The Ramsey Show - App - Feeling Trapped by Student Loan Debt? There's Hope! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

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Walter is with us in Atlanta. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Walter. Hey, thanks for taking the call, Dave. Sure, what's up? All right, basically, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation, which is I'm newly married, and my father passed away last year. I've never been really into credit card debt, so I did have zero as far as that. But with the inheritance money, I did have my car and my house. So I took the inheritance money, paid off the car, paid off the house.

Like I said, I'm newly married, so I'm actually living with my wife in her house now, renting out my house. And I have $100,000 left. She has a lot of student loan debt, and she's not interested in trying to really take care of it. So I'm trying to figure out what should i do with the extra money that i have left how much student loan debt does she have 200 000 good lord is she a doctor or a lawyer no she when i we said i went through her finances and basically she went to deferment for a while and did the minimum payment, didn't know she was paying less then. What is her degree in?

Communications. A master's? Yes. In communications? Yes. And how long ago did she graduate? 2013. Five years ago, six years ago.

Okay, so this was probably $150,000 when she got out. $125,000, something like that, yeah. So she has no intention of addressing the student loan. I'm curious. What's her plan? Her plan is to... Die with it? It almost seems that way.

She said basically she'll do the payments and pay it off in 20 years, or that she's hoping to get a job that's going to do some type of student loan for business, some magical way it's going to take care of itself. How old are you two? I'm 40. She's 41. Okay. Well, there's two problems on the table from the information you've given me. Okay. Well, there's two problems on the table from the information you've given me, okay?

One is that you guys are not working together and are not in agreement on finances, because one of the top things as we study wealthy people, people who win at money, okay, one of the top things we find in the data points is that the husband and wife are on the same page and they're in agreement. You all are not. And so that's strike one for you're going to be able to become wealthy. Strike two is when we did this millionaire study that we just finished that's in Chris Hogan's book, here's an interesting statistic.

When we ask the question of the general public, do you think your destiny financially is in your control, 62% said yes. When we asked millionaires if they think their destiny is in their control, and by the way, 90% of them did not inherit any money or enough to become a millionaire, so 9 out of 10 of them were first-generation rich. When we asked them, is your destiny in control, as opposed to 62% of the public said yes,

97% of the millionaires said yes. Now, what that indicates, Walter, is hope. That says back there when they were broke that they believed that if they planted corn, they would grow corn. Yes, God has to bring the rain. Yes, God has to bring the sun. But they believed that if they controlled the controllables, that they could get out. What I'm hearing behind your wife's statements is a very sad loss of hope. She feels overwhelmed and doesn't believe she can ever get out.

That is a second data point in our conversation that says you all are not going to be able to build wealth. We have to fix those two things for you guys, Walter. We have to help her have some hope, and you two have to get on the same page, or you're not going to win with money. You would be a unicorn if you did. You'd be highly unusual. Now, what is your household income, sir? One-thirty. That's excellent. And the property that you paid off, what is it worth? It's worth $2 excellent okay if i could get the two of you on the same page what i would do would be set about i throw the hundred at her student loans and i'd set about

a two-year plan on paying off the rest of them on beans and rice rice and beans and i'd be debt free in two years um or i would sell your property and be debt-free in 20 minutes of her student loans, one of the two. But I would not keep those student loans around like they're a freaking pet. It's spiritually, emotionally disastrous, not to mention financially and mathematically, because they indicate to her that she feels trapped, and the only way she's going to get out is dumb luck. And that tells me how hopeless she is, and it makes me feel sad for her heart,

because she's kind of got an attitude about it. She kind of is blowing it off, but below that attitude is this deep sense of feeling trapped. Yeah, I'm sure she is a lot, so I'm sure she's overwhelmed by it. Yeah, I'm sure. And the good news is she's got you. The two of you can do this together, and you're not overwhelmed. I mean, you can sell a rental property and be gone tomorrow. Yeah.

But I wouldn't do that unless we can agree to be on the same page, and unless we can, as a result of that, cause us to hold our chin up and be very hopeful about our future. But right now she's stuck in victim land, and we have to get her out of that land. So I wouldn't make any major moves today until we can solve her hopeless issue and until we can solve getting on the same page issue.

