The Ramsey Show - App - Having Financial Peace During a Tragedy (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Financial peace after a hurricane, Hiring people to grow a business, Making progress when you're behind on your utilities, Getting on the same page with a spouse. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's the 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they actually love, and create amazing relationships. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. So last week I was off for the entire week. We were doing an Entree Leadership Master Series where we were teaching leadership to small business people. We had just under a thousand folks in attendance at that. It's usually a fairly small event like that, and this one was. And I got to spend a lot of time with small business people, and of course, man, I was off the air during the time the hurricane hits Florida. So a little late to the game on this old news. But prayers to those of you that are waiting through what you're waiting through there. I'm sorry for you.

And I am, Christina, getting some interesting e-mails into our e at just at the ramsey uh uh concierge we call it a ramsey uh customer area and uh the number of people that are sending an email going i don't know exactly what i'm going to find when i get back down there i just read one a minute ago i said basically this i don't know what i'm fine when i get back to my house um but i do know this i'm 100 dead free house and everything I've got flood insurance um we're safe we're fine we left got out we're going back and there's no U-Haul trucks following a hearse so you're not taking it with you anyway so whatever stuff is stuff is stuff is torn up we're gonna fix it and uh it's a way different email or emotional state to be in

if you are prepared for something like this financially. Yeah. We actually had people come to the lobby last week who were running from the hurricane and came and stopped in here to visit us and kind of heard that sentiment of like, wow, this is awful. I don't know what I'm going to go back to, but I have peace in my finances and peace in my home because I'm not actually stressed about a lack of preparedness. Yeah, because we've been since, I don't know, Katrina, really, we've been pounding on flood insurance for those that are within range of a storm surge because we discovered during Katrina that when State Farm took them all the way to the state Supreme Court to make sure that they didn't pay for their house being torn down because it was a flood, not a hurricane.

Ouch. Although the flood was caused by a hurricane. I'm still pissed about this years later. But anyway, so they've separated the two successfully in the insurance industry now. So you better make sure you've got flood insurance if you're within a storm surge because that's the thing. So we've been hitting that hard, and, of course, we've been hitting hard being debt-free and having an emergency fund and having your finances in order.

Be the third pig in the three little pigs, the one with the brick house, not YOLO pig. You only live once with the straw house because the big bad wolf will huff and puff, and the metaphor really plays here. Yolo pig. Yeah, for real. Ian the wolf, right? Right. Huffed and he puffed and he blew their house down.

Oh, my God, for real. That's really awful. I'm going to use that now. Yolo pig. Yeah. Don't be Yolo pig. Don't be Yolo pig. Be the third pig.

And so our hearts go out to all of you that have been affected in Florida, and our prayers go out to you. You've certainly been in all of the nation's thoughts and prayers through this period of time, and the good news is literally hundreds of thousands of people are on their way to help, and people are doing all kinds of things. Americans don't make the news for being who they are always, but who Americans are is unbelievably generous and unbelievably good to people who are in trouble. And so the number of people putting up electric lines down there right now that are not from Florida is in the tens of thousands of people

came with bucket trucks from other states. Wow. And so to help put florida back together again and um and as it should be you know as it should be you ought to you ought to you know the neighbor's barn burns down everybody i gather up and build them a barn i like that yeah uh that's generosity that's not socialism there's a difference and so um people being good to each other is always a good thing so you guys in florida we love you uh we're thinking about you and um you know all of us all over america have friends we've been checking in with and wondering what was going on uh pete young one of our top leaders here his mom and dad and brother are all in in uh tampa

st pete so we're checking minute by minute because he was working on a live event with us this week up here. And, you know, everybody, we were all just checking in with everybody and all that. So the point is you don't know when the big bad wolf is going to come or what form he takes. He might be a quarantine. He might be a, you know, he might be your company goes broke and you didn't know anything about it and you get laid off tomorrow. He might be gas doubles at the gas pump. And all of a sudden, there's a Biden sticker on there. I did it. I did that. You know, I mean, there's always something, right? There's something happening. And so being prepared is your only option. And it's not just sitting

around being prepared for bad things it also actually positions you to prosper in good times when things are going right for you so the stuff that we teach here it's for everyone if you're looking for snotty phd level finance class you're going to be disappointed here because the only PhD around here is John Deloney and me. I have a PhD in D-U-M-B. If you've done stupid, I've done it bigger. So I got you beat. So I'll call you stupid and me stupid at the same time, and we'll just be stupid together for a little bit.

