The Ramsey Show - App - From Horseback Riding and Bartending to Debt Free (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 29, 2019

The show about you

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. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're glad you're here. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Sean is in Phoenix, Arizona.

Hi, Sean. How are you? I am fantastic, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, where do I start? Well, I'm a machine apprentice. Full-time, I work 55 hours a week there I'm a machine apprentice full-time. I work 55 hours a week there, 18 hours as a pizza delivery driver, thanks to you. I go to school three hours a night, four days a week, and I'm married.

I have two kids living with us. We want to teach them a little about finances and whatnot. How can I help today? So I want to know how to budget my tips and also... How to budget your what? My tips. Your tips, okay. Yes, for a delivery driver. Okay, cool.

Well, basically you've got some income here that's not predictable. When you have an irregular, unpredictable income, what we teach you to do is to do a budget with what you know that you know you're going to have an irregular, unpredictable income, what we teach you to do is to do a budget with what you know that you know you're going to have coming in, and that's just do a regular budget, spend every dollar on paper, use the EveryDollar app, and then make a list of what you want to do that you couldn't get to in the regular budget, or you need to do that you couldn't get to in the regular budget, and then you make that list, and you look at it, and you say, what's the most important thing on the list, and then what's the next most important thing on the list, and you

rewrite that list in order of most important to least important of the things you couldn't get to in the regular budget. Then when you have tips come in, you just go as far down that list each time as you can. Okay. Any of your irregular income that you can't predict, just go as far down the list as you can, as far down the list as you can, as far down the list as you can, and it's always a prioritized spending plan.

If you have the Total Money Makeover book or any of the other books that I have written in the back as a set of forms, and one of the forms is the Irregular Income Planning form, and that will work well for that. It will show you exactly what to do. But you can also do it with the EveryDollarBudget. You just redo the budget. When the tips come in, you figure out, okay, what have I not gotten to that I want to get to,

and you just add it in there and do it. Kevin is with us in Sacramento. Hi, Kevin. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help?

Well, so 54 years old, been working hard all my life, and I've got quite a bit of equity in between our primary residence and a couple of rentals. I'm kind of feeling like I want to sell off the rentals and take that equity, pay off the primary, and take that equity, pay off the primary, and then just focus on piling money away for the next 10 years. I'm wondering, you know, is that the best thing to do? I know in the past I've heard a similar question, and you usually say there's no wrong answer. But for me, I'm tired of feeling like, you know, we're just

constantly paying out money on the rentals and the primary, and I'm wondering what's the best path. So paying out money, you mean on repairs or the payments? Well, no, no, no, not so much because I'm in contracting and I can take care of all of that stuff. I'm tired of the mortgage debt. We've got no other debt. So how much do you own your personal residence?

$250. And what are your equities totaling up on the rentals? On the rentals themselves... If you sold all the rentals, what pile of cash would be in the middle of the kitchen table? $280. So basically you pay off your house if you

sold all the rentals? Exactly. And what's your household income? About $180,000. Okay. And then you're going to use that over the next 10 years to build you a nest egg? Exactly. Okay. Okay.

What is the total debt on the rentals? Just under $200,000. Okay. So the only other alternative is to take the $180,000 and pay off $450,000 worth of debt during the next 10 years while investing

into mutual funds. Correct. And that's doable. It is. I'm just wondering, is there one that's a better path than the other? I think the answer to that would depend on how you feel about real estate. I like real estate, and so my tendency is going to be to hold the real estate and get it paid off. But if you detest being a landlord, you detest dealing with these rentals, how many properties are there?

Just two, besides their primary. Okay. And the other thing you could do is you could, which, do they have about the same amount of equity in them? Yes, pretty close. Okay. So you could do a half-lightweight plan and dump one of them. Yeah, exactly.

One's $160, one's $120, actually. So one's more than the other. You could dump the $160 one and keep the other one, and then all you get is just really concentrate on getting the other. That would shorten the time that it takes you to get out of debt. Meanwhile, putting 15% of your income away, and you're making good income into mutual funds, into your retirement plans and so forth,

that's going to be my tendencies to hold one of these and work my way through it. But it's not a, like you said, I've said before, it's not a wrong answer here because these are baby step six items, and it typically takes seven to ten years to clear baby step six. And from the time somebody starts. The good news is as long as that income holds, you know, you've got a fabulous income. Yeah, that's the issue. It just hasn't felt like it.