As soon as we can solve that, I would either use the $100,000 and your income on a tight budget to become debt-free, or I would sell the rental property and become debt-free instantaneously, one of the two. But I'll tell you something. Here's what I'm going to do. I want to try to help with this because my heart hurts for her broken heart. She's stuck.

And if I give you Financial Peace University, our nine-week class, for free, I want to try to help with this because my heart hurts for her broken heart. She's stuck. And if I give you Financial Peace University, our nine-week class, for free, can you get her to attend with you? I would do my best. She's not on it, but I would definitely, like, I'll get her to do it. She'll do it. Yeah. Just as a favor to you, it's completely free.

I'm not making anything. I'm losing money on this, okay? But here's the thing. Do not go, Walter, without her because it's going to drive a wedge in your marriage because you're going to get more and more and more excited about being debt-free and building wealth and less and less and less hopeless. Meanwhile, she's going to be on the other side, and it's going to drive a wedge between you, and I don't want to drive a wedge between you.

I want to help you guys pull together and pull her up out of this mud that she's in. So hang on. I'm going to give it to you, but please don't go to that class without her because it'll make it worse. It's going to make your young marriage, your young tender marriage worse, and I don't want to do that. I would rather you just find some other way to get on the same page. But that's what's going on here. Hang on. Kelly will pick up, and we'll get you signed up for Financial Peace University as my guest. It includes the one-year membership to Financial Peace, which is the whole thing online as well, plus every dollar plus is included. Wow, the whole thing, hundreds and

hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. The last thing I want you to feel is buyer's remorse, especially when you offered thousands more on a new home to win a bidding war. If I've taught you anything, it's that blindly throwing money at a problem is a stupid plan and something you'll regret for years. The key to avoiding this rookie mistake is to call Churchill Mortgage and get certified. This easy program puts you miles ahead of your competition because you are pre-underwritten. Your interest rate is secured, and yes, you can close within 14 days.

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I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. Well, thanks for taking my call. It's great to actually talk to you. I am in baby step negative zero.

I am in a big hole of debt from some situations that have happened the last couple of years. Currently, I just recently quit my full-time job and got two part-time jobs because I couldn't afford the daycare for my son. I don't know if that was the right move, but it's where I'm at right now. I'm bringing in about $2,200 a month, and I'm getting a refund back for my taxes, and I'm wondering what to do with it exactly. I'm getting about $6,600, and I'm wondering whether to pay off my debts or to pay ahead on my rent, because right now I barely make it month to month. And you said you're how old? 24.

24, and you have one child? I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, yes. Okay. How much child support do you receive? $250. Okay. All right. How come so low?

No idea. That's what they give us. Okay. All right. no idea that's what they give us okay all right and i have my i have my son about 90 percent of the time um so i don't really you know don't really get a break to work much more than i already do which you know i've tried the whole you say you know get your income bigger but i just don't really have that option anymore yeah where's your family um they're all in Wausau, which is about two hours from my home. Okay. So why are you where you are?

I initially moved here for the job that I just quit. But then the housing and daycare kind of bit me in the butt with how expensive it was versus what I was making. I was making about $34,000 a year. What were you doing before? I was a receptionist at a VA clinic. Okay. Yeah. And you moved to Appleton to take that job? Kind of, kind of not.

Wausau didn't really have anything for jobs or for anything, really, so I moved here for that reason and to be closer to my son's dad. And I do have a sibling that lives closer to me here, but yeah, that's the only family that's close by. How's your relationship with your parents? Great. But I'm actually in $10,000 of debt to them because they've helped me too much, and I've told them they no longer can help me because I cannot afford to pay them back.

Yeah, I understand. Okay, so what we've got to do is to fix your income short-term and long-term. Obviously, the part-time job of some kind, you're doing two now, but your income still sucks. So we've got to do something to get your income up short-term, doing anything that's legal and moral. Then long-term, we've got to have a career path, which you haven't mentioned one.

Right. Well, my biggest thing, where I was at the VA is kind of where I wanted to be long-term. I liked the receptionist type role, and I was making good money there. But the biggest reason I quit there and got my two part-time jobs is because at my two part-time jobs, I can bring my son with. So that eliminates my daycare completely, which was $820 a month. Yeah, so you're netting more that way. Right. Like making less but netting more.

