means you're choosing to do some things or not do some things right so I'm going to give

them some choices on they're going to take some ownership of their behaviors moving forward but it all rests on a bed on a foundation of you don't have the power and strength there's not a thing you can do that I won't storm hell to come get you. And that's where we change generational behavior patterns from. Cause then kids don't have to spend their time saying, do you see me now? Do you see me now? Do you see me now?

Whether they're getting straight A's or burning something down. And I'll never forget one of my mentors. We were talking about a kid that had been traumatized. We were doing a case study, walking through it. And he said, I said, Oh, this kid's going to be okay. And he goes, why do you say that?

And I go, well, his kid's got great grades. He's doing well. And he smiled at me and he said, John, straight A's can be a trauma response too. So I would tell you, just because you performed well, doesn't mean you're healed, right? Yeah. So let's give those boys the thing that you didn't have which is

i'm not gonna let you make me angry you don't have that kind of power i'm not gonna let you think you're earning my love you've got it now i've got some i got some standards i'm gonna hold you to but it's gonna be out of a spirit of love not of a spirit of you earn this you get what i'm saying yeah i understand that jade what do you think? I'm learning. I'm listening and I'm listening. Anytime John speaks, I'm listening. I've got really high standards for my kids. Real high.

Go ahead. I think that the fear that I have is that because they are so loved and because I work really hard to break those generational curses in them. I just don't see the desire to like overperform or they're just kind of love their lives. Yeah, they love their life. It's comfortable. Now you've got to get some problems. As Henry Cloud says, you've got to hold them high to to high standards but it's going to be high standards out of love not out of fear we'll be right back all right all right you're listening to the ramsey show i am jade warshaw joined by dr john deloney we're taking your calls all hour we're going to go straight to the phone lines because we've got Louis in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of my favorite cities in the world.

What's going on, Louis? Hello, how are you guys? Doing good. How can we help you? Hey, so I'm a financial pickle at the moment. This is, I would say, a blessing and a curse. My car

was recently total loss. Yikes. But that would complete my baby step two of getting out of debt. But my scenario is that recently I was let go of my job. I used pretty much most of my savings. And I was wondering how I go, like, what should my next step be? Like, what car should I be looking for? Whether it be a $1,000 car,

if I can even find one. Insurance didn't pay you anything for the total car? No, it was actually, it just covered, like, the whole entire debt, pretty much. I'm settling now for the rest of it, but that could take months for like the whole it sounds like you need a job yeah i mean i have one now but like i i was i was like oh

probably like a month like barely a month ago everything happened i got let go and then i got into that car accident. And you said it. Wait, go back. Before you keep going, I just want to make sure I have my head around what you've said thus far. When I asked you, did insurance pay anything for you to replace the vehicle, you said it was enough to replace the debt. Are you saying you used that money towards your debt and not towards a car? No.

So pretty much the car, the, like the amount I owed was 19. I got 18 and then with gap, it covered the cost of the car. Got you. Okay. Okay. All right. Um, so you're without a car and you're now with a job or still without a job? Yeah, I have a job. I make around, I would say it fluctuates around 4,200 a month. Okay. And do you have any money saved whatsoever? I mean, I have a thousand, but that's nearly a thousand. Okay. A thousand. And when you cover your basic, just your basic bare bones budget, like four walls, I'm keeping lights on, I'm getting food, I am getting to work via Uber or bike, whatever, and I'm paying my rent. What do you have left over after you do those basic things? I would say left over after all that being said is around like $2,200.

Okay, $2,200. Is it just you or do you have a family or a girlfriend or a wife yeah i'm um i have a wife and kid um we that was our only car um yeah it kind of sucks uh uh what else would i say the 4200 wife working? Yeah, I'm the only one that works. You're the only one that works. She's not allowed to work. She's not allowed to work? Yeah. Okay, why not? Can I ask?

