The Ramsey Show - App - Even When You Don't Have Momentum, You're Better Than You Look (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. It is a free call at 888-825-5225 that's 888-825-5225 jamie is in st louis hi jamie how are you hi um we are in the middle of our baby step number two. We've paid off about $15,000 so far. We still have more to go.

Okay, you're muffled. I can't understand. You're going to have to speak directly into your phone, please. Is that better? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. We have paid off $15,000 in debt so far.

We still have more to go. Good. How long did that take you? We've been working on it since December. Good. So, yeah. But we were really dumb. Well, I would say we still are dumb.

We're still learning. So, I mean, we've still got a lot more to go. But recently, I'm noticing our electric bill is going up and up and up and up. And we're on budget billing, and I never really paid attention to our bill before until just recently whenever it was brought to my attention that we're like $615 behind our budget billing amount. So every six months they evaluate this and, um, Amron told me that, um, that amount is going to go up another a hundred dollars. We're already paying $250, um, a month on our budget billing. It's going to go up to $350 come November.

Um, and it will continue to rise until we're meeting the amount that we're supposed to be paying. So my concern here, I asked Anden what I should do. They told me, according to their energy yardstick, my house is rating a 0.5 on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the best. So my house is very not efficient. So they told me the best thing to do would be get a new furnace and AC, new windows, and insulate my attic. Again, we're on baby step number two. All for $100, huh?

All for $100. Yeah, and so I'm just trying to figure out should I move forward with an AC in front of this or should I just keep paying what I'm paying and doing what I'm doing? I mean, we don't have the money for one, so I don't really know what I should do. Yes, you do. Yeah. You're trying to get out of debt. Yeah.

You can't get out of a hole while you're digging out the bottom. You can't go spend $15,000 to save $100. Okay. Think about it. Yeah. Windows, a new furnace, a new heat and air, and new insulation. It's $20,000. Yeah.

Yeah. We wanted to get goods to see what we're looking at yeah what's your you don't need to i just gave them to you what's your house worth um it's we bought it for 115 um so i won't say it'd be about 115 yeah okay Well, how much debt do you have left? How much debt do you have left? I would say at least $20,000 left. $20,000 left, and you've already paid off $15,000 since December. Yes.

So that means by spring you're debt-free, right? Yes, that is the goal. Good. That's where you're headed. That's where you're headed. What's your household income? $84,000. the goal. Good. That's where you're headed. That's where you're headed. What's your household income? 84. Okay.

All right. So what would I do if I were in your shoes? I'd pay my light bill, and I'd get out of debt. Okay. Now, when you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund in place, if you want to do some upgrades on your house, then you look at return on investment. Return on investment means if I spend $1,000 and I make $1 a year back on my electric bill, that means it takes me 1,000 years to get my money back.

Right. If I spend $1,000 and I knock $1,000 a year off my light bill, it takes me one year to get my money back. Do you see what I'm doing? Yes. And so then you would break this down into three categories, windows, heat and air, and insulation, and you would get bids after you have the money to pay cash, and you would look at the bid, and the bid is $26,000 to do all of this stuff.

No, break it down. How much are the windows going to lower the light bill and lower the electricity bill, get the actual numbers? Most of the things you're describing are probably not going to give you a return on investment while you live in that house. You're not going to live there long enough you may not live life long enough to get all the money back okay so you but you can look at it look at it and go okay i can do a heating and air system here for 7500 and it'll save me

100 a month so that's 75 months okay and you go know, are we going to be here, what, five, six, seven years? Because it takes you that long to break even. Gotcha. You know, how fast am I, if I put this money out, how fast am I going to get it back? Because it's not going to increase the value of your home equal to what you spend. Gotcha. Nothing you're doing. And that was my question.

I didn't know. It doesn't, no. Oh, I'm like, okay, that makes sense. Because all the homes in your neighborhood have the same heat and air system, the same windows, and the same insulation, unless someone's upgraded them. So if your home is worth $115,000, it's worth $115,000 as it sits. And then when you start spending this money on it, the question is, is a buyer going to walk up and go, oh, these people spent thousand dollars on this energy package and so we're going to not pay 115

we're going to pay 140 i don't think so that's not going to happen and you can talk to your real estate agent and start doing research on that but all of that happens when you're ready to pay cash today you don't have the money so your light bill is going up $100. Oh, well, life goes on. And you're still going to get out of debt next spring. And you're still going to build your emergency fund. And then you're going to look at the analysis and say, how quickly do I break even on these purchases? What is my return on investment? And that's how you look at it.