That's logical on the short term. it doesn't get you to your long term goals but long term your goals should be more than receptionist at the va i'm talking about when you're 36 years old 12 years from now what are you going to be doing with your life that makes you ninety thousand dollars a year honestly i have no idea that's what we need to work on. That's what we need to be thinking about and working through that process and then take some steps that help you get there. You can tolerate a lot of pain and inconvenience on the short term if it's good for you and your son on the long term. Agreed?

Right. And so if you made a little less or were inconvenienced a lot more or both or made more and were inconvenienced a lot more and you cleaned up your debts and you started to build some a little bit of a savings account where you can actually go to school and be a dot dot dot whatever it is you want to be um And I want to go into this field. I want to go into that field where I can make some serious change and have a high-quality life going forward for me and my child. But the problem is if you aim at nothing, you're going to hit it every time, nothing.

And so we have to have a better plan for your life going forward that has more vision to it than you've got right now. The reason I was asking about home and your parents was on the short term, like for a year, if you could work 100 hours a week doing something and your mom watched your son for free, you could clean up a lot. But you'd be working all the time. But I'm talking about for one year. You can do anything for one year if you're going somewhere with it. But that would be to get mom and dad paid off, to get any other debts paid off,

and to put some money in the bank so you can go take a class on whatever it is you want to be when you're 36. Okay. But I think you've got a little bit of dreaming to do. You've been just desperate about eating. Right. And I want to get your eyes off of Friday onto Friday when you're 36 and start to go, okay, what's that going to look like? Let's get that dream down out of the clouds,

and let's get it into HD so we can see all the clarity of it it and then let's think about what if that's my desired future if it's where i'm going then i have to ask myself what has to be true okay i want to be um i want to be an rn okay the nursing school's in your future or i i want to be a welder okay then you've got to go get a certification from the tech college on that or i I want to be a Ruby on Rails developer, then good. You need to get around some guys and gals that do coding and, you know, learn the computer world. I don't care what you want to do as long as you go about doing it. But what you're doing right now, you don't want to be doing when you're 36. Are we in agreement on that?

Yes. Okay. All right. So step back a step or two, and then that will tell you a little better what to do with this six thousand six hundred dollars no i would not prepay your rent i would put it aside as an emergency fund and or to pay for the class you're going to go take or classes you're going to go take or to pay for your move back home so mom can watch your baby for a little while if mom's willing to do that for a short period of time and this is not mom i want you to raise the child for me for

the next 10 years this is for one year because i'm going to go wide open during that year and here's what i'm going to accomplish this this this and this and if i think i can make this kind of money and i'll have to drive a ways because there might not be enough jobs right here close. But whatever. And you start laying out a plan that doesn't include partying, and it doesn't include worrying about your child's father's convenience because all he's putting in the pot is $250. So whatever convenience he needs to have to see his son or child, it needs to be his little butts in his little car driving up to see them because you've got to go make a life for yourself. You're stuck right now.

You're poverty looking for a place to happen if you don't change this direction. And that's what I want you to look at, how I want you to think through this. You can do this. We'll help you. I'll walk you through the process. I'm going to send you a copy of Christy Wright's book, Business Boutique, because it might be a small business idea bumping around in your head that you want to go try. I don't care what it is.

I just want you to dream again, and I want you to dream past survival, past Friday, and then you can start taking the steps to get there. It's worth sacrificing to build a better life for yourself and your child. But you've got to have a path. You've got to have a map, a step-by-step game plan on what it's going to take to get there, and you can do that. Also, jump over and start listening to Ken Coleman on Careers. He's on SiriusXM, and he's got a podcast.

Obviously, the podcast is free on iTunes and Google Play. It's called The Ken Coleman Show. He's our career expert. You might even call in and talk to him. He's very, very helpful on these kinds of things. He's got a book coming out in May called The Proximity Principle. But we don't need to work on you being in proximity of something yet until you know what it is. So hang on.

I'm going to have Kelly pick up. We're going to send you a business boutique book. You call me if I can help more. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable, biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ

to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry, a Better Business Bureau-accredited organization CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events.

