The Ramsey Show - App - Fight for Your Family by Getting Out of Debt (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

The show about you

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

Jonathan is on the line in Orange County. Hi, Jonathan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. It's an honor to talk to you, sir. You too, sir. How can I help? Okay. So I've been talking with Navient over the last year,

and I thank you for your video, Shoots and Sharks. So I kept going back and forth on the private loans to come to a settlement offer, and they've decided to accept my $13,000 payment. Awesome. So that would wipe out $126,000. Wow. Now, I see I can do that in about eight months. And they sent over the letter in writing, so it's official, and the first payment goes out on the 5th. Okay. However, that means we're going to basically convert this debt on a 1099-C. I found out federal they don't do this, but they do on private.

So I'm expecting about a $32,000 tax bill. So I wanted to ask, should I pause my debt snowball and just lump up cash as fast as I can to give to Uncle Sam? Yes. Okay. Yeah, that's coming. That's real. And debt forgiveness is going to be a taxable event, and the amount of debt that's forgiven is as if it's income,

and if they're going to turn it over, you're going to have that bill. You need to get ready. What's your household income? I make $140,000 a year. Okay, cool. But still the good news is even 32 plus 13, this turns out to be a deal. Right. Now, in the worst case, like once that's knocked off my overall debt, I mean, we're talking only like $54,000 in consumer debt.

Good. Good. Well, you know, and I'll tell you what, the only thing that's running through the back of my mind is, I kind of think I might just go ahead and pay them the $13,000 faster, be done with them, and then build up the $32,000. Just straight in a row? Yeah, see, I mean, you could probably pay them in, what, three months? For every dollar, I have about $21.71 per month to pay this. All right, and so that'd be six months.

And then you've got to come up with $32,000 still. But you were scheduled to pay them how much? I'm expecting $32,000 and some change. Yeah, so $1,000 and some change. Yeah, so $1,000 a month, give or take, right? Right. Now, one other factor is in my salary contract, they have an end-of-year bonus for $21,000. Awesome.

That was going to be the next step to just throw that at it. Yep. Yeah, I think you're going to be done with it. I would go ahead and get Navient done, and then I would start piling up cash for the taxes, and then once that is done, then I would restart my debt snowball. Okay. Yeah, let's knock out the 13, then let's knock out the 32,

and then let's restart the debt snowball, and that's what I would do. And let's take advantage of this deal, get it over with, get the taxes behind you. You don't want to ignore taxes. They will come back and hit you even harder than anything else, penalties and everything else. So, yeah, that's exactly what I would do. Hey, good question. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Ken is in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Ken. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm doing well. Thank you for taking my call. Long-time listener. Appreciate all you do for this country, sir. Thank you, sir.

How can I help? Dave, well, I'm retired, and my wife is, too. We're totally debt-free. We have no bills. Our house is paid for. We're debt-free and. We have no bills. Our house is paid for. We're debt-free and retired from the fire department. And my question is,

I have a 457 account that has $390,000. It just rolled over from my retirement last year. It earns 3.5% interest. And, you know, we're at a point where we're thinking,

can we, you know, two thoughts were, should we invest it in something like long-term growth mutual stock, or I have an opportunity to buy a rental house cash, of course, you know, or a duplex, and use part of that towards that. And I don't know which direction to go, sir. How old are you? I'm 53 years old, sir. Okay.

I would roll it to an IRA. That way there's no penalties of any kind and no taxes. And let's put it in the four types of mutual funds we talk about, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. Get with a SmartVestor Pro. They can help you with that rollover. You won't have to touch it until you hit 70.5, and then you'll have your RMDs, your required minimum distributions at that point

that start at 70.5, but that's so many years away. This money is going to be so much money by then. It's going to be a million and a half dollars when you get to there if you invest it well. But we've got to get it out of three and a half. Three and a half is not even keeping up with inflation. And so we've got to do a little better than that. And if you pull it out, you're going to get hammered in order to buy the duplex. Let's buy the duplex with something else, some other money that we save up

that's not inside of a retirement account at 53 years old. Bradford is with us in Seattle. Hey, Bradford, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Honored to talk to you, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my company retirement benefit is 16% of my gross.