Her citizenship. Okay, got it. Okay. So you got $2,200 left. How are you getting to work now? What's your method? I'm borrowing my dad's truck, but he'll need it within

the next few like i would say within the next two weeks okay much um and then after that right now you kind of have a full-time right you have his truck full-time after the next two weeks can you work out something where you're borrowing it on an as-needed basis? I think I could work something out. It's just, I feel, I don't really like asking anybody for help. Yes, I get it. You gotta get over that, homie. You got a wife and kids. Here's the thing, and John's gonna get on you a little bit, but I want to tell you, in this case, I think what will help you ask for help is to have a very clear plan. If you say, dad, it's going to take me eight weeks to pull together the $5,000 I need to buy this car that I'm looking at. I know that two weeks, you'll let me use it. But after that, can you help me on an as needed basis? I got to be able

to get to work. And maybe some of that you are finding a way to cover. Maybe you say, Dad, if you help me get to work, I'll get home on my own. Write out a plan that's really clear, a timeline. So you can say, here's what I need. Here's how long I'll need it on these particular days at these particular times. And by the way, here's when it ends and when it ends, here's what I'll have and here's what I'm doing next. That's going to help you and it's going to help him to know this is not going to go on forever. And you're going to still come out of it with a little bit of your pride intact. $5,000 gets you going.

Okay. So if you can find a $5,000 ride that gets you from point A to point B, and you've got the $2,200 in margin that you're putting from this month's checks and next month's checks, plus a little bit of that emergency fund to make that happen. That's how you get out of this. Okay. And there's not a, there's just not a magic way, dude.

And I would suggest with all my guts, brother, you're scared, your wife's scared, you got a kid. I bet you're doing a lot of Googling at night and you're watching a lot of YouTube clips on how to figure this thing out. I can't recommend enough. Take that same amount of energy, dude, and go get a job slinging boxes at Walmart.

Go get a job at cleaning the floors at a casino. Do something. If you just look at it with your wife and you just say, hey, for eight weeks, I'm going to work in eight weeks, I'm going to work in the morning. I'm going to drive Uber on the way to my job and I'm going to drive on the way home. I'm going to come home and kiss you and the baby.

And then I'm going to go for an evening job at the end of eight weeks. You're going to be so tired and you're going to have a cash paid for a car. And eight weeks from now, here's the deal. In eight weeks, you will still be you just eight weeks from now, here's the deal. In eight weeks, you will still be you, just eight weeks older. The only question is, will you have a paid-for car or not? That's the choice that right now you can make. And so there's just not a magic way to do this.

There is a way for you to get yourself into more trouble like you just were in, which is to go down to a local car dealership and take out a 19% loan on a used car. Please don't do that. For the sake of you, your wife, your kid, don't do that. Okay? Okay. Like you said, as kind of a blessing in disguise,

you don't owe your car payment anymore, right? That's right. Yeah, exactly. All right. So the cosmic meteorite hit your car. You're done. It's square. Like car you're done it's square like you're done now you got a chance to control all delete and do everything new and you're literally eight

weeks of ugly annoying exhausting work away from putting your family in a whole different economic position freedom okay okay like just just remember this phone call dude in six weeks when you're exhausted and you can't possibly drive again because you will be you will be the truth you'll be mad that kid will be crying and you're just you'll ah dude eight weeks from today and the people around you are gonna say why are you doing this why don't you just go over here so-and-so will give you a good deal i have a friend i have a cousin so-and-so's brother. Everybody's going to convince you to do something differently. They're going to convince you to take the easy way out. But I think in this case, it's always worth it to do the hard work.

Eight weeks. Okay. Is that fair? Yeah, I've done it before. Yeah, but I could definitely stretch my hand around that. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Man, very few people have a line in the sand where they can say,

eight weeks from now, everything in my family is different. I don't owe anybody anything. I got a paid for car. I can back off, be the husband and provider I want to be, and then I can go figure out what's next for me and my family. Very few people have that kind of line, and you do. Okay? Okay.

I'm proud of you, man. Congratulations on like walking out into the light today uh i was just looking at the weather it seems like it's about a million degrees in in las vegas today but um man go make that happen and jade it's it i can't imagine i don't know he's in vegas right vegas is just the place where you're inside it's like one bad decision after another if you're John Delaney and so I get it like you're every lot you drive past you can just walk in and literally go come out with a new car yeah you just can yeah you can and it's embarrassing to be a grown man

with a kid having to drive daddy's car yeah and it's embarrassing when you promise this woman like marry me you're gonna have a better life and you're borrowing your daddy's car like i get it but you know what else is embarrassing that people don't talk about they don't want to say that it's embarrassing it's embarrassing to go out and buy a sixty thousand dollar car you can't afford that's right and have a thousand dollar car payment that you can't afford and that you're sacrificing i don't know know, your retirement or your kid's college fund in order to... Or the safety of your family. That's even more embarrassing.