So, you know, now that we're paying attention to everything, and, you know, it's a completely different ballgame, it just, you know, I really like the idea of getting everything paid off as fast as possible. Okay. It doesn't hurt anything. Listen, I can promise you this. You will feel a measurable release from around your neck when you sell those to them and pay off your house.

And that's kind of what I'm thinking. And then just use some of that. You'll have cash flow coming out your ears. Use some of that. You can save up and buy another rental. Cash. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

And just reset. You know, do a reset here. And in the meantime, again, I'm going to go back. I want you to be loading those mutual funds up, 15% of your income going into retirement while we're doing that. Well, at that point, I mean, I'd probably max out everything that's available to you in retirement and then on the side start saving in something like an S&P 500 until you save like $100, $150, and then go back and buy a rental for cash. Okay. I like the sound of that.

As far as paying off these mortgages, always pay off the primary first? All things being equal. I mean, if you had a $500,000 primary and a $40,000 rental, we'd pay off the rental. But in this case where everything's about the same, I would do the primary first. But, you know, the reset, the more we sit here and talk about it, I'm doing this on the air in front of everybody, but, I mean, I kind of like the reset. I like real estate, so I wouldn't fight you too much if you wanted to hold on to them,

but just selling everything and laying everything out solid, you know, and just zero debt starting the end of next week when the rentals sell, and they'll sell fast. You're in a good market to max out your values and then just build up a pile of cash and sneak up on some other properties later and get you a good buy. Yeah, I'm kind of liking that reset idea right now. I'm with you.

The piece of no house payment with $180,000 income in Sacramento, California, feels pretty good. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. 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.

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Enter promo code SAVEDAVE and receive 50% off your first month. That's puretalkusa.com. Can you imagine never worrying about money again? What would that be like? What kind of a condition would your life have to be in to never worry about money again? You know, what's interesting is it's not an amount of money that causes that. The Bible says godliness with contentment is great gain. How would you be content? Well, if your money was completely out of control, you're deeply in debt and you were content, that would make you psychotic.

Stupid. You shouldn't be content if everything's torn up. But godliness with contentment is great gain. And so what it amounts to is not that everything is perfect, but it's that we have a plan and we are working towards a series of wise decisions through a series of wise decisions to get control of our money. So contentment is a journey. Financial success is a journey. It's not an amount.

Now, we talk a lot about millionaires around here, millionaire status, but, I mean, truthfully, a million dollars is not a lot of money anymore. I mean, it'll create, you know, 80,000 bucks a year income or something if you made 8% on it, right? But that's just, you know, that's not like rich anymore. It's a whole lot more than most people got, okay? But, I mean, you really want to aim higher than that even. So if you're making, if you have a game plan and you're game like a budget

and you know that this month you're going to get to eat, this month the lights are paid, this month we're moving to get to eat this month the lights are paid this month we're moving towards through our baby steps getting rid of dad or we're building our emergency fund or we're investing for our kids college and our retirement towards paying off a house or this month whatever as long as you can see that you're moving in the right direction and this month is taken care of there's a sense of power there empowerment using an 80s term feel empowered you empower people as an 80s term right but you're empowered and that that's you should be content in the middle of that

now contentment does not mean apathy and contentment does not mean apathy, and contentment does not mean lazy. Contentment is not a hound dog laying in the sun on the front porch. He is content, but he's also lazy. I'm very content, but I work my butt off. It has nothing to do with activity level. It has nothing to do with ambition. Contentment is a spiritual condition,

and when it comes to your finances being content, It has nothing to do with ambition. Contentment is a spiritual condition. And when it comes to your finances being content, never worrying about money again is not an amount of money. You'll never get enough money to not worry about it again. You could get $10 billion and you'd still be wringing your hands and worried if you were out of control. If you didn't have a plan, if you didn't have a series of wise principles that you use for making your decisions with. That's why you don't hear me use the phrase financial independence. A lot of people in the financial world use that.

You can become financially independent. I'm not really mad about it or anything, but I just don't think you ever do. What are you independent of? People? Well, you're always going to have to interact with people. I mean, you can still get sued for something. Maybe you didn't even do. You're not independent ever.

