The Ramsey Show - App - Getting a Mortgage When You Don't Have a Credit Score (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 3, 2019

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Starting point is 00:00:00 🎵 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.
Starting point is 00:00:47 Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Markel starts off this hour in Sacramento. Hi, Markel. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve.
Starting point is 00:01:02 What's up? Well, I have a question. Me and my wife currently make $65,000 a year in the ministry. We're music pastors. And we have no payments of any kind except for student loan debt. And so we've saved up $1,000, and we are on the EveryDollar app looking at where our money goes. And we met with a financial advisor from Primerica and looked at our student loans and determined that if we paid on them what they were owed, we'd be out of debt by the time we're 102 in 2085. So that's not going to work. But looking at what we've cut out of our budget,
Starting point is 00:01:47 we don't have cable, and we just don't have anything, we are only able to put about $2,000 a year extra toward our debt. And in order to be out of it in two years, we need to put $2,000 a month extra into our debt. So we're just not sure... What is your debt?
Starting point is 00:02:06 How much is your debt? It's all student loans. How much debt? How much debt? $65,000. Okay. All right. So if you make $65,000 a year and you can only pay $2,000 towards anything,
Starting point is 00:02:22 you have a spending problem still in your budget. Something's wrong with that. What is your rent? It's $1,700 a month. Okay. That's not too bad in Sacramento, but that is going to be more than a fourth of your take-home pay. Your rent's pretty rich. So that would be one thing you could cut, which, by the way,
Starting point is 00:02:48 if you cut that by $500 a month, that would be $6,000 a year. That gets us to $8,000 a year. We're starting to move in the right direction. This is the only debt you have. Yes, no credit card, no car payment, no medical bills no medical bills nothing else good good for you okay and how long have you been working with the every dollar budget and been working this plan um only for a couple of months maybe two or three months yeah that's what it sounded like okay and so usually what happens as you get moving along, you get more traction.
Starting point is 00:03:25 And both of you are in the music ministry at your church. Yes. Well, actually, she doesn't currently work. We had a premature baby about nine months ago. And so she is a stay-at-home mother, essentially, taking care of our three children. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. That makes sense. A preemie does need some extra care, for sure.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Yes. Is he doing okay? Yeah, she's great. Good. Absolutely wonderful. That's good. That's wonderful. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:58 Well, yes, you do need some extra income coming into the house, no doubt about that. And it doesn't sound like there's a lot that your wife is going to be able to do with that unless she found something she could do from home that would work and so forth. And then, you know, if you add $1,000 a month, that's another $12,000 to the equation. And you can make that delivering pizzas three or four nights a week pretty easy. 1500 a month and i don't want you to deliver pizzas i don't want you have to do any of this stuff but i don't want you in debt for 102 years either right and and two thousand dollars means there's just no wiggle room in this and so we've got to get we got to do some things to get some wiggle room in it and i'm not sure you're going to find a place that is $1,200 a month that you can move to anytime soon.
Starting point is 00:04:49 But your rent is eating up a lot of it. And that's not unusual for a Sacramento situation. I mean, you're in California. Yeah. But still, you don't get a pass on math just because you're in California. But that's where your money's going. That's why you're pinching. So we've got to try to get our expenses down and our income up and throw it at it as fast as you can.
Starting point is 00:05:11 I think you can get out of this debt faster than you're thinking. And, you know, the way you ran that math out there with that other guy, it sounded pretty hopeless. And that's just not the case. But the good news is you've recognized exactly where you are. You're just at the beginning of the journey. Keep fighting. Keep adjusting. Adjusting the income.
Starting point is 00:05:31 Adjusting the expenses. Adjusting the income. Adjusting the expenses. And every time you do that, you throw every dollar at this debt, and I think you'll get there. I don't know how long it's going to take you, because I don't know exactly what's going to happen in terms of those areas. But, you know, you might find a place you could live for $1,000 a month.