We personally save 15% of our gross in our Roth 401k and our converted Roth IRAs throughout the year. We're planning to move to a better school district for our children. Would you recommend stopping our retirement for two and a half years to increase our equity in our current home as the other home is being built? Nah. Nah. I always put 15% of my household income into retirement, and above that I work on Baby Step 5, which is kids' college,

and above that Baby Step 6, which is pay off your house early. But I don't stop investing to do that. You're going to be fine. You've got a lot of money coming into this retirement account. What do you make a year? $280,000. Yeah, you're killing it. And so why making $280 making 280 after putting 15% away?

Can you not attack the house? Of course you can. Oh, we do. We just want to do it sooner. And you figure that since the company does 16% regardless. Yeah, I mean, it's not like this is a decision that's going to bankrupt you. No, absolutely not. But, you know, you're going to be in such a strong cash position.

How old are you? 30. Oh, good Lord. Wow. What do you do for a living? Aviation. Wow. You're doing great, man.

Well, congratulations. It's not the end of the world. I don't think it's going to give you as much mathematical progress as it feels like to you. So, no, I would continue to put 15% of your income into your retirement, even though your company's got 16 going in. You're making tons of money, and I would just look at my budget and say, I want to pay off the house. That's my next goal.

Above that, make sure kids' college is going. I'm going to get the house paid off. I'm going to get the house paid off. I'm going to get the house paid off, and you'll be there for you. You're only 30. You're going to be a multimillionaire, man. Well done. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month.

Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month. You never pay data overage fees and we never turn off your data. No contracts, no hidden fees. And if you're thinking our low cost means less coverage, think again. Our voice and data service covers 99% of Americans. And our 4G LTE network provides the fastest internet speeds like more expensive carriers we operate on the largest gsm network in the u.s to ensure you receive reliable coverage virtually anytime anywhere plus you can keep your same phone and number and add multiple lines to save more we're so confident

you'll love pure talk usa that we invite you to try our service risk-free. Visit puretalkusa.com or call 844-862-3677. Enter promo code SAVEDAVE and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com. Angela is in the Ramsey Baby Steps community. Over 100,000 of you are. It is a private Facebook group that you can join. As long as you behave in there, we let you stay in there and interact with everybody that's doing this stuff together. The Ramsey Baby Steps community. Dave, I'm going to be staying in a hotel this summer for one night.

Would it be wise to buy one of those prepaid Visa cards to book my room? I'm not sure I want to use my regular debit card. Why not? I use mine all the time in a hotel, like once a week. And I almost never have any trouble with it. I have less trouble with it than people do with credit cards. So I don't know why you wouldn't want to use your debit card. The debit card, they put a hold on a portion of your funds for one night

or two nights sometimes when you're in a hotel, depending on what it is. But Dollar Rent-A-Car will take your debit card, and same thing. That's why we're in the Dollar Car Rental studio now, because Dollar Car Rental does that. And we've worked with them, and they're doing the thing but i use i don't have a credit card i use debit card and i don't have any prepaids i'm not worried about it at all um you know it's you need to make sure you have the money in there to cover the bill obviously and and you know and some other money to make sure that you can live and eat and

so forth when you use your debit card that's part of how that works but there's no more danger using your debit card in a hotel than there is using a credit card in a hotel you're not liable for charges that are fraudulent with either of them just like that so i definitely would use your debit card rosa is also on facebook i'm a current i'm currently a teacher my employer is offering employees whole life insurance through new york life which builds cash oh god what are your thoughts on term life versus whole life insurance uh we whole life life insurance is one of the worst financial products on the planet. It's the payday lender of the middle class. I would stay away from it.

And New York life is one of the worst of the whole life policies, like the worst of the worst. Super expensive, horrible rates of return, just a horrendously bad product. So absolutely stay away from them under all circumstances. So just get term life insurance. If your employer gives it to you, well, free money is free money, even if it's ugly money. And that's fine.

But I wouldn't do that. I certainly wouldn't pay for it always buy term life insurance it's about a nickel on the dollar it's about 1 20th as much for the same amount of coverage and you do all your investing with your other 95 cents in anything else and you'll come out way ahead if you don't believe me just pull up ZanderInsurance.com and run a quick, easy quote there, and they'll show you right quick, and they don't sell your name to a bunch of lists that are going to bug you. Anything like that, you can get a quick, easy quote on a 15-, 20-year level term policy. You should get about 10 to 12 times your income on you.