Because, you know, if you're not careful, you go, oh, God, the light bill went up 100 bucks, and you just go spend 40,000, 50,000 bucks, 28,000 bucks, 18,000 bucks, whatever, that you'll never get your money back on. Or maybe it has a great return on investment, and you get your money back in 18 months. And if you did, that would be, like, awesome. But that would be saving your entire light bill plus money they're going to pay you, so that really wouldn't work.

That's not going to happen. So anyway, you just got to back it out and look at what your savings is versus your cost, and it has to be real, and then you do the analysis. And some insulation packages are worth that. Some window packages are worth that. But today, you don't have the option because you've got to get out of debt. You've got to build your emergency fund. You've got to build your emergency fund. You've got to save up money to pay cash for this.

The stuff you've got is working. Run it through. Thanks for calling in. One of the biggest challenges to getting out of debt is to make the decision to never borrow again. You can't get out of a hole while you dig out the bottom, people. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This is big news, guys. You need to stop and listen. The Fed decided not to raise interest rates.

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Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Chris in Utah. What do you do and how do you hold on to hope when Murphy keeps coming around to visit? When real emergencies like medical problems and exploding transmissions keep wiping out your emergency fund for the tenth time and sending you further into debt. I've restarted Baby Step One so many times I'm losing hope that I can get out of debt. Hmm. I can get out of debt. You're in drama mode, Chris. You have not restarted the emergency fund 10 times. You've restarted it three or four times.

But you're still on a point that you're losing hope, and that's causing your drama and your exaggeration. What happens with the thing called momentum? Momentum, when somebody has momentum, it's a weird thing. You ever had momentum in an area in your life? Like if you play sports where you're playing a particular, that night, that day in that game, everything you did worked. Like you were in a zone. You had momentum. You ever been in a zone. You had momentum.

You ever been in a section of time with your marriage? There was a time, a particular season of your marriage when you had momentum. I mean, things were awesome. You have seasons when it's not, but I mean, you have the season when it's awesome. Season in your career where everything you touch turns to gold. You're in a zone. That's when you've got momentum. When you have momentum, you are not as good as you look because you look so good.

When you don't have momentum, it's the opposite. Everything you touch turns to poop. Your life looks like a country song. You can't do nothing right. Everything you say makes her mad. Everything you do with the career makes the boss mad. Everything you touch, you lose money on it. Everything that can break, I mean, your life looks like a country song, you know? And when you don't have momentum, Chris, which is right where you are, you're better than you look.

Things are better than they feel. Your feelings will lie to you in both of these cases. They tell you you're better than you are when you got momentum, and they tell you you're not worth dirt when you don't have momentum. I remember being down and we're filing bankruptcy and lights are cut off at the house and they're coming to cut the water off and the dadgum air conditioner went out. I got sweaty babies and a sweaty mad wife. Everything was awful. Two years before I was a millionaire.

And there I sit, bankrupt and broke. Now, had my brain completely quit working? No. The same brain I had two years before. Had the same physical capacities I had two years before. I had the same everything, except the circumstances around me did not indicate anything except that I was completely stupid. Now, I had done some stupid stuff that put us there for sure. But, you know, it's weird.

It's like, what if I said, open this envelope, and the envelope says, you just won a million dollars. Oh, my gosh. And then you turn it over and go that's a lie see how your feelings lie to you your circumstances cannot dictate whether or not you are going to win and that's where hope comes from it's part of where hope comes from it's a part of where hope comes from. It's a type of faith. And you spiritually have faith, faith in God and God loves me. And he's going to walk with me through these hard times. And sometimes I can just have faith ago. You know,

I am smarter than all this poop around me looks. And that's where you are right now, Chris, you keep doing smart things over and over and over again, even though the particular circumstances you're sitting in, don't say that everything's okay, and you'll walk through this. It felt like when I did not have an emergency fund that all I had was emergencies. And then when I got a little emergency fund, I noticed I had fewer emergencies. When I got a large, fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses,

I have never had an emergency since, hardly. Almost none. It's almost as if I quit having emergencies when I got a little margin, when I got a little distance between me and that run of garbage. So, I know you're scared, but you're better than you look, Chris. You're better than you look. You're better than you think you are. You're in better shape and doing smarter things and moving in the right direction. Don't stop doing that. Don't lose hope. Proverbs says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes, when desire comes, that is the tree of life.