Let's be honest about that. Because there's no... My guy that called in, there's no facade there. He's just the guy trying to make it work. He's trying to get through. But the rest of us who are propping up fake lives, that's a little bit... Listen, that's embarrassing too.

Eight weeks, Lewis, and everything's different. You can do it, man. Yeah, this is The Ramsey Show. All right. Your scripture and quote of the day. Job 2221 says, Submit to God and be at peace with him. In this way, prosperity will come to you.

Dig that? All right. Burt Cummings said, There'd be no gratification if huge success if you hadn't paid for it. Okay. That's good. It's like what you get is worth it. You got to pay the cost to be the boss. Sowing and reaping, huh? Yeah. Sowing and reaping. I like that. All right, John. Let's take it back to the phone lines. We got Kurt in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hey, I visited Lincoln, Nebraska recently. It is a lot of cornfields. I have to say that. All right, Kurt, what's going on?

Hey, John and Jade, thanks for taking my call. Jade, I think you're the right one to take this because we are by family and me and my wife are about close to half a million in debt, 446,000 all included. And we're just starting baby step one. And I got a few big questions as we're kind of mapping this out and looking for recommendations on. Okay. So tell us your big questions. First one is, as we're starting going here, we do have 15,000 set aside for our kids' college. And we wonder if it's right to take that out to start paying this off.

Yes. Was it money that was given to you for kids' college, or was it money that you put aside? No, that amount is from us. Anything that was given from families would stay in. Okay. Yeah, I probably would do that. Since you were working the steps, you were doing your finances in one way and now you're realizing, hey, there's a better way to do this and we're regroup get my hands on that money. The 446, is that including your house or is that just consumer debt? No, that's the house. The house is about $350. Oh, okay. Yeah, car is about $13, student loan for $50, and then the rest is credit cards about 35 so okay uh i feel i feel a lot better after hearing that

um because the good news is the the house is not included in baby step two so that kind of makes this a lot easier of a pill to swallow and looking at it in that light i might leave the 15 000 in there for now okay and that's really the crux to me and my wife are kind of going back and forth. Obviously it's a pain point for us. We don't really want to take it out, but it would be that dynamite in a log jam sort of thing. Well,

what's your income? We're do about one 50 a year, about 9,000 a month. So my hope is, you know, within two years and get a lot of that cleaned up. I'm really hoping I'm like a year. I'm working a second job every night. And $1,000 a month onto that. So.

Listen, you're on a normal timeline. Most people are out of debt in two years or less. With all the variables here. Yeah, I think I'm just going to leave that $15,000 there. I don't think I'm going to move it for that. Earlier, if you had said I'm in $446,000 of consumer debt and we make, I don't know, $80,000 a year, then I'd be like, you need all the money you can get. But in this case, John, what would you do? I'd leave it. Yeah. I mean, you make too much money now and yeah, you're going to get stuff cleaned up in no time. How old are the kids? They're 14 and 11 and 8. Yeah. I'm leaving it. I'm going to leave it there. They're getting older and you're going to wish you had it. Yeah, so at this point, it's just tackling

the baby steps in order. So have you got the $1,000 saved and is there any other money saved anywhere else? No, that's going to be happening quickly here. Okay, so we'll get the $1,000 saved. You should get that done in 30 days, yes? Yep. Okay, 30 days or less. And then from there on, we're tackling the smallest debt. Now let's talk about what that smallest debt is. Is it one of these little ankle-biter student loans, or is it a credit card?

Credit cards, yeah, there's a few different ones, so we'd start on those. And then the other two questions, one, our mortgage, when we bought it a year or so ago, when we signed up, it's an arm. And so we're looking at now that rates are getting lower, should we lock into refinance? It's about the same or wait on that. I know that's not advice either. Listen, I'm jumping out of that arm as quickly as I can. All day long. As quickly as I can. All day long.

As quickly as I can. Lock it in, man. Instantly. And there's this illusion I keep hearing that after the election, no matter who wins, that all the rates are going to... Here's the deal. Nobody knows anything. Anyone who tells you what the rates are going to do after the election...