You can compare that to that whole life policy. You'll find it's a nickel on the dollar and um and you invest your 95 cents anywhere else and you come out better anywhere else for goodness sakes marie is in sonoma hi marie how are you i'm great dave happy monday happy monday to you how can i help well i have a question i'm finishing up baby Step 3 in the next month or so, and I have an appointment with a SmartVestor Pro on Wednesday to kind of talk about my future and retirement and all that stuff. And I thought I'd call you before I meet with them

because I know what's going to come up is the next step would be buying a home. However, I live in Sonoma County, you know, the Bay Area housing market, ridiculous as is. But particularly in Sonoma, since the big fires wiped out 6,000 homes, another thousand last month in the flooding. And the average home price is just something I can't get my mind around. Like I'm single, I make a really healthy income, but the median price in Sonoma is $700,000 right now, and the average listing where I live is a million,

and any of the outlying areas are still like $600,000, $700,000, $800,000. And I guess I'm wondering, is there at any point in time when you recommend building wealth in other ways of investing and keeping, I have a relatively low rent comparative because I've been here for so long, or do I just buck up and just start saving as much as possible and I might be able to put a down payment together in like 10 years? Well, I mean, you rent for sure uh until you can get this around

get your head around it there's a couple of things that happen you you you know eventually if you start getting charged market rent you're not going to be able to afford to live there any more than if you had a house payment at market. Yes, correct. And so what is the source of your ridiculously good rent deal? Why do you have one? Well, I've been here for nine years, and I take immaculate care of the property. The landlord's become a friend of mine. We've been discussing, you know, I said, if you're ever wanting to sell, and she said,

you know, they don't typically sell their properties, but she'd love for me to stay here as long as possible. Yeah, that's wonderful, as long as that keeps going. Someday that lady's going to die or something's going to happen, and someday that deal's going to end. What do you do for a living? I'm in the wine business. Of course.

Okay. In Sonoma. So I'm kind of stuck to living here, but I love it anyway. What do you do for a living i'm in the wine business of course okay in sonoma so i'm kind of stuck to living here but i love it anyway what do you what do you do what are you doing the wine business um i'm in uh trade and sales development a lot of training um things like that and what do you make a year um about 160 ish i have a rental property in Arizona. My dad just passed away and left me a house in Arizona that's rented to his best friend who's 80. And what is it worth? It's probably worth about $230,000.

Okay, that with a down payment and $160,000 income and you buy a house. Yeah. Here's your problem okay you can do whatever you want to do but you're missing out on the next 20 years of appreciation and making $160,000 a year it does not take you 10 years to build up a down payment that's mythology okay that's just that's just you being drama that's just not true making the kind of money because you're making really good money even in Sonoma I know it's expensive to live there i got all that i've been there so uh but but uh so the thing is what i'm worried about is not the next five years if you want to rent for the next

five years until this lady gives up the you know something happens and you can't get the great deal anymore okay keep the house in arizona if you want to. I don't care. For five years. Five years doesn't bother me in our equation, our discussion. What does bother me is 25 years. Right. And 30 years. Because here's the thing.

If you do not have paid-for housing when you head into retirement in an extremely expensive real estate market, you don't get to stay there. Right. You're going to leave the place you've spent your life because you won't be able to afford to stay there. And so you've got to have a property, a home that you're going to live in that is paid for by the time you get to retirement. Now, you've got a long ways to shoot that out,

but you're asking me about the philosophy of buying a house in a market that you can't get your head around how expensive it is. I get all that, but five years from now, there'll be a lot of rebuilding happening. There's already a building boom happening there, because anytime there's that much shortage

of housing, builders like to build houses. They're going to build them back, build them more, and, you know, it's going to come back, and, you know, I don't think houses they're going to build them back and build them more and you know it's going to come back and um you know i don't think the market's going to go down but i don't think it's going to be this huge shortage you guys have just a huge problem right now because of the fires and the flooding and so um anyway five years from today you need to be thinking about buying something but in the next five, if you want to take advantage of the cheap rent, that's fine because it goes up in value

and it helps you get into retirement and it stabilizes your most expensive item in retirement, which is housing expense. And that's what matters there. So, hey, that's the whole philosophy. No, I would not go 10 years without buying a house in your situation. Thanks for joining us.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Cameron and Jonna are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing good, sir. How are you? Doing great. Welcome, welcome. Where do you all live? So we're just south of Savannah, about an hour south of Savannah. Oh, a bit of a haul up to Nashville. Yes, sir.