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Jose is with me in Sacramento. Hi, Jose. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Very awesome. Can you hear me okay? Sure. Okay. So right now I'm kind of wondering what I should do at school. So right after high school I went straight to a junior college, and I was really directionless. I had no direction. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I finished my general ed pretty quickly, and it came about time to find out what I wanted to major in. So every time I met up with an advisor, I kind of felt a little rushed,

and school always kept me busy, and I always worked on the weekends too, so I didn't really have time to think about what I wanted to do, so I changed my major a bunch of times, and somehow I landed on history. So I ended up graduating the junior college with an associate's in history and an associate's in behavioral and social sciences. So I moved to a university actually right down the street from my house, and now I'm going to school for a bachelor's degree in history. I don't know what I want to do after,

and I'm a little worried because I know people get jobs and a degree that they do. People get a job with a degree that they had nothing to do with. And so in high school, my mom actually took me to FPU, and it was a really good experience. I was very, very thankful for it. And so today I'm actually on baby steps four, five, and six, and I'm just wondering, like, what my next move is. I feel kind of worried because, I don't know,

I feel like I'm not doing the right thing right now. I feel like maybe there's something better out there for me. But I talked to a couple people. How old are you? I'm 21, actually. Okay. And when would you finish your history degree? So this is about a year and a half.

But here's the thing. So no exaggeration here, but there's times in school where I would read at least 80 pages a day, and honestly, I don't remember anything that I read, and I feel like I could have used that time to learn more about. So for your Black Friday sale, I actually bought a bunch of your guys' books, and I feel like I could have used that time to, like, read and learn more about stuff that I'm interested in, like investing and compound interest and all that stuff, and I feel like going to school is just kind of killing my time.

I know it's only three semesters left, but I don't know if I'm feeling impatient or not, you know. Well, it's hard to be excited about the trip when you don't know what the destination is. If I say we're going to Florida to the beach, you can decide if you want to be excited or not. If I say we're going to the Rockies to go skiing, you can decide if you want to be excited or not. If I say we're going to the Rockies to go skiing, you can decide if you want to be excited or not. If I say we're going fishing, you can decide if you want to be excited or not. You don't know where the crud you're going. There's no way to be excited. You feel like a rat in a wheel because you're a rat in a wheel.

Yes, sir. So you need to figure out what you're going to do and then you could say let's just make up something okay i'm just gonna this is not what it is okay i'm not speaking this over you i'm just making up a dream a weird thing okay let's say you woke up and you said i want to be a commercial real estate agent and lease office buildings. Okay? Let's just pretend you said that. All right?

Now, once you said that and you said, hey, you know, that's got finance in it. It's got compound interest. It's got investing in it. It's got a lot of those things in it. It's a real math nerdy job. Commercial real estate agents are math nerds. The good ones are. And, you know, if you wanted to do that i'm just i'm not saying that's it it probably isn't it but once you say that then you can take a stop and go all right

do i want to go ahead and knock this history thing out because i'm pretty close or do i want to go full stop and a hard right turn and go get a finance degree and let's investigate how far off the finance degree we are off the history curriculum and the history track how much of that how much you know am i adding eight years to this am i starting over no are you adding four years no are you adding a year i don't know but once you know where your destination is then you, okay, it's not going to add that much to change direction towards something I actually care about. You just went by the path of least resistance. And if you want to be a history writer and you love history and you want to be a history teacher, want to get a phd and become a professor of history there's nothing wrong with that as a career but then you have a you have a solid track

that you need to follow to get there then but right now you don't know where you're going so there's no energy in it hard to get the kids excited about vacation when they don't know where we're going. And that's what you've got to work on. You need to figure that part out. So if I were you, what I would do is it sounds like you may have banked a little bit of money. Go to a nice place in Northern California that's not that expensive for this weekend and book a hotel room by yourself where there's some woods and water and beaches or creeks or something,

and go walk around and talk to God for the weekend and take a blank yellow pad with you and say, okay, what do I want to be when I'm 40? Nobody stops and asks that. Instead, they get so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, and look up and go, I'm just a rat in a wheel. People spend more time picking out a suit of clothes than they do their careers. So go take a little time.