Starting point is 00:05:51 I don't know. All of a sudden, that changes everything, you know. So every little thing you can do like that changes the equation. And we are living like no one else, so later we can live like no one else. Because this thing's a monster looming over your head, and the dragon needs to be slayed. Elena is with us in Waldorf, Maryland. Hi, Elena. How are you?
Starting point is 00:06:14 Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I am calling about my job. I work for a big bank and have been in banking for more than 30 years. And I'm now starting to struggle with what I do on a daily basis in what I do as far as my personal Dave Ramsey. And so I work in a branch. So a lot of emphasis is on selling credit cards and selling loans to people, and I'm struggling with that. What should I do?
Starting point is 00:06:47 Well, obviously, that's where the income from the bank comes from. They sell debt. Exactly. I know that. And you know that after 30 years of being a banker. That's not a surprise to you. And you guys in the branches are some of the best salespeople on the planet. And it's really pretty much a high-pressure sale. I mean, you bring the screws to everybody that walks in the door.
Starting point is 00:07:09 That is your job to get people into this. And so you're starting to realize that's not good for people mind is I find a lot less pressure to push the debt products and to do what I would call more old-fashioned banking, which actually takes the consumer's well-being into play more than just looking at the consumer as a potential transaction. I find that as an old old school banker in the community banks and in the credit unions i almost never find it in a mega bank right and you're working for a mega bank yeah yeah they're they're gonna they become very and you didn't used to you know you've been in the business a long time so you know the difference of what I'm talking about.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Yes, I do. The hometown community bank that will not loan the kid the money because they know that's going to bankrupt him. Yes. And they actually care about the human being. And they do loan money. They do have credit cards. They do make car loans, which I personally wouldn't do. But it's a whole different thing when you do it with ethics and with a sense of taking the consumer's well-being at heart instead of just loading everyone as heavy as we can load them.
Starting point is 00:08:35 Make more bricks. You'll get less straw. Make more bricks. I don't blame you. I'd be worried with that, too. 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.
Starting point is 00:09:09 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. Don't fall into the trap of offering more money just to compensate for a poor plan. Call Churchill Mortgage today and get certified. Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement.
Starting point is 00:09:46 NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. If you didn't know, we have a private Facebook group called The Ramsey Baby Steps Community. The Ramsey Baby Steps Community.
Starting point is 00:10:36 So check it out. It is booming. There's a bunch of people in there. The Ramsey Baby Steps community. It's the official, sanctioned, trademarked. Not really. But, you know, you can get there. Now, Kim Little is one of our Ramsey team members here, and she does a great job watching over that community,
Starting point is 00:11:01 making sure folks are behaving and, you know, throwing out the trolls and that kind of stuff. And, you know, she also jumps in and interacts and answers a few questions here or there. She's one of our coaches here. And she told me a while ago during the break that she put out, if you have paid off debt during the month of March, tell me how much. And just, you know, there's 100,000 folks in there or something. Not all of them responded, but a bunch of people responded. In that one community, $9.3 million worth of debt paid off in March.
Starting point is 00:11:37 Wow. That's pretty cool. Well, maybe you ought to look into it. You can jump in there. It doesn't cost anything. It's a Facebook group, private Facebook group. You have to ask to be admitted, and you ought to look into it. You can jump in there. It doesn't cost anything. It's a Facebook group, private Facebook group. You have to ask to be admitted, and you will be, and you will be booted if you misbehave. So go in there and be nice and help people, encourage and answer questions and, you know, be social.
Starting point is 00:11:56 That's what we do on social media. Trolls are not social. Well, we always tell you that your income is your greatest wealth-building tool. And the millionaire study that we did for the Everyday Millionaires book with Chris Hogan revealed that 96% of millionaires love their careers. Wow. Your income comes from a job you love. Now, the brand-new book, Proximity Principle, that is coming out in May,
Starting point is 00:12:29 it's on presale right now by Ramsey personality Ken Coleman, the proven strategy that will lead you to the career you love, will show you how to get the dream job. And Ken Coleman is our trusted voice on careers. He does a show on SiriusXM and a podcast called The Ken Coleman Show. Every day answering questions just like me, except they're not just like me. They're career questions and how to get that career you love. Never been a better time to find that perfect job.