There's never enough money to where you just absolutely are above the rules. You're above common sense. You're above the use of wisdom. And now, if financial independence means you can pay your bills if that's what it means to you then okay if financial independence means you can retire with dignity then okay we can aim at that but the phrase itself is a little bit strong for me independence not really trying to be independent i want to be dependent on my spouse. I want to be looking at my grandbaby saying,

I am working to change your life and your children and your grandchildren's life. I'm not independent. It kind of sounds selfish when you say it, but financial independence, it sounds selfish. Maybe it's not, and I know that's not what everybody means when they say it, so I'm not picking on you if you use that phrase, but financial independence is not my goal. It's not my goal. And so I will never stop earning money and growing wealth. How much is enough?

At some point, shouldn't you just stop? No. No. The more I've got got the more i can give i have a gift i have an ability to earn money beyond my wildest dreams so why would i stop besides that i didn't earn the money hurting someone. Every time I earn a dollar, it's helped somebody. If I sell a couple million books and make a buck apiece, that's a couple million dollars, right? And a couple million people got helped with the information in that book. So I think it's probably all working out for everybody, except for some of you that are left-wing nutjobs. But, I mean, you can't figure this out anyway, so we're not talking to you. But the point is you never worry about money again.

Sometimes we think that that's an amount. When I was young, I used to think if I just had a million dollars, it was an amount. If I hit this amount, I'll never have to worry about money again. If I hit a million dollars, I wouldn't have to worry. If I had a million dollars cash, now, worry less? Yeah, yeah. If you had a billion dollars, you'd worry less than if you had two dollars. I got that.

Because you don't have to worry about food. You don't have to worry about, you know, a place to live, you know, the basics of life, right? So it is less, but you never really become independent. Nor should you really want to, I think. I'm very dependent on God, the provider of this that he gave me to manage. But what would it be like to be on such a plan and have the wise, the wisdom principles in place by which you operated your finances that allowed you to not worry anymore. Not only were this month's necessities taken care of, but we're starting to look into the future, enjoy today,

and have a future that is bright. Well, that requires a plan. Financial Peace University is that plan. It's the only place that we have where we put everything together, and almost 5 million people have been through it, to show you the wisdom principles and go, this is what happens if you're wise. These are the steps you do. This is what you do. This is how you get at it. And you can do that. You can do it. So it's a one-year

membership. All the videos are online the audios are online everything you can get a hold of for a whole year you can get every dollar plus tied to your bank account for a year so you've got everything lined up that way and you can go to the nine-week class anytime during that year you want to people going through the class are paying off $5,300 worth of debt, saving $2,700 in the first 90 days. That's an $8,000 turnaround. We'll show you the wisdom principles so you don't have to worry anymore. Now, you're not going to be rich at the end of nine weeks or the end of one year.

Most of you aren't. But you're starting a journey, a permanent decision to not operate my life by stupid principles anymore and instead operate them by wisdom principles. And you can do that in any area of your life. You can decide, you know, our parenting, we don't know what we're doing. We're raising a couple of wolves here. I mean, I've got to change how we're parenting. And you can get with somebody, get information, get wisdom principles like Meg Meeker,

and you can learn wisdom principles on parenting. And you don't just apply them for one month. You apply them as long as you're alive. Because wisdom principles will take you through the different ages. When your children are grown and have grandkids. You're still Papa Dave. I was still with all of them the other night. I'm still Papa Dave.

Wisdom principles apply. These scriptural principles give you guidelines to operate your life, and you don't have to worry anymore because you've got a process you're engaging in. It's powerful, you guys. It's a powerful thought. You're not independent. You're plugged in. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Dan and Lindsay are with us in St. Louis.

Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, Dave, doing great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. We are debt-free and here to do our screen. Awesomeness. How much have you paid off? Paid off $43,000 in nine months. Wow.

And your range of income during that time? Well, we started at $60,000. At the height of it, we were at $89,000. And our current income, we have settled back down to 65,000. Way to go, guys. Very well done. What kind of debt was the 43? Well, about 10,000 of it was credit card debt, 14,200 of it was BN student loans, and 18,700 of it was a loan on a truck. Ah, okay. So what did you do to get rid of it that fast? In nine months, you kicked it out. You must have sold something. Well, you know, when we started, I own a preschool program and business was slow. So that definitely affected

our, the income we had when we started. But almost as soon as we decided to get this going, business picked up, which was great. And I also picked up a side job bartending at a local brewery. And I also taught horseback riding lessons one day a week. Oh, my goodness. You guys went crazy. Yeah. And Dan was putting in plenty of hours at his job, too. Yeah, way to go, guys.