And then we won't be stupid anymore, and we'll move on. That's what we do. It's called learning, right? And so we've all screwed up. You know, if you've made mistakes with money, that makes you over 12. There you go. Everybody has. And so this is the show for you. This is the place for you. Ramsey is the place for you. We do not exist for people that think you need a master's in finance to win with money. We have lots of data that indicates

it has nothing to do with it. Yep. Well, and I feel like now we're in this culture where everybody wants to have the secret. They want to have the hidden secret to survive a recession. It is hidden secret, and there's not really a secret.

Five things to do to survive inflation. Yeah. Five things you should do if there is no inflation. Oh, they're the same things. Who knew? Common sense. Yeah. Five things you should do if there is no inflation. Oh, they're the same things. Who knew? Common sense. Wow. Be generous.

Live on less than you make. Be on a budget. Get out of debt. Save and invest. Oh, be there as a plan. Get out. You know, these are things

that work every time. And they come from, you know, grandma or in some of your cases, great grandma. I used to say God's and grandma's ways of handling things.

Some of you are young enough that your grandma was stupid. So, you know, we need to go great-grandma for some of you, but to go back and find common sense in our culture. But it's there, and it's real, and we're here to help you with it. So you call in. We'll walk with you on your money stuff and on your relationship stuff and on your career stuff. They all work together.

And at Ramsey, we've got a Dr. John Deloney. We've got a ken coleman and we've got all the rest of us working on the money stuff and so we'll weave all that together and make sure you get a good answer and it'll always be on a shelf that you can reach the cookies i put the cookies down low i like cookies and i want to be able to reach them and i'm just not that tall so we want to put the cookies on a shelf where everyone can reach them and if that insults your intelligence then it's okay move along and hang out with the intelligent people we'll just be regular people with a big pile of money this is the ramsey show We'll be right back. christine ellis ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones here at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talking off debt is smart. Saving and investing is smart. But there's one key to winning with money that people overlook,

and that is protecting your finances from emergencies. This is where the right kinds of insurance come into play. There's 10 kinds of insurance coverage you might need. The rest of them you probably don't need. And we built a tool called the Coverage Checkup to show you which types you need to add, drop, or adjust. We'll even rank your coverage list by importance, email it to you, connect you with a Ramsey-trusted insurance provider.

All this is free. It could be the most important five minutes you spend. Donald wrote in and said, for anyone who has not completed the checkup, do it right now. You never know when something will happen, and you never want to leave your family in a bad situation. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. That's RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. Nick starts off this hour in Minneapolis.

Hi, Nick. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up? Well, brace for impact here. I have a residential and commercial cleaning business that I run solo.

So no employees. And like, I just, I work a crazy amount of hours. Like a busy week, I'll do nine to three and then go back out and work from like seven to 11. So I know it's time to start hiring. Like that's the only way I'm going to scale it. But, you know know i just have some concerns that probably any other business owner would have and that's like the quality of my replacements like the consistency of work just because of the industry that i'm in like there's

a lot of changes in my clients particularly the houses and then like the extra cost of the software and just the legalities and just all this stuff and i'm just trying to get out of this rut because i i should have probably hired like two years ago and i'm really to the point that i'm just like burned out you know you're gonna fry out what you're doing is not sustainable you've got to get some help or you gotta or you gotta raise your prices and lower the number of clients one of the two so yeah so man hiring is very difficult because there's all this mythology around it. Number one, the labor market is real tough right now. So it's hard to get people right now to do anything.

Most businesses are struggling. The people we spent time with last week, entree leaders, the number one thing they're struggling with is getting good people right now. It's always been hard to get good people. Right now it's extra special tough. So that being said, here's what you're looking for. You've got to go slow enough to get the right people.

Okay? Don't bring on the wrong people because you get desperate. And you're late to the party, so you need to get with it. But you need to spend enough time. One interview won't do it. you've got to interview them more than one time at a minimum of four times you ought to sit down with them separate times to

figure out what kind of a person that you're going to lend your name to because everyone that works for you is in marketing because if they screw up something the customer is going to tell everybody that your whole business is a screw up if they do something if they do something right there your customer is going to tell everybody that your whole business is great and so with a thousand folks on plus almost 1100 people on the ramsey team if one of them screws up and i may not even know them but it doesn't matter they all go that day ramsey you know immediately i get blamed which is i mean that's what i signed up for so i'm not i'm not bitching about it but that's what you're signing up for so not delegating to someone who you aren't comfortable with you hire them first and you haven't trained them yet you can't

just hand them the keys to the kingdom and walk away and oh no i don't want to be a control freak that's not a control freak that's called training because you're turning over your reputation to these people and so the the rule on delegation is this and it's in the book entre leadership i'll send you a copy of it it's easy to delegate to christina when she goes on a major television program and answers questions on behalf of her and on behalf of ramsey on say fox news i can delegate that to christina she's sitting beside me i can delegate that because i can trust two things about her that i know that i know that i know because we've spent enough time together training we've spent enough time together to get to know each other and here's the two things I know I can trust her competency she can answer the question correctly with a smile her on camera ability is