Starting point is 00:12:57 There's more jobs available right now than people who are unemployed. We have a negative unemployment in the nation right now. Yeah, pretty incredible. Yeah, you can preorder the Proximity Principle today for $19.99 and get $20 in free bonus items. We'll throw in the e-book version, and we'll throw in a video lesson from Ken called Discover What You Were Born to Do.
Starting point is 00:13:18 You can get the Proximity Principle preordered with the $20 worth of bonus items for only $19.99 at DaveRamsey.com in our store there. Or KenColeman.com in his store. Or you can call the Ramsey Concierge team at 888-22-PIECE. And they'll talk to you on the phone and do it. 888-227-3223. Philamone is with us in Phoenix. Hi, Philamone.
Starting point is 00:13:44 How can we help? Hello, Dave. My wife and I purchased a vehicle, and the dealership offered a lifetime warranty, and we took it. I was wondering if we should just cancel it. Yes. You're saying don't. Okay. Well, that seems simple.
Starting point is 00:14:03 Yeah. Let's talk about why, okay? Okay. Well, that seems simple. Let's talk about why, okay? Okay. Anytime you want to get into the insurance business, let's pretend you and I were going to get in the insurance business. Whatever we're going to insure, we have to get the statistical cost of insuring it, the probability of the event occurring, right? So what kind of car are you driving? Tell me about your car. It's a SEL Premium Tiguan.
Starting point is 00:14:29 Okay. And so if we look at that, that's a sweet car. If we look at 1,000 of those cars and we're going to cover the car for X, Y, and Z repairs, we would say on average 1,000 of those with X, Y, and Z repairs is going to cost us whatever number of dollars per car per year in claims right okay and that's going to be our cost of providing the warranty if we open a warranty company right or an insurance company if you're going to cover a thousand 46 yearold men that weigh a certain amount at a certain height and don't smoke, you know that on average a certain number of those are going to die
Starting point is 00:15:14 if you're going to cover them for life insurance. That's a statistical fact, okay? It's called an actuarial table. And we take that table and we say, so how many out of the 1,000 are going to die? Well, three are going to die, and the average claim is $100,000 apiece. So it costs $300,000 in cost to cover 1,000 46-year-olds. And you just divide it out, and I can tell what it costs me per 46-year-old to cover it, or I can tell what it costs me per S sel car that i'm going to insure against a
Starting point is 00:15:46 repair right yes okay now if i'm in the insurance business and your car dealer is or the extended warranty company is that we've opened then in addition to that cost we would need to charge the guy who's buying the policy more because we want to make a profit. And we got to cover our expenses because we got to buy rent and secretaries and computers to run our company. Right. Overhead. Yeah. And in this case, we probably are going to pay that car dealer a commission per warranty that they sell.
Starting point is 00:16:26 Okay? Now, here's the actual statistics on the extended warranty on a car. 12% of what you paid covers the probability of breakdown. 88% went to profit overhead, and most of that 88% went to your dealer. The dealer probably got paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of what you paid as a commission. But I would have to go back to what you say about peace of mind with life insurance policies, you know, leaving it over. No, it's not peace of mind. You're not buying peace of mind.
Starting point is 00:17:08 You're transferring risk you cannot carry yourself. You don't have the mathematical ability to carry the, you don't have enough wealth to cover your family if you die, and so you transfer the risk because you can't carry it yourself.
Starting point is 00:17:20 And so in this case, you can carry the risk of repairing your car. And it's not peace of mind in other words you are paying 10 times more for this warranty than your car is going to break down on average 10 times that's a risk you take yourself we don't use it for anything risky either i mean the money is what i'm saying and the cost of that warranty you paid 10 times more than it is going then you're going to benefit on average because 12 went to the actual statistical chances of breaking down and so that's why we don't do any extended warranties on anything. They are heavily based on commission and on profit,
Starting point is 00:18:10 and very little of it is actual statistical coverage that you're going to benefit from on average. The business is front-loaded, big time. So I don't do any extended warranties. You do whatever you want, but you called me, and that's what I would tell you to do. I'd cancel it immediately. Thank you for the call.