So I got you. I understand. Been there, done that. I've been scared. Didn't think I was going to get out ever. Didn't think I'd ever get back up on top again. But you will. Keep doing smart things, even though Murphy seems to be setting up residence in your house.

And eventually, you'll look up one day and Murphy moved out and you didn't even know he left. Wow, look at that. And that didn't happen in a while. You won't even notice it. It'll be so subtle and so incremental. You will begin to win death by a thousand cuts. You won't win in one fell swoop. There won't be one moment where you get struck by lightning and win the lotto.

That's not how people win. People win by a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. If you keep taking steps, you can go anywhere. It's not impressive. You're not going to be on the cover of Fast Company Magazine, but who gives a rip? People on the cover of Fast Company Magazine three years later are broke.

A little bit. Baby steps. One at a time. Keep pushing it. You got this, Chris. We got your back here. Jacobson, Wichita, Kansas. Hi, Jacob. How are you?

Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I'm a little bit different from your normal type of caller. I'm 16. I'm in the aftermath of Financial Peace University. My parents went through it, and I'm starting to learn this stuff

because they wanted me to know so they didn't make the same mistakes, and I was wondering what I should learn. The things they want you to know so you don't make the same mistakes. What do you think they are? What have you learned so far? Definitely invest. They've kind of hopped off it a little bit because they're still not debt-free. They've still got the mortgage and some car payments and whatnot.

Mm-hmm. They hopped off. You mean they're not getting out of debt anymore? They don't have gazelle intensity anymore. Mm, okay. So you know what that is? Yes. Okay.

Why do you think they need gazelle intensity or that you might what that is? Yes. Okay. So I started trying to learn. Why do you think they need gazelle intensity or that you might need it later? The cheetahs coming, I don't know, credit cards and debts and all these tricky things that you have to learn just so you can stay out of debt. Yeah. You don't borrow money, you're not in debt, right? Mm-hmm. If you pay off debt, you're not in debt, right? Yes.

If you do those two things with intensity, that would be what we call gazelle intensity. Does that sound right? Yes, it does. Why are we avoiding debt? Because it puts financial strain on you and anyone that you are with. Good. Why else? Mathematically, why would you not borrow money even if it puts strain on you,

if it causes you to win? So you can build self-wealth. Okay, good. That's it, man. I think you know the stuff. If you live with a plan, that's called a budget. You live on less than you make, so you're saving money. You're always giving some money, and you avoid debt.

If you'll keep working with those basic principles, you'll become wealthy over time, sir. And that's what they're wanting you to learn, even though they're not modeling it well for you. I mean, hey, you guys, your 16-year-old's watching, by the way. Your 12-year-old's watching. You want to teach them how to handle money? Rachel Cruz says it all the time. More is caught than taught. They're going to do what you do, not what you talk about.

Don't smoke pot. Hey, pass me a joint. I mean, seriously. Come on, people. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Hudson's with us in San Diego.

Hi, Hudson. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm a 23-year-old optometry student graduating in the next eight months. I'm getting married in a week and a half.

Yay! Thanks. Me and my fiancee followed your advice, and we kept our money completely separate. So I've got about $30,000 in student loans, and my fiancee has purchased a property or a house a year ago. And so when we combine here, essentially we're just wondering, would you advise us to sell the house to pay off the student loans? Yeah. If you didn't sell it, would you move in it? No, I'm still, because it's still my last year of school, which is not in the city of where the house is.

Then sell it. Just sell it, okay? Yeah. Yeah. And then when you graduate, you know, you're going to move and decide where you're going to set up your practice, and you'll buy a home. You pay off your student loans, build your emergency fund, and then save up and buy a home. Okay. Yeah. But the thing is, build your emergency fund, and then save up and buy a home. Okay.