Well, welcome. Good to have you. And all the way up here to do a debt-free scream. Oh, yes. Love it. And how much have you paid off? We've paid off a little over $108,000. Very good.

And how long did this take? 30 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? So we started out around $106,000. I had a career change right in the middle of everything. Dropped us down to about $80,000. And we've brought it up since then back to $108,000.

Okay, cool. What do you guys do for a living? So I work with a family pest control business. And I'm a program analyst for the TSA. Okay, very good. Good for you guys. Very cool. What kind of debt was the 108? It was a little bit of everything. Most of it was student loans. We had two vehicles in there. We had several credit cards, a TSP loan. You name it, we had it. Wow, very good. Okay, so did you sell any of the vehicles? We did.

What did you sell? Sold the truck. Your truck? Sold the truck. Sold my tractor. It hurt. Oh, ouch, ouch. And we also sold our home.

Yeah. Wow. Yes. So I had called your radio show. We were thinking about buying a family property, and I was really uneasy about that because our mortgage was going to go up. And you had assured me that what we were doing, and you laid out a plan for us, and everything has worked out just the way we talked about on the radio. Wow.

Very good. Very good. So you got the family property, but got rid of the truck and the tractor. Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. And now you're debt-free except the house. Yes.

And how long have you two been married 10 years in september have you ever been debt free since you got married no no not even not even close not even before yeah i love it okay so what happened 30 months ago that lit the fuse because you guys blew up man yes we did um dave so we have a um a nephew who is four years old now but at the time he was one and um he was in foster care and uh we could not afford to fight for him and adopt him and we had to let him go back um into the into the system um but through this we were able to get him back really yes so um bentley is our our fourth child we are still in a fight for him today oh wow yes okay so you've you've got him back but you don't have uh adoption yet not yet not yet you've physically gotten him you're taking care of him he's part of the family but you're having to finish the legal work exactly okay oh and he was

a nephew yes uh so of you then then jonah yes okay jonna yeah jonna i'm sorry okay good wow hey that makes it worth it it does that's something to fight for that's worth fighting for that's worth selling a tractor tractor or truck for oh 100 yeah and you'll get another tractor truck there's only one bent. That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Good. Very good. I'm proud of you guys.

That's a big why right there. It is. That gives you a reason to fight and scratch and claw and hustle and grind, doesn't it? Yes. And during the middle of this, too, every one of our siblings, except for one, got married. Of course. So we had to cash flow of quite a few um weddings yeah um but everything worked out and god's timing was just great and it was just perfect and that so whenever we got the call

to come pick up bentley in the middle of the night we were there yeah we were able to do it yeah absolutely wow very well done you guys very. Well, that's good motivation. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? The key is to make sure you and your partner are on the same page. The budget, you know, you have to follow all the steps as you lay out. But if one person is, I'm going to do this, and the other one's not so much, it's not going to work. Did you all try that's not so much it's it's not going to work did y'all try that not so much part in the very in the very beginning okay um it was it was a little difficult um but once we started you know feeling like we could actually do it and things started rolling a little bit

it got a lot easier okay without throwing anybody on the bus, who was dragging her feet? Which one of you? I would say in the beginning, she wasn't dragging her feet. She was just reluctant. No, I'm not really sure that we could actually do that. You're such a smart man. So, Dave, we have never done a budget before. We didn't even know what that was. And so Cameron had found you on youtube and brought

the idea to me and i was like that you know it sounds really good um but i found fpu at our church our church was putting on so then it became my idea oh once it was your idea it was okay yeah and so i kind of became a budget monster oh it went the other way. And about six months in, Cameron was like, I'm so proud of you. I'm glad that you like doing the budget, but I can't do it every night in the bed. It was constant.