Excellent. Excellent job. So what got you started on this nine months ago? You got fired up. Well, my sister several, several years ago gave us your Total Money Makeover books that I promptly put on a shelf and forgot about until it was time for me to, well, until I graduated college. And I actually worked your snowball plan after college and got my own debt paid off. So I was debt-free when we got married, but, you know, like I said, business was slow at the time, and I remembered what being debt-free felt like, and just trying to make ends meet.

It wasn't necessarily one big thing that happened, except that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired and worrying about money all the time. Yeah, okay, so it just kind of clicked. Yeah. And so, Dan, she sits down and goes, is it time to do this or did you sit down? Who was the initiator on this? No, it was definitely her.

I think I was a little bit hard to start on the program, I guess. It was kind of one of those I didn't exactly see an end game until I started listening to the daily podcast and uh your books and whatnot i mean i kind of needed to see a little bit more of a plan before i kind of went all in on it yeah okay all right cool well you do have to get understand why we're doing it nobody wants to deeply sacrifice because it's fun it's not that would be weird no you know so good good for you man well done you guys how's it feel to have no debt uh it feels incredible so amazing so the biggest thing we did to you know move the needle was we sold my truck that was our biggest

loan oh okay right right so i went from a very nice truck down to a $1,000 car. Oh. This was a little bit of an adjustment. Yeah. But since we've been debt-free and we've started saving money, we were able to upgrade me in a car and just go to a dealership and write them a check. Yeah. That feels good, too.

That's a completely different place to be, for sure. Very cool. So how far into the nine months before you decided to sell the truck? Well, that was our last debt. Oh, okay. We were pretty much on our way, and we were kind of just looking at how much longer do we want to be working the snowball versus how bad do we just want to be done with it so you were by then you're emotionally on board you're deep into it by then and you go okay let's flip this switch and be done

yes yeah lindsey more or less said we can take the time to pay it off, or if you want to sell it, we can sell it. Yeah. Yeah, very cool. Good for you, man. Well done, you guys. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Well, obviously the budget is very important, you know, telling your money what to do.

But a couple of other tactical things that I, or, you know, more realistic things that I found was when I go grocery shopping, this is actually advice from a friend who's also on your plan, is when I go grocery shopping to count down how much money we have in the grocery budget so that when I get to the register it's not a huge surprise that we don't have any money left. So that was very, very helpful. We did eat a lot of leftovers, so that helped, too. Yeah.

And lots of meals with my parents and the in-laws from them inviting us over. We didn't pass down any free meals, that's for sure. Yeah. Very cool. Well, good, you guys. Way to go. Congratulations. I'm very, very proud of you.

So did you have people cheering you on or people saying you were crazy? Yes, we had a pretty good support system while we were going through it. Obviously, Lindsay's sister and brother-in-law were the ones who introduced her and me to the program. And our family was great. I don't want to say they always necessarily understood exactly 100% what we were getting at, but they were very supportive nonetheless. They're very proud of us now, and we also have several friends who are working your baby steps

along with us, so that was very, very helpful too. Way to go, you guys. Very well done. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's Retire Inspired book for you. We want that to be the next chapter in your story it's signed by him that you become millionaires and outrageously generous as you go along okay

yeah looking forward to it proud of you guys Dan and Lindsay St. Louis Missouri $43,000 paid off in nine months making 60 to 89 to $89. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one, we're debt-free! Yeah! Oh, that's it, man. That's fun right there. Way to go, you guys.

Way to go. Very, very well done done i love it mike is with us in daytona beach hey mike how are you hey i'm doing great dave thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up hey i wanted to run this by you i'm 58 my wife is 57 we're almost debt free our debt our consumer debt is 21 000 on our cars and that's all we owe consumer-wise. We owe $44,000 on the house. But it's a private mortgage. It's got a balloon that's due January 1st.