Get quiet. When it gets quiet, things get more clear. We don't take enough time to get quiet. So go somewhere where you can be around nature that you like, the mountains, the beach, I don't care what it is. Spend a couple hundred bucks on a hotel this weekend, nothing super expensive. Buy yourself a couple cheap hamburgers and walk around and talk to God with a blank yellow pad in your hand.

And then go talk to some people in the field that you think you heard you're supposed to be in. If it's commercial real estate, it's not. But if it is, go talk to commercial real estate people when you get home and ask them what it's like and what they need to, you know, what it's like to get a CCIM, which is the designation for that world. And I want to go into financial planning. What's it like to get a CFP?

Because that's a pretty rigorous little piece of training right there. And so on. Just go fit, you know, I want to be a welder. Good. I want to be a sculptor. Good. I want to be a sculptor. Good. How's the history degree fit into that? Well, it doesn't.

Yeah, but have you got some base under you that you can adjust and finish up with that degree and get some core classes out as you go out your senior year in the area you want in? I don't care if you get a finance degree with 16 classes of, I mean, a degree in history with 16 classes of finance under your belt if you're going into finance, but your degree's in history. But while you were there, you learned a bunch about your trade. That could be your path.

I don't care. But the problem you've got is you don't have a destination, and you need a clear destination. Intentionality is where successful people come from. You don't always agree with them. You don't always like them. It's never a straight path. Sometimes it's a pile of garbage. It's ugly.

Sometimes it's icky. There's all these kinds of things come up. But intentionality, doing crap on purpose instead of just getting caught up in the busyness of this world. And that's what changes everybody's life. And, you know, I thought I was going to be a commercial real estate agent, by the way. I ended up buying properties and going broke in residential properties primarily. I had some commercial. And actually, God changed the direction because I didn't want what you're talking about.

I went and sat on the lake bank, put my toes in the sand, my butt in the chair, as Zach sings. I said, okay, God, what do you want me to do? Because I'm really tired of trying to figure this out by myself. And it started getting pretty clear pretty quick after that. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 27, 17, As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. George Washington says, Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation.

For it is better to be alone than in bad company. George Washington just read a book the other day that had a series of biographies in it. I'm trying to think of the name of it. Eric Metaxas. I can't ever pronounce Eric's last name. I like his writing, too. M-E-T-A. Metaxas, I think it said.

Yeah, I think that's right. It's seven biographies, and one of them was on George Washington. I always forget. I love reading stuff on Washington because because of his character by the way eric's a good writer but um that i love and i love biographies of great men and women because they um you know they inspire each of us to be great men and women then uh and washington's history personal history is absolutely amazing i'd study him study him a little bit the first time I visited Mount Vernon many years ago. The men and women of that character, we don't see them in the political spotlight anymore.

They're just not out there much on either side of the aisle. Stephanie is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Stephanie. How are you? I'm good. How can I help? I saw you live at Life Church in Oklahoma City almost 11 years ago and at FPU. Wow.

So I'm a big fan. Well, I'm honored. Thank you. Craig's a good friend of ours. It's a wonderful church. Yeah. So I'm a 43-year-old divorced mother of three boys. I've stayed home with my boys for almost 13 and a half years.

Their ages right now are 13, 11, and almost 9. I have completed baby steps 1, 2, and 3, and I'm almost done with baby step 6. I should have the house paid off by next September. That's my goal. Look at you. Way to go. Yeah. You've got a hard road, kiddo.

I got the house and the divorce and then sold it and used the equity to downsize and just been throwing money into the principal. But with my divorce, I also received half of my ex-husband's 401k in the pension plan. And I also, for myself, have $39,000 in

my own, I guess, Roth or an IRA account that was rolled over when I left my corporate job. And it's got about $39,000 in it. What are you making? I also have $30,000 in a money market account. What are you making? That's interesting. I am still a stay-at-home mom, so I am just with child support and alimony,

I get about $80,000 a year. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Divorce decree does not say anything about kids' college? He did not want to put that in there, nor did he want to put anything about cars for the kids either. Yeah, so it doesn't say anything about him paying for college at all.

No. Obviously, he has an outrageously good income. Yes, he does. What is his income? I don't think he has a problem with me staying home with the kids either, although that doesn't do much for my morale to get me back out in the real world. But it's nice that I'm able to be able to stay home with my kids still. Yeah.