Starting point is 00:18:29 Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thanks for joining me. Aaron's on Twitter. Dave, when it comes time to baby step five for the kids' college, should we skip that until we have kids? Yes. You don't save money for people that aren't there. When you have kids, you have plenty of time to start saving for college, but we don't start saving for college for people that
Starting point is 00:18:51 aren't there yet. We started our kids' college, our grandbabies' college, when they were born, and you really can't open an ESA or a 529 for someone until you have a social security number, and you can't get that until they're born. So that's the other thing. Technically speaking, it's very difficult, but you don't need to worry about it. College for somebody who's not here yet. So we'll get there.
Starting point is 00:19:16 You've got plenty of time. It's a good question, and I'm glad you're thinking way ahead, but there we go. 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 healthcare costs.
Starting point is 00:20:09 Christian Healthcare 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 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.
Starting point is 00:20:46 chministries.org. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Jan is with us from Portland, Maine. Hey, Jan, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? I'm better than I deserve. Portland, Maine's a bit of a trip. It sure is. We flew in last night and we fly out tomorrow morning.
Starting point is 00:21:17 Wow. Well, thank you for making the trip. All the way down here to do a debt-free scream. Yes, sir. Cool. And who's this with you? This is my daughter, Sarah. Hey, Sarah, welcome. Good to have you. Cool. And who's this with you? This is my daughter, Sarah. Hey, Sarah.
Starting point is 00:21:25 Welcome. Good to have you. Very cool. So how much have you paid off? $152,341.55. Love it. And how long did this take? It took six years and three months.
Starting point is 00:21:38 Oh, wow. Okay. And your range of income during that time? I started at $84,000 and I ended last year at $240,000. Whoa! What do you do for a living? I'm a healthcare IT consultant. Wow, you're killing it.
Starting point is 00:21:52 Way to go. So I hear a story from my team that apparently I answered an email two years ago and you were listening. Yes. And you heard the answer. Yes. Let's play that clip. It's fairly short. I want to hear what we said. Today's question comes from Jan in Boston. I took a new job four months ago that is not a good fit.
Starting point is 00:22:15 However, I have the opportunity to move to another job that will double my income. I'm not a job hopper. How long should I try to stick it out, the new job, from a moral standpoint? You're not a job hopper and you don't have to worry about that. You know, you went in there. It's not a good fit. It's not a good fit. Well, hopefully your new position that doubles your income will be a good fit. I don't think you have a moral obligation to stay in something that's a bad fit.
Starting point is 00:22:39 No. And that's not especially when you have a better opportunity sitting right there in front of you. Well, that was easy. It was. It was so easy, but it was so hard making the decision. So I was pretty excited to have you. How long after I answered that did you quit? I called and spoke with them the next morning, but I gave them three weeks like you suggested.
Starting point is 00:22:57 Yeah, okay. Yes. All right. So we didn't play the whole clip in there. I said give them three weeks and all that. Yeah. They edited it down. Okay, cool.
Starting point is 00:23:03 Good. Yes. And then on the way to 240. On the way to 240. Pretty amazing. That's an incredible income. Yeah, and it won't be forever. It's a consulting job where I get to travel and I get to have a lot of fun.
Starting point is 00:23:18 And you'll get to see some great pictures of some traveling that I get to do on the weekends as well. But it will allow me the opportunity to then go back home and work close by and be close to family and do some more serving. Okay. So it sounds like 84 was most of the six years. It was a lot of it. It was three to three and a half. And then I made that quick jump and realized very quickly that it was not a good fit for me.