excellent the camera likes her she likes the camera that's why she's on there more often than I am and so that you know and i can trust her integrity she's going to do the right thing if someone corners her in an adversarial interview on camera she's still going to do the right thing she's going to be sweeter about it than i would but she's still going to do the right thing and so when you can trust their integrity and their competency they are trained to be able to turn something over to them when you can trust their integrity and their competency, they are trained to be able to turn something over to them and you can still sleep at night. And that's not being a micromanager. That's called being a wise business owner. That's good. Well, in this market with so much

competition for jobs and a lot of employers struggling to find employees, how can a small business like Nick's stand out and get high quality people who have integrity? Well, number one, you're going to have to pay them well. Not overpay them, but you cannot be at the bottom shelf. You're going to get what you pay for in that sense. Number two, you've got to give them the dignity of speaking into their destiny and into the destiny of the whole company. And so everyone at Ramsey's always talking to each other and to me and everybody in the whole place about how we can all get better we're all trying to figure out which play to win to run to win the Super Bowl and we argue about it

no I think we ought to throw it no I think we ought to run it no I think we ought to run at the left I think we ought to run at the right I don't care I mean we're always arguing but we're arguing about one thing how do we score and win a Super Bowl and so you got to get people involved with their dignity and that kind of thing the second the last thing and i told these small business owners this last week working for corporate america sucks even if you make more money you're treated like a freaking number and they will throw your butt in the street at the first sign of a stock downturn you'll be the first one thrown out of there so oh that guy makes a lot of money dump him that guy makes a lot of money dump them corporate america has no soul it's a transaction when you're running a small family business you're working with the owner or right beside the owner

or you see the owner quite often you know you have an advantage because you actually treat people like people it's just your nature and people would lot rather work for a small business assuming the pay is reasonable because the environment is a thousand times better than corporate stupid butt america that's lost its mind i'm telling you man you don't want to work over there and people people sometimes leave here and go to work over there and they'll call me up dave i made a huge mistake yes you did yes you did well i know here a lot of people love the culture working at ramsey that's one of the big things that people talk about people love just the environment here the people who are here and that's exciting but i think a lot of small business owners you know when they're first hiring they're not thinking about setting an intentional culture which it's important from

day one it's important from employee number one yeah but i figured out with our first like 10 employees we didn't have you know what our benefits were your check cleared that was our benefits package your check was good you know that we had no benefits the benefit was you got paid and it actually went into the bank and everything shut up you know and so you know if you want some health insurance go get you some this was before it was required you know if you want some of this go get you some uh you know you don't have that no i don't have that i don't even what that is you want time off try making some bunch of money so you can get some time off and so you know this is uh uh this is how we started and so we didn't have any we couldn't compete and we still don't try to compete head-on with the corporate america benefits package if you want a benefits

package then you're probably not a Ramsey team member. We've got great benefits nowadays, but you come here for other stuff. You can get more bennies somewhere else. But you're good to your people from day one and from the get-go. There's a human transaction. Right. That's your brand advantage. That's what we told people in the other days.

We've got no benefits. Your check clears. That's your only benefit. But guess what? We're working on something that matters, and we're working on this crusade to help people change their lives and change their family trees if you want to be part of something that's big and it's moving this is where it's going to be and we'll always share with you if we make some money but we'll also share with you if we're starving to death yep and i think that's how

you have people like in staff meeting this morning we celebrated somebody who had who's been here for 20 years and i feel like we're often celebrating people who've been here from the beginning. Yeah. And they just love the humans. They love, you know, serving on this crusade with you because you've been awesome to them. Well, it's, you treat people like people treat people right. Instead of treating them like a transaction, like a robot. They're not a unit of production.

I mean, you know, people have kids and grandkids and the dog is sick and there's, you know, they have lives and you actually can treat them like that if you're a small business and that's your brand advantage when you're hiring. That's what you're looking for, Nick. And, but then just make sure you're delegating to people you can trust their competency and their integrity. Hold on, we'll get you a copy of the Entree Leadership Book and send it out to you. Christina Ellis Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. And by the way, drop by and see us if you're out and about. We're just south of Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee, one of the best towns in the world. We're right down here in the Ramsey headquarters are here and you can come in and visit the lobby.

There's free coffee and homemade cookies and all kinds of stuff to see and do, including the debt-free stage where Ryan is standing. Hey, Ryan, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Honored to be here, sir. Good to have you, brother. Where do you live? Pentwater, Michigan. It's about an hour and a half north of Grand Rapids, right on Lake Michigan. Oh, yeah. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. All right. And here to do a debt-free scream, how much did you pay off? Just over $103,000. Good. And your range of income, or-free scream, how much did you pay off? Just over $103,000.