It was just, you know. You're killing me here. You're killing me. I love it. We ended up, you know, just doing a weekly meeting. Good. That's what you're supposed to do.

And it's been much better since then. Yeah. Wow. Well, you made huge progress and for a very, very good reason. And you did such noticeable things. People around you, friends and family, had to notice. Oh, yeah. The truck's gone.

The tractor's gone. Jobs are being changed. I mean, there's so much that's visible with what you did so did you have more cheerleaders or people saying you were crazy i would say i would say nobody really said you guys are crazy um but they you know you can tell that they're like yeah okay that's that's. I just don't think this is going to work for you. But I wouldn't say that anybody told us, you know, no, you're doing the wrong thing. Right. Everybody seemed to be open to it, but just kind of. Our sack lunches got picked on a lot at work.

I bet. That'll do. But I had some really good friends. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? My three girls at work. There you go. They were our biggest cheerleaders and some three girls at work were our biggest cheerleaders and some friends of ours from back home that we coached baseball with.

Okay. Cool. FPU group, too? Yes. Hopefully. Yeah. Good. Very good.

And how about these two guys? Have they been involved? Oh, yes. Yes, sir. And their names and ages? So this is Bo. He's 10. And this is Gunner.

He is 8. Okay. And Bentley is how old? Bentley is 4. And Bentley's 4 now? Yes. Oh's 10. And this is Gunner. He is 8. Okay. And Bentley is how old? Bentley is 4. And Bentley's 4 now? Yes. Oh, okay. All right.

I thought maybe when you started this, he was 4. Okay. Wow. Wow. All right. So he was a baby. He was. He was 1 years old when we started.

Wow. Wow. What a journey. What a journey. And 4 years old. Good. Well, we hope we get to see him one day around here soon. Yes.

Good stuff. All right, guys. We're proud of you. Way to go. Very well done. You're heroes. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's Everyday Millionaire's book, You Will Be One. You are on your way.

You're debt-free, paid off $108,000 in 30 months, making $106,000 to $80,000 to $108,000. Cameron, Jonna, Bo, Gunner, and Bentley, count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Go ahead. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free!

That's how it's done. I love it. That's the sound of a family tree being changed. You know, I was with a buddy of mine the other day that's got just a huge heart for the foster care system. And he was telling me that there's only 100,000 kids in foster care today that are eligible for adoption. There's 16 million of you listening right now, only 100,000, and we would wipe out, eradicate foster care adoption needs domestically. That would be a pretty cool thing.

And you know what? If you got out of debt, if you lived like no one else later, you could live and give like no one else. See, they weren't getting out of debt if you lived like no one else later you could live and give like no one else see they weren't getting out of debt to buy bling bling to buy stuff they're getting out of debt to pay the legal bills to get control of this young man's life to be able to be a blessing to him. Wow. Wow. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, 1 Corinthians 16.13 Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith.

Be courageous. Be courageous. Be strong. Thomas Jefferson said, In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock. Ah. Problem with standing like a rock is, water just runs all the time.

You know, but otherwise, you know what? If you don't have principles, you're just a fish. I mean, you just go with whatever goes along. I mean, whatever stupid, hurtful, bad, fleshly, horrible, nasty stuff that people want to do. You just go along with it, and you're just one of them, and I am too when I swim with the current. It's a good quote. I've never heard that from Jefferson.

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock well it's the first of the month where's your budget you're supposed to have every dollar spent on paper before the month begins every dollar needs an assignment every dollar needs a mission before the month begins. That's a zero-based budget when you're making a budget, and that's the kind of budget that works. Each month, do a unique budget. Now, there's parts of it that are going to be the same, but no two months are exactly the like. So before the month begins, calculate your income and give every one of those dollars an on-paper assignment. We use that principle because we know that people in Financial Peace University that

have the best success use a zero-based budget. So we used that principle three years ago, six million people ago, when we designed our budgeting app, which has become the world's best budgeting app. Well, it was the best one. Now it's the most popular and the best. Growing by leaps and bounds. Over 6 million people are using the EveryDollar app now on their phone, on their computer for free to set up and make your first budget.