Starting point is 00:23:43 And that's when my salary really jumped. So what kind of debt was the 152? It was a couple of credit cards, about just under $3,000 on that, about $5,000 on a car. I had a HELOC in the amount of $53,000 and some change, and then $91,000 on my mortgage. How much of the 152 was paid in the last two years? Oh, just roughly. Probably close to 100. Okay. And there was a lot of cash flowing. I also cash flowed $28,000 worth of undergrad. And so Sarah just graduated in May of last year, debt-free as well. Love it. What's your degree in, Sarah? Biology, minor in chemistry. Great. Way to go. Good very cool so you did it i did it single mom
Starting point is 00:24:27 yep busting it yeah 152 000 how's it feel it's amazing it's amazing um and when you count up the the funding of the fully funded emergency fund and the cash flowing of school it it wound up being we were just reflecting on it here in the crowd, it winds up being somewhere around $180,000 or $190,000, which is pretty surreal. Yeah. It's a lot of money. It's pretty amazing. That's very cool.
Starting point is 00:24:54 So what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt and getting control of this is? There are a few. You have to do a budget every month. If you don't do a budget for the month, you lose money. It gets away from you. If you're single, whether you're a single guy or a single gal, having an accountability partner, at least for the first couple of years while you're getting… Who was yours? Sarah was.
Starting point is 00:25:15 Oh, okay. Because she was 16 when we first started, and we were looking at colleges, and I had not heard of you and I was thinking oh my gosh with all this debt and I'm going to have to take on another hundred thousand dollars in college debt or saddle her with it and so she was my accountability partner and that's like mom you gotta get out of this exactly exactly and you only spent 28 grand exactly yes um her dad helped with the other half of that and so we cash flowed it together. And Sarah actually worked hard during the summer and put money towards it as well. So it was a group effort. And I chose a school we could afford.
Starting point is 00:25:52 Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Instead of $100, it was more like $50. Yes, lots of scholarships, worked very hard during the summer, just like you say, and we got all that done. So budget is important, accountability partner. And if you have the opportunity to go through FPU, it changed our lives. If we had not gone through it, we would still be in debt by $150,000 and probably another $100,000 more. So what about that lifted you out? It was, I have been a single mom since Sarah was a toddler, and so I've always done my own budget,
Starting point is 00:26:23 but not well. I've not been my own budget, but not well. I've not been a spender, but I didn't have the skill set that I needed, and I had read a couple of books, but I just kind of relied on out-earning my sloppiness. And so FPU, when they first announced it at church, I'd never heard of it, and the small piece that they announced during church, I heard help with college, and my ears perked up. And so that's why we went. I thought, well, maybe we can figure out what to do about college. But it was the practical piece of here's how you do your budget. You can't spend more than you make.
Starting point is 00:26:57 Everything has to go somewhere so that you get to zero. Just that very simple roadmap was all that I needed to turn it all around. Perfect. Very well done. Great job. Great job. So Sarah was your biggest cheerleader. Yes.
Starting point is 00:27:11 And that's the methodology. Well, we're proud of you. Thank you so much. Well done. Thank you. Well done. And it sounds like the career has just gone absolutely bananas. I have been so fortunate.
Starting point is 00:27:22 I'm going to need to take over Ken Coleman's job on career stuff here. There we go. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you. Every Day Millionaires. You're on your way. You're going to be one of those. No doubt about it. With this kind of income and no debt and the ability to control it and tell it what to do. Yes. I mean, you got control of one of life's
Starting point is 00:27:39 most difficult things. Very well done. Proud of you. Good stuff. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. All right. It's Jan and Sarah from Portland, Maine. A mother-daughter duo here. $152,000 paid off in six years and three months, making $84,000 to $240,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.
Starting point is 00:28:03 We're debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Love it. Woo. Yes. Man, well done, you guys. Very, very, very well done. Absolutely fabulous. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com the number one online retailer of
Starting point is 00:28:27 custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos every month you save money use the promo code it's magic ramsey it's a magic word heather is in iowa with our question she says one of our vehicles quit running. We owe $16,000. It's worth $2,600. Talk about stupid tax. Cost to fix it, $4,000. Our only option is to fix it.