I'm in a job where I'm paid a commission, and this month I'm going to make an extra $25,000. Next month I'm going to make an extra $10,000 to $15,000. Next month, I'm going to make an extra $10,000 to $15,000. And if I were to put that on our house, it will almost get us completely debt-free. And certainly, if we made our regular payments by the end of the year, we would then be the house would be out from under us. And I know that's going out of order with your baby steps, but my wife and I just wanted to run this by you. Do you feel it's okay to, in this situation, to reverse the baby steps? You've got to, or you're going to have a serious problem in January. Okay.

You don't have a choice. I mean, you've got a balloon, which, by the way, is a really bad idea to ever sign up for a balloon. They pop, man. I mean, if this hadn't come through, you would have been in a mess. If you couldn't get a mortgage, you lost your job in October, I mean, you could lose your home over this. So never, never do it.

Well, we lost our homes in the recession, so that's one of the reasons why we want to pay off the home before we tackle the last year. Yeah, but never sign a balloon again. They're dangerous. I'm never signing a mortgage again, Dave. Well, a balloon... We're not going to be dead after this. Yeah, a balloon puts crosshairs on your forehead, man.

It's a bad... You know, you're aiming a gun right at your head. Do not do that. So, yeah, you've got to clean it up. You've got this thing staring at you. Now, the individual that holds the note sold you the house how long ago? We bought it in 2009. He would extend it.

I mean, every payment spent on time, we paid ahead on the principal. That wasn't what I was asking. You bought it in 2009. It's more of a safety and security thing. No, no, I want it gone. We just don't ever want to lose a house again. I want it gone. I want it gone.

Here, let me ask you this. You said $25,000 and $15,000, right, were your bonuses? I'm on commission. I sell real estate. Okay, you've got two big commissions. What I'm thinking is if you call him up and say, if I pay this off six months early, would you discount it at all? Okay.

And he might discount it, and you just knock it out this summer with those lump sums put together you know you might get you a discount and save you some money uh that's one of the beauties of an owner carried note sometimes you can pull that off Ashley is in Miami. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Ashley, how can I help? Hi, Dave. It's an absolute pleasure to be speaking with you.

You too. What's up? So I currently have a situation where I'm set to start law school in a few months. Good. You too. What's up? I debt and I have a car that I'm still making payment sign and the rest is like medical bills. My current income though is like $15,000 because I just lost my full-time job not too long ago and my savings is already like depleted. So it kind of scares me because, you know, I don't know what to do, but it is my dream to be a lawyer and to own several businesses. And I was thinking about starting a business and seeing if that would probably help me to pay for the school because I don't really want to let that go. So I just wanted to know what you would say because I don't want to be a borrower anymore. I don't want to be in debt anymore.

You know, I just don't want to carry that kind of burden. And I want to be the first, you know, to do that for my family so that I can teach, you know, my kids to do the same. So you're your kids, you're married and have children. I don't have them yet. That's why I'm trying to get my life together now. Oh, I see. Okay. How old are you? Well, right now i'm about to be 28 in a few months as well okay what were you doing at your full-time job i was teaching teaching school yeah okay students and what were you making um so basically it was like almost 13 an hour okay so you weren't you weren't a full-time teacher. You were, like, on a contract or something?

Yes. Okay. And then so I had, like, two part-time, so it was a great... So do you have a teaching certificate that's your undergraduate degree? No, it was because once you already have a bachelor's, you can kind of teach here at certain institutions, and it's pretty easy, especially depending if it was something like mathematics or English or something like that. It's easy for you to get your certification.

I see. Okay. All right. Well, I think that you've got a couple different things going on here. You're saying, I want to go to law school. I don't have the money. How can I get the money? Or how can I do this or whatever and it's um right you know i think what you have to do is

break these things down when i've got a problem like that and this is a big challenge that's sitting in front of you you've got a lot of different things pulling at you you've got the old you got the old debt you've got the new law school cost in front of you and you've got living expenses in front of you as well right right and so the way i can the only way i can usually get at these things is begin to break them down into smaller parts and prioritize them um for instance i would say you know you're 43 thousand dollars or not 43 it's 13 and that's a car, right? So your $30,000 worth of student loan goes on deferral if you were in the school. So letting that sit there until you came out of law school, that wouldn't bother me.

Okay, and the car is like $11,000. Well, it's less now after this month. It's already like $11,000 literally. On the other hand, have you been accepted to law school? Yeah, yeah. Okay, which one? What does it cost? Okay, so I've been accepted to two already, and I'm still waiting to hear back from three more.