It's free. 6 million budgeters are using EveryDollar, downloading the app for iTunes or Google Play or sign up for a free account at EveryDollar.com. Every dollar needs an assignment. Nathan is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Good afternoon, Dave. Can I answer my phone call today?

Sure. How can I help? Well, I had a what would Ramsey do question that came up in my week this week. I was like, well, nobody better to call than the man himself. I am currently on baby step two with my wife and my daughters and am in sales and have been for about eight years after eight years of service in the Army. And I am trying to figure out... Your phone's breaking up. Can you speak directly into it, please?

Sure. Let me get a little somewhere better. That's much better. Thank you. I am currently in sales and trying to find out if it's a good idea. I'm looking at a possible career change and changing from sales into public service as a police officer. But while I'm doing baby step two, I'm trying to see if that's a good idea, as it would be a volunteer program and would take any evening time up that I

would use to do more sales and pay off the debt at the time. Okay, how much debt do you have? Right now it's roughly around $97,000. And what is it on? We have student loans, car. How much is the student loans? Student loans is roughly $50,000. How much is the car?

$19,000. Okay. And how much is the credit cards? It would be the remainder of it. Credit card and medical bill. 28. Okay. Hey, and what do you make a year?

Right now, it's around $50,000 or so. And what would you make as a police officer? It would start about the same. Okay. And how long would it take you to become a police officer? The reserve program is a volunteer, and it would take me anywhere from 10 months to do the training in the evening times and weekends, and if I got picked up by them full-time, that's what it would be around 50,000 start first year. Okay, I'm sorry, so how long would it be that you're giving up your evenings

um it would be two nights a week um and then two saturdays a month on for for how long before you became a police officer um about 10 months so 10 months from the time you started you'll be a policeman making 50k well no that's just the reserve. It's a volunteer program. I got that. That's what I was trying to get at. And so after that, after your reserve after ten months, now you get to work for free in the reserve. For how long before you become a policeman?

They said you can actually be picked up in the process of becoming a reserve. If they have a spot open, they can pull you straight from that. So they pulled their new hire. Yeah, that's what they can happen, but that's not if they're trying to get people to work for free. So what normally happens and what's your worst-case scenario? How long is the worst case before they pick somebody up? We don't know.

It's just whenever. They haven't given any direct answers, but they do have two openings at the police department. But it's a matter of right now that the police academy has kind of backed up on their training, too. Okay. All right. So you can do the police academy training at night and on saturdays correct it well it's the reserve program so it's oh i mean can you train let's say they hired you for one of those two slots can you do the training on nights and saturdays for the reserve yes no those two slots are the two slots reserve are they policemen

the two are active but those we don't know if they're going to hire when they're going to hire for those at this point so that's the problem it would be reserved until they decide they're going to take somebody over and how much do you make extra by working at night and Saturdays? Right now, I have no overtime option, but I can be working on proposals and stuff sent out if I do that at night at home. How much is it going to cost you in money if you pursue this thing? In missed dollars. That I'm not sure of.

That is the answer to your equation. Okay. If it's not going to cost you anything because you can work on the proposals and stuff during downtime during the day, then you can go forward. If it's going to cost you $25,000 in missed sales, no, you cannot go forward. You need to stick with it and clean this up for the sake of your family. Right. So you need to figure out what this is going to cost you in lost sales to screw around with a free reserve program that may or may not result

in you moving into the career that you think you want. Correct. Okay. So I'm with you. I think you need to make the move that direction but we've got to do good critical thinking and analyze okay i'm giving up this but what are you know is there a 90 chance i get picked up during the time how quickly are they going to activate these two slots that are open and fund them with the budget if so if they can hire you now

subject to you knocking out the police academy and they'll pay you to go to the police academy then you know go and just live your life right because it's a break even and you get to do what you love so i would do all of that but but if you're going to be you know jerking around with this thing for three or four years while they pull you along on a string with a carrot, you know, and someday, well, maybe when the budget clears, well, maybe the reserves, maybe not. We might hire a brother and all that kind of garbage, and it's going to cost you $25,000 a year while you're trying to get out of debt,

then no, you don't need to do that. So there you go. That's what I would do. Thanks for calling in. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer, and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. We'll be back before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.