Starting point is 00:28:55 This makes me want to reverse my snowball, get this truck paid down before the next $4,000 repair happens so we can move on from this truck. What do I do? Well, it's not worth $2,600 and you owe $16,000 on it after it's repaired. And so if you're talking about because it's got a major repair, number one, you get two or three, on a repair that size,
Starting point is 00:29:26 you get two or three opinions of how you can fix it. And we're just trying to get the thing running so we can get it sold. And so if you spend $2,000 on it, and it takes it from a $2,600 value up to probably a $10,000 value, which is probably more realistic, I think there's some drama in this email because these numbers just don't convert to reality very often. So, yeah, I think you fix it as cheaply as you can, and then you sell it as quickly as you can. And that's what you do.
Starting point is 00:30:01 And that gets rid of it as fast as you possibly can. No, we don't keep this truck around. This thing's a problem child. Hey, thank you for the email. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our Scripture of the day, James 125, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.
Starting point is 00:31:23 John Maxwell says, the pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. That's the difference. John Maxwell, probably one of the best leadership teachers in the last 50 years or so in America. Absolutely incredible. John is with us in San Antonio. teachers in the last 50 years or so in America. Absolutely incredible. John is with us in San Antonio.
Starting point is 00:31:51 Hey, John, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for having me, Dave. Certainly. How can I help? Well, I'm a new listener. My wife's been a longtime fan, and she convinced me to listen to your show, and I've been really enjoying it. Good, thanks. Yeah, you're welcome.
Starting point is 00:32:04 And I'm curious about something that you've probably covered to your longtime listeners' notice, but I haven't heard you cover it yet. Of course, I understand that don't go with credit cards, don't take out loans, go as debt-free as you possibly can,
Starting point is 00:32:17 and obviously get there as quickly as you can. My curiosity is most of us can't afford to buy a home cash, so we're going to have to get a mortgage at some point, although we can try to accelerate the payment of it. We need to get it to get into our home.
Starting point is 00:32:30 How do we get it with the best rate if I didn't get any credit to increase my credit score so I can get the lowest rate on my mortgage to begin with? Well, you do not want to be in no man's land, meaning have a low credit score. That's no man's land in the middle you either want to have an excellent credit score which means you've continually borrowed money and stayed in debt it's the only way to have one and um or you need to have a zero credit score which is what i have and your credit score is indeterminable because you've had no open accounts of any kind, no outstanding balances or outstanding bad debt of any kind for six to eight months. And at that point, they will drop your score to zero.
Starting point is 00:33:13 That's been our experience with the FICO calculation. And that's where you want to get to. That's where I've been for 30 years. I don't have a credit score. Now, so to answer your question, then how do you get a mortgage with no credit score? Well, a large percentage of the mortgage companies don't know how to do a loan without a credit score. So they're just going to tell you you can't do it, which is not true. But you can go to someone like Churchill Mortgage who actually knows how to do a mortgage without a credit score. It's called manual underwriting, and they want to know and proof that you've been employed for two years and that you have proof of your income from an income tax return, showing your down payment in a bank, proof of deposit, a VOD it's called,
Starting point is 00:34:01 a verification of deposit, a VOD, a verification of employment or self-employment for two years with the tax returns to prove it, what your income is. And it's actually, I got my real estate license, John, in 1978 when I was 18 years old, so I'm 58 now. And back then, that's how we did mortgages. It was actual underwriting. You actually underwrote the mortgage you verified the deposit you verified the employment you verified the uh you know the the payment with the landlord you've been paying your landlord earlier on time and you basically did a real underwriting nowadays they just look at a number the fico score and a monkey can make a loan you know it's like
Starting point is 00:34:45 the loan's big enough oh number's not big enough oh number's too big i'm not or you know that kind of thing and so uh it's dumbed down the mortgage business to where they don't do real underwriting anymore and it gets the mortgage business in trouble like in 2008 that's how they got in trouble but anyway aside from that the way your practical answer is you go to someone like churchill and if you have, you know, you're steady on your employment, you got the reasonable down payment, you paid your landlord earlier on time, you can prove those things without a credit bureau report
Starting point is 00:35:15 and with a zero credit score, then you're going to be able to get a manually underwritten loan, and it is exactly the same interest rate on a Fannie Mae loan. It's perfectly fine. But the FICO score is under attack now because people are realizing it is not all it's cracked up to be as a predictor for your ability to pay the mortgage. And it's got, again, people that have relied solely on that to make their lending decisions have gotten themselves in trouble with their institutions.