Yeah. But the thing is, it's an anchor around you. It's slowing things down during the coming 12 months. Am I missing something? No, not really. I mean, yeah, I guess it was just a question of, you know, we just purchased it a year ago, or not we. Actually, I didn't do anything to purchase it.

She did. Just purchased it a year ago and so or not we actually i didn't do anything to purchase it but um she did a year ago yeah and i guess it was kind of well we just purchased it or why do i keep saying we um she just purchased it and uh i guess it was just you know well do we turn around does she turn around and sell it just kind of immediately almost but yeah if she's owned it over a year before it closes she'll have no capital gains on the gain. And so just don't close it before the ownership is a year old. But, yeah, it's not part of your future. It's part of your past. And so it's going to put a strain on you guys in the coming year, and I wouldn't keep it around if it was me.

Hey, thanks for the call, man. Open phones, and congratulations on your marriage, by the way. Cade is with us. Cade's in Salt Lake. Hi, Cade. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So my wife and I, our family's on baby step three, and I've heard you teach in the past that for vehicles, you want to keep the total amount under half of your annual income. Is that correct? Yeah.

Do you know why? I was actually going to ask why, because we're in a situation where we're looking to sell one, and right now we're a little over half. Okay. Well, the reason is that cars go down in value very, very rapidly, like really, like in half in value very, very rapidly. Like, really. Like, in half in no time, right?

They lose about 60% to 70% of their value in the first four years you own them. And so you turn $50,000 into $10,000 so fast it makes your head swim, right? And so you don't want to take that kind of losses if you can't afford to take that kind of losses. Now, if you make $15 million a year and you lose $50,000 on a car, it's not a problem. But if you make $50,000 a year and you lose $25,000 on a car, that's a problem. Yeah. And so it holds back your wealth building when you've got items that you own that go the other direction. That's where the principle comes from of don't own too much stuff that's going down in value

and then wonder why you're broke. So what are your cars worth, all of them? So we're on Baby Sub 3, so everything's paid off. We have three different vehicles. We have a $20,000 truck, $6,000 car, and then a $3,000 little beater truck. And so we make about $41,000 car and then a $3,000 little beater truck. And so we make about $41,000 a year. So why do you have a $26,000 truck? Oh, it's a $20,000.

Oh, I'm sorry, a $20,000 truck. Okay. Yeah. And so that's the one we're looking to sell, actually coming like this week or two. And I don't want to replace it with something that expensive. I just kind of wanted to know why it was important to keep it under. But then would you recommend, since we're working on Baby Step 3, we're right in the beginning of it, selling that truck. Would you recommend just funding the emergency fund and then working from there to go up in vehicle after that?

So what do you do for a living? I do landscaping, construction, stuff like that. And how old are you? 23. Okay. All right. Cool. So here's the thing.

Yeah, I would move down to about a $10,000 truck, and I don't know why you have a spare vehicle either. Why do you have a spare vehicle? So the spare vehicle is used for work as well. It's not something that we are planning on keeping long term. We just kind of had it around to help with work a little bit and things, and so that's the beater truck, the $3,000 little one. Okay.

All right. Yeah. Here's the thing. If you continue to do construction, whatever you drive on the construction site is going to get dinged and bumped and beat up. Absolutely. So just decide what it is you want to destroy. Do you want to destroy a $7,000 truck or a $70,000 truck?

And that's, you know, you're not going to get ahead. You know, these Chevy commercials, Ford commercials, these pickups driving through a mud puddle on a construction site gets all these guys to buy construction trucks that they shouldn't have on construction sites. These are work trucks. And so, you know, the guy on the construction site that has the worst truck is the one that makes the most money that's just a rule i had a guy come and lay brick on our project on our house one time i swear to god the truck wasn't worth a hundred dollars

and i'll bet you the guy's a multi-millionaire he was an artist with brick i know that and he charged for it but um yeah his truck couldn't i, I never saw a truck that had so many dings on it in my life. The thing was it had the crud beat out of it, and it looked like somebody walked around with a baseball bat, and it was like 48 years old. I mean, it was a horrible truck, and he just grinned. He just loved his old truck because that's what you want to drive on the site, man. So, yeah, you can keep a spare vehicle for that

and then get you a driver that's not your daily driver to the construction site that's a little bit better and just move down and truck. That's what I would do. Just don't have money invested in things that go down in value if you want to build wealth. Put money in things that go up in value. See, I did this kind of stuff, y'all.