Okay. Let's revisit that in a few minutes. But for right now, you're calling about kids' college. So your husband's income, your ex-husband's income is what? I honestly don't know anymore. I would say upper 200s. Okay. All right say upper 200s. Okay. All right.

Good. Yeah. But as for myself, how do I pay for it? I understand. You have no indication from him. I know legally he's not bound from the divorce decree to do anything. But has he said, hey, have you all had conversations where he's said something like, hey, I think I'll help with some of this or not?

Not necessarily with college or with cars or anything. But I don't think he'll let them go without either. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Unless there was just a really, the relationship is just really sour. I mean, he sees the kids. He has visitation with them. Very little. Really?

I think monetarily that's what he can do, you know. Okay. All right. Well, obviously you can begin budgeting aggressively towards kids' college, and you can start talking to the kids about, well, there's two or three things going on here. We don't know that your dad's going to participate or that he isn't, one way or the other. We're certainly not throwing him under the bus. But we're going to start preparing as if he isn't.

And that's going to involve you guys, you know, as you move into high school, you're going to start taking the ACT and taking a class on how to take the ACT, because ACT scores are now super scored when it comes to getting into schools. And so you want to take them repeatedly. We're going to start talking about you going to a school we can afford, which is probably a state school in Oklahoma. A couple of good ones there, I've heard.

And you can get into that. it's not going to be that expensive and you can plan on working while you're in school and i'm saving aggressively to try to help you but i don't think i'm going to be in a position to do a hundred percent so you're going to have to chip in if your dad doesn't okay in terms of my own retirement, how is it looking with what I have already? How old are you? I'm 43. Okay. And there's an unknown amount in this pension that's still stuck in a quadro.

So roughly I have $149,000 in retirement right now. Yeah. I'm kind of thinking that somewhere in the next five years, your career needs to unfold for your encore right right what do you got what are you gonna do i don't know i haven't decided what i want to be when i grow up it's it's time it's time yes i know because that's going to be good for your dignity not to mention your income not to mention your retirement you're going to be fulfilled because you don't want to be sitting at home with no kids at home living on alimony right that would be just weird

you know that'd be an empty shell of a life you don't want to do that and so the 30,000 that's sitting in that money market account is that fine just sitting there well i mean what you need to do is calculate three to six months of expenses, call that an emergency fund, and anything above that, carve it up into two pieces, and let's say that's, I'll make up a number, let's say that's $20,000, then that frees up $10,000 of that $30,000 to throw at some 529s and get them started for these three kids. And you can start loading some money in these 529s.

Right. And any other monies you can scrape out of your budget you can do that but you're debt free did you say the house is paid for too it it will my goal is to have it paid off next september i've kept my mortgage payment the same at my old house and just threw it all at principal phenomenal okay and so then you're a hundred percent debt, and all you've got to worry about is two things, kids' college and your retirement. Right. And or whatever you spend on you to get tooled up for your next career. Right.

I'm doing real estate school right now. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah. You might make an excellent real estate agent. That might be a lot of fun. And a really good one makes a lot of money. A really bad one makes nothing.

Right. Yeah. So, but I mean, I know real estate agents make $200 or $300 a year. So you could end up making more than him if you got after it and got out there and said, this is fun and I'm having a blast showing houses and helping people get into homes and that kind of stuff. I think you could be really good at that. That's great. Yeah, let's go ahead and start pursuing some of that.

And that's actually a really good choice because with teens, you've got a lot of flexibility, meaning that, you know, when they're in school, you can work your butt off. And a few times in evenings or whatever, the oldest one can watch the other two, and you can work your butt off. And you can do a few things and start adding to your income here. But it's a great way to work into a career gradually, step-by-step incrementally over the next five years. But I'm telling you, by the time that nine-year-old is 14,

you need to be in gear. You need to be in gear because you're you're you're only four years then from launch and you for your sake and that i'm not panicked about your retirement you're going to be okay on retirement you're not going to starve but there's you got the whole rest of your life to do something with your career and you should you owe it to yourself to do that so hey good question thank you for calling in. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener.

I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.