Starting point is 00:35:53 Lydia is with us in Cincinnati. Hi, Lydia. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my husband and I have been in Baby Step 2 for a long time,
Starting point is 00:36:06 but last week we kind of caught the vision of what it might be like if we went with gazelle intensity, so we've been making a lot of changes. But we're still having a disagreement. My husband wants to keep contributing to his 401K since it's matching, and he feels we have enough motivation and that it's it's leaving money on the table and i know you say to stop contributing when we're in baby step two so i was hoping that you could explain why so i could take that to him okay um well the first thing is that 100 of the time in life if you're going to win at something, it's because you focus on it.
Starting point is 00:36:48 And the more exclusively you focus on it, the higher probability you win. And so how long have you guys been married? 11 years. Okay. And it's not that long ago, so you guys should be able to remember when you were dating. Yeah. And there was that point when you were dating when the bubble tilted and it went from, oh, this is fun, to I think I'm in love, we're going to get married. You know what I'm talking about?
Starting point is 00:37:21 Yeah. And that happened because somewhere just before that, he decided to focus very exclusively on you, and neither one of you could think about anything else. And the result is you got married. The result is your love affair blossomed and you got married. You win at what you focus on. No one wakes up and goes and runs a marathon or a half marathon, for that matter, without having trained. Now, there are people that might do it, but it would be suicidal.
Starting point is 00:37:56 I mean, you would be so sore and you would wreck your body, right? It just would be ridiculous and obviously the more you train and the more carefully you handle things like nutrition and repetition and the quality of shoes and so on the better your time is going to be and if you're going to win a marathon or a half marathon or an iron man it requires complete and total dedication you really don't think about hardly anything else. Getting out of debt's the same way. And so your husband's trying to do two things at once. And a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Starting point is 00:38:34 That's a squirrel in the street. Run back, back, back, back, back, back, back, bump, bump. Can't make up his mind and can't get to one side of the street or the other. You got to make up your mind. And so the power of focus supersedes what little bit you're going to lose by losing that match for this short period of time while you get baby step two knocked out. The success all comes from the power of focus and the gazelle intensity.
Starting point is 00:38:57 And you can't be double-minded. You can't have two things you're trying to focus on at once and have the success level. Is it possible to get out of that yeah it's possible to run a marathon it's possible to get married without complete focus on the other but you raise your probability of success when you focus exclusively on winning and that's what this is. So that's why we found this to be true. I understand his need to want to get that match. It's mathematical blasphemy to suggest that you don't take the match for a short period of time. It's very hard for those of us that are nerds.
Starting point is 00:39:36 I'm a nerd. I speak math, and he does too. And I understand how it's breaking his little heart. But it's his plan that has gotten you to where you are now. So we probably need a different plan than his plan. And that's the sarcasm icing on the cupcake. Not really sarcasm. It was just the mean part.
Starting point is 00:40:07 So don't argue with your personal trainer when your personal trainer has an eight-pack and you have a keg. That's the moral of the story. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey guys, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for The Dave Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:40:39 This hour's over, but you can find more great content on our YouTube channel. Catch the most watched Dave Rantz, debt-free screams, and the very popular Everyday Millionaire segment. Go to the Dave Rantz Show YouTube channel and click subscribe.

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