So I was 23, just like you, and the car I always wanted was a jaguar so my grandpa super conservative child of the depression made me take nails out of a board and straighten them out and put them in a coffee can you know the grandpa we all had one or we knew somebody like that right i mean the guy saved twine you know he saved everything and um you know when he passed away he was a multimillionaire, and he never even invested. He was scared of the stock market. It was all just money he put in the bank. It was just money in the bank.

He just kept putting money in the bank, and that's why there's like a million dollars in there. And I remember I knew he was frugal, and I knew he had built some wealth. I'm 23 years old, and I'm a high roller. I'm the king of the world, right? And so I bought a Jaguar. And I think I paid $30,000 for it. This was in 1982. That's a long time ago.

So I pull up in his driveway, and he goes, what's that? He'd never seen a Jaguar, I think. And he goes, what's that? I said, oh, it's a Jaguar. And he goes, really? he never seen a jaguar i think and he goes what's that i said that's a jaguar and he goes really you know what'd you pay for that i said whatever it was 30,000 26,000 whatever it was i paid for it he started shaking his head and he goes god that's dumb i said what do you mean grandpa i just bought a dadgum jaguar you'll be proud of me look at this car man grandson's driving a fine automobile here you gotta be proud of that he goes i'm not proud of it you're dumb so what do you mean he goes well what's that car gonna be worth in five years

and i went and he goes man i put my money and stuff it goes up in value son that's dumb i drove i was mad at him i remember when they just about towed that car when i was getting going through bankruptcy and the repo guys calling me i sold it like one day before they repoed it and all i can remember is hearing my grandpa say that's dumb this is dumb i put my money and stuff that goes up in value, son. I don't put my money in stuff that goes down in value. It's a good equation, you know? This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture today, Matthew 7-7 Ask and it will be given to you

Seek and you will find Knock and the door will be opened to you Ann Landers said opportunities are usually disguised as hard work So most people don't recognize them. That's true. Edison said it a different way. He said, when opportunity knocks at your door, it's usually wearing work clothes. Efra is with us in Canada.

Hi, Efra. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm just calling today. So I've always had money anxiety.

As long as I can remember, I've always felt that I never had enough. So I recently made a lot of financial bad decisions in the past. I recently started tackling all my money issues and cleaning up a lot of stuff. So I... How's that feel? It feels pretty good. It feels good. So I recently, so I have no more credit card debt. I paid off whatever tax I owed. I have about 10,000 saved in my RRSP, so it's like a registered retirement savings plan. The only debt I have right now, so I rent, so I don't have a house. The only debt I have right now is my car, which has about $12,000 left on it. And I'm hoping to clear that up in the next four months or so. Way to go.

So my question is, so once that's all paid off, I recently got a third job in order to dedicate kind of just to putting money aside for my investment. So I have about 10,000 in my RRSP. It's just sitting in cash. I've been focused for a while on just paying down the debt and cleaning out my finances. So now that it's getting clean, I have no idea how to invest my money to actually get a real return. I know you talk about, I don't know how it is, I think it might be a bit different from the states and Canada, but I know you talk about, what is it, aggressive or something growth mutual stocks?

Growth stock mutual funds. And as you said, in the States, we tell you to spread it across four types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And I'm pretty sure you have similar plans available in your RFP there. Yeah, so I don't necessarily know the right questions. I don't know if you could lead me where to go could i keep reading like i read a bit of your book i've read like things like the wealthy barber i've read some stuff online but i just feel like everything becomes

overwhelming and there's too much information so i'm trying to find where i can just get something that's direct yep okay first thing first thing is this it's okay to go slow. That's the first thing. There's no rush for you to get into a certain kind of investment at a certain time. in the past year or two where you actually have control of your money, cleaning up debt for the first time ever. It's a new skill for you. It's a new feeling to be out of debt, to have that car paid off and to have the room with these things and so forth. And so, yeah, then from there, what I would do is the next step is just to continue learning. And you need to meet with a financial person that