So on average, they're like $49,000 a month. Not a month. Like $49,000 a year. I'm sorry, not a month. A year. Okay. And it's three years long for the law, to get your juror's doctorate. Right, right.

Okay. So we're $150,000, give or take. Uh-huh. Okay. Plus, we need to eat during those three years. Right. And I needed the car because it's like a distance from my house, depending on, you know, unless I'm going to move to a place that's like 10 minutes away from the campus.

Are you renting? I don't really know. I would be renting if that's the case. Are you renting now? No, I'm not renting now. Okay. What's the home worth? Well, the home is in mine, so I am living with relatives.

Oh, okay. So pretty much how I compensate is through doing not only chores, but to run errands and everything like that to make it easier on the household person whose house it is. I think what you've got to do is say, I've got several options in front of me. One is I find some organization that wants to hire me as an attorney when i'm done and therefore will scholarship me through um that's very difficult to do but there are a few times i have heard of that happening and i have talked to people over the years many times who found ways to work their way through law school uh two is you do the

traditional thing and go 150150,000 in debt to become an attorney in addition to the debt that you have. And you're going to be working just to pay enough bills, I mean, just to buy food and so forth while you're doing the three years worth of school to do that. The third possibility, and that's not one I like, it's not one you like, it's why you called me. The third possibility is to get a really good paying job, really three of them, and put off law school and save like a crazy person and build up a really nice nest egg to go through. And that's probably going to mean you're two or three years out before you go to law school. And you can go that way.

The fourth possibility is you do something like the military, which will pay for it. But you're going to serve them as an attorney for a number of years following law school, just like if they pay for you to become a doctor, same situation. And they will do that. You can negotiate that with them. And so those are all possibilities and then you've just got to decide every one of those has a cost to it a personal cost and every one of them are tough there's not an easy none of those options i laid in front of you are easy and um so you've got to

just decide then which one of those you're going to do and how you're going to attack this problem. But I'm fresh out of Magic Wands to just wave it and say, oh, this is how you do it. You have a very tough challenge in front of you to start in the fall. I don't know how you're going to do that short of doing the normal routine, which is going deeply in debt, and it may take you a decade to recoup and to turn this around. It wouldn't be that unusual at all. So thanks for the call.

Sandy is with us in Bowling Green. Hi, Sandy. How are you? I'm fine. How are you doing, Mr. Ramsey? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yes. I have been listening to you, and I have actually heard you give advice a lot about getting out of debt.

And I just kind of want to give you an input. We have a home that we have a mortgage of $270,000. And we have about a $60,000 income after taxes. So I'm wanting to know what would be a good plan for me to try to budget that. I mean, we have four kids, and we're three at home now. Do you have any debt other than the home? No. Okay.

That's good news. Do you have your emergency fund in place? Yes. That's good news. You have your emergency fund in place? Yes. That's good news. Way to go. I went to a seminar in Nashville when I was 21, and you were there. And I heard you tell about the emergency fund, and I went home, and it took some time. Good.

But I went right to work, and it's always been there since then. How old are you now? I'm 36. Okay. That was 15'm 36. Okay. That was 15 years ago. Yeah. I've had a lot of life that happened since I married a daughter and everything. Good for you.

Okay. Good. Good. Well, so what we know is that over a period of years, if you peck away at something, you can peck your way through it, right? Right. You just did that. You just told me.

I had a lot of life happen and i still am debt free with an emergency fund in place by applying the basic knowledge that i got at a seminar it's what you told me so same thing's true for your mortgage um it's not going to happen fast you know your sixty thousand dollar income as opposed to a two hundred seventy thousand dollar outgo with a couple kids in there you've not got a ton of room in this budget. But if you'll do that written budget every month, getting on everydollar.com and get your budget loaded onto your computer or your iPhone or your Android, it's free,

and just be doing that budget with your husband every month. Sounds like you're married. You've got kids, you said. So, you know, every month we're laying this out. We're working together. We're working together. It may not be a lot that you're throwing at the mortgage extra, but you can begin to peck away at it, and you'll look up in a few years,

and the mortgage will be gone. It just takes time. So there's no magic theory to it. No magic pill to this. Actually, that's the theme of this entire segment. No magic pill. This is That's the, actually, that's the theme of this entire segment. No magic pill. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, it's Blake Thompson, senior executive producer for The Dave Ramsey Show.

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