You don't know. ...is throwing darts backwards with a blindfold on in the dark. They don't know. But let's say it does, just refinance then, man. But I would a blindfold on in the dark. They don't know. But let's say it does. Just refinance then, man. But I would lock that sucker in ASAP. Yeah, anything is going to be better than an adjustable rate mortgage, especially in this climate.

I would get out of that instantly. Cool. So you've got that. You said you had a couple of bigger questions. Anything else? The only other one on our map here as we're kind of getting crazy here is the student loan that my wife has for 50. It's forgiven in 10 years. She's in year seven and she pays 14 cents a month right now. So we were going to make that a lower priority, if not wait till that was done. I know you guys recommend

paying that stuff off, but just kind of want to get your opinion on that. Well, here's the thing. If you, when you factored in and you told me, hey, we'll be debt free in two years. Did you factor in the 50,000? That is not. No. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I would still approach this and go hard in the paint because there's no guarantee that it's going to be forgiven.

I mean, we've looked at the stats on that and they're like staggeringly bad. Like, I think the last time I checked, it was like 97% of people who apply for the forgiveness don't get it. Like it's in the high nineties. Let me put it this way for you. Have you enjoyed this recent presidential cycle? I don't really pay much attention to politics.

All right, good. You're probably healthier than most. I don't really pay much attention to politics. All right, good. You're probably healthier than most. But look, there's going to be two presidents from now. I wouldn't trust that. Dude, I just wouldn't, man. Two presidents from now. You don't know.

None of us know. We've been making it up 10 years from now. Actually, it's three. It'd be whoever the new president's going to be and then two more elections. I just, dude, I'd be out of that. The 17 cent part is good in the way that you're not, right now you're able to focus the massive amounts of your income on the smallest debt in the moment.

And so it's good that it's not kind of eating away at your shovel in that regard. But I do think that when the time comes, I'm still listing these debts from smallest to largest, and I'm still paying off whatever the smallest debt is in the moment, even if it is the student loan. Because here's the thing, the worst thing ever would be for you guys to pay off this debt, excluding the student loans, in two years, you're in your life, you're having a great time, you're buying a house, you're doing all these things, and then suddenly it's like oh these student loans aren't forgiven and then they're just part of

your reality again and you thought you'd moved on in life and really the monster is still there and you get all the interest piled back on or whatever who knows what they're gonna do man i just i'd move on there yeah to john's point there is a lot of this kind of politically that's there you don't know what another administration what stance they'll hold when it comes to student loans. And I think that's actually one of the variables that would concern me the most if I were in your shoes. I just, I can't trust them to have my best interest at heart. They never have.

And I don't think they can. There's too many of us. So in that way, I would just control your controllables. And the good news is you have the income to pay these off. And the truth of the matter is, and I hate, I'm not trying to say this to be ugly or rude, but you took them out. And when you took them out, we all signed that promissory note that said, yeah, I'll pay it back. And it really is on you to pay it back. You're not facing a hardship. There's nothing going on that says that you can't pay it back. And if you signed up for the public service student loan forgiveness, yeah, it would be

nice if they made good on that promise. Hey, I do my public service work for 10 years and you're supposed to forgive this. But the facts are and the data shows that they just are not doing a good job on making good on that promise. And so for that reason alone, I would not rely on it. But in the same breath, I can say, listen, I wish it does. I hope it does work out for you.

But you got to remember, like back in 2020, like everyone kept saying, hey, whenever so-and-so gets elected, all our student loans are going to go away. Yeah. And we were like, probably not. Like, no, you don't understand.

They're going to go away finally. He's like, probably not though. Yeah. And then here we are. Yeah. I mean, I have family members that are sitting and waiting for that and it's like the things that pop up are so random that could that can take you out of the running for that or that can just say okay we're gonna review it and it's like did you review it did you find out yet and meanwhile people are waiting a decade for their real life to start

because so many people are doing jobs they don't want to be doing because they're in these golden handcuffs hoping for forgiveness and it might not come so anyway all i know is my personal experience some of the most brilliant amazing minds did not go into private law they went to public law because of this promise and it didn't come through so i'm just jaded on it i'm just jaded on it it. It's tough. Listen, control your life and your money. That's what we do here at The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks to James Childs for doing all that you do when you decide to do it. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.