has the heart of a teacher someone who's going to teach you as you're investing and if they're going to teach you as you're investing then you may not learn enough in one meeting to make a decision on how to invest you may just gather some information and read. They may give you an article or two to read. Anytime you take up coaching or have a coach in a certain area, usually they meet with you, kind of get you started, give you a couple things to work on. Then you come back around, they give you a couple more things to work on,

and so forth. So I would look for an investment advisor that has the heart of a teacher. You will know they have the heart of a teacher if you learn something. If you meet with them and just feel sold or slimed, then you didn't meet with a teacher. You met with a salesman. You don't need a salesman. You need a teacher. And I would guesstimate that in my experience with the financial community,

somewhere around 15% of the community has the heart of a teacher. The other 85% are salespeople. And I'm not mad at salespeople, but when you're dealing with doing investments and you're brand new, especially like in your case, you don't put money in something you don't understand. You don't work with someone that doesn't have the heart of a teacher, and you take your time. Those are your three rules you will not get screwed over if you understand it before you put money in it and i don't mean a cursory understanding or anything where you're nodding

your head and going along just because you're too embarrassed to say i don't know what this means it's your freaking money don't put money in it Don't nod and act like you understand it if you don't. Don't put money in it unless you understand. That's simple. Jeremy's with us in St. Louis. Hi, Jeremy. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, Dave, me and my wife have been... I'm having trouble understanding you. Sure, what's up? I'm having trouble understanding you. You're going to have to speak directly into your phone, please. Okay, thank you. Me and my wife just started Financial Peace University, and we're working through our Baby Steps, and we're currently on Baby Step 2.

Good. And we just got married back in March, and she moved into my house, and the house kind of has a really old, it's like a really old house, fixer-upper. And right now our next thing on our debt to pay off is a credit card, about $1,300, and it has a really high interest rate at 26%. But we really need a new roof. I mean, it's in really bad shape. The neighbors are taking bets on when it's going to fall in. You know what I'm saying? And so we've been saving up.

We have about $800 saved up for the roof, and we're just kind of, I've just been wondering, does it make sense to just pay that credit card off? What's your household income? Right now our household income is about $45,000. And what is the bid to repair the roof or replace the roof? Well, we were actually considering doing it ourselves we have some men at church that are really good at that and offered to help so we were just going to purchase the uh shingles and the nails and everything and i'm thinking it's going to take about twelve hundred dollars to do

maybe more and you you have $800. Yeah, we have $800 right now. We're hoping to have it to do it in the fall when it's not so hot. It gets really hot here in Missouri. Gotcha. Okay. Is the roof leaking? The roof is not leaking in the house. We have a back porch addition, and sometimes it leaks back there. But it's not in the house we have a back porch addition and sometimes it leaks back there um but it's not

in the house so i've been like should i should i chance it and wait another year and get like that credit card paid off and the next thing on the thing paid off or if we should just try and continue putting our steps on hold while we get the roof set. I'd probably fix the roof. It's not that expensive. You've got an inexpensive way to do it. While you've got the help lined up and everything's lined up, save up that other $400, pay cash for whatever you do, and let's go ahead and get this done while these folks are being kind enough

to offer their services to help you. But then, dude, you guys are going to have to tighten up and roll up your sleeves and take extra jobs and sell stuff and whatever else you need to do to get things moving to get the rest of this debt cleaned up. You're moving really, really slow on this. And so I want you out of debt faster than this. So I'm fine with knocking the roof out, but this should not be – you should have a lot – I mean, like, here's the thing. By October, why don't you pay off the credit card and save the $400? It's only $1,700 by October.

You ought to be able to do all of that. And, again, you may have to work extra hours. You may have to do something else. She may have to do something. I don't know. I don't know what you're facing here. But the point is it's only $1,700 from where you are today does the credit card and the roof. You ought to do that by October, if not sooner.

And so that's what I want to see is you increase your velocity of change, increase the speed of change that you have here. And let's see how that goes for you. Hey, man, thank you for being a listener. I appreciate you being out there. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top five most downloaded podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration, subscribe today.