Good. And your range of income, or I'm sorry, how long did that take? 36 months. 36 months. And your range of income through those three years? I started at like $110,000, and this year it'll probably be close to $128,000. Good. What do you do for a living, man?

I'm a feeder driver for UPS. Drive semi-truck. Wow. Good for you. Well, you're working a lot of hours. Good for you, man. All right. So $10 103,000

of what kind of debt all mortgage you paid off your house yes sir yeah dude way to go looking at weird people yep how old are you just turned 39 actually paid last payment the day before my birthday which september 23rd same day uh you could declare bankruptcy yeah okay all right well better for you than me yeah yes good all right so you're a single 39 year old truck driver yep with a paid for stinking house yes sir you rock thank you what's the house worth uh 250 maybe uh i don't know you look on zillow and it's way higher than that but i wouldn't go by that i wouldn't go by that either but it's probably more than 250 then yeah good for you man yep so tell me your ramsey story what inspired you to do all of this um i started working at a

fairly young age um 15 i'd worked at my grandpa's car dealership um but what got me really started was i worked for a sign company small company there was five of us and that included the owner and his wife and me and the owner would we did sign work up and down the west michigan and we'd listen to your show in the afternoons and first year we had the christmas party it was small enough we just had at their house and they had your financial peace revisited book and we'd been listening for you know months on so i borrowed that book and that put me down the rabbit hole uh Since then, I think I counted up, I've gotten 15 yearbooks. I've read more yearbooks than I read through any of my high school or college,

especially start to finish. But, yeah, I went to a live event in 2010. Yeah. Got in touch with one of your financial approved people in 2012 and started my IRA. How much have you got in investments? I looked the other day, and unfortunately, it's down at like $200, but it's a good amount for right now. So you're well over a half-million-dollar net worth at 39 years old. Yes. Well done, sir. Yeah. Congratulations. I'm proud right now. So you're well over a half million dollar net worth at 39 years old. Yes.

Well done, sir. Yeah. Congratulations. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Very, very cool. What a great birthday gift to yourself. Yeah.

When I bought my house, the goal was to be by 40. And then I came here three years ago. And that's what, you know, I got intentional after that. And it was, you know, Dave-ish for a while. But three years ago, it was Dave-ish for a while. So what did it? Three years ago, it was just, you know, I put the paper on the, I started the list on the refrigerator, and every time I saw it, and that put me more focused on, yeah, just every payment,

marking it down and extra payments, And we're real busy through, you know, Thanksgiving through Christmas time at UPS and extra income, just tack that on and tack it on. And yeah, I made it by 39. Yeah. You did it early. Good job. That's awesome. So what did this debt-free journey look like? What was, what was the hardest part? What were some of the key things you did? Just being intentional, not being, you know, not letting normal take over. You know, just following the plan. It's not like it's 30 steps. It's seven.

And just one step at a time. Just like, you know, the Dave saying, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One step, you know, one bite at a time. And you just have to follow the plan. It's not rocket science. It's not complicated. Just follow the plan. So many people say that the plans, you know, it doesn't work for me

and give countless excuses on why it doesn't work. It works. That's why it doesn't work. Exactly. It doesn't work because you didn't follow the plan. If you follow the plan, it works. And you just have to commit to doing the plan if you follow the plan it works and it just you just have to commit to doing the plan and once you commit to doing the plan that's what we were talking about earlier it's not it's

not crazy phd level math it's common sense you just got to do it it's a couple pieces of notebook paper on the refrigerator with a couple of magnets and a guy who's a detail-oriented guy ups feels very safe with him driving their trucks. This guy's a detail guy. And so, yeah, you don't miss anything. That handwriting, everything down that list, your personality was revealed right then. It's awesome. In a good way. In a good way.

You're a man of character. Well done, sir. Thank you. Well done. How does it feel to not have a stinking payment in the world? It's been great. Did you sense a release? Yeah, it's been's been or was it

anticlimactic it was it was anticlimactic you know you make the payment and you know where's the dead gum fireworks no fireworks came off no confetti cannon um but it's just even once you're past baby step three like just if you fall down at work the next day if you get laid off you you don't have any payments and you have an emergency fund it's you know it's gonna be you know there's no emergencies it's an inconvenience and now it's it's even beyond that it's now there's no house payment at all it's just now just determine where the money goes it's almost i need a new list i don't know what's in the list. It's almost boring. Yeah. You're going to have to really set a millionaire goal here and lay it down and start working towards that. Put that

on the refrigerator now. That was going to be my next question. What next now that you're completely debt free? I got some house upgrades I'd like to do. But even through my journey i i cash flowed uh paid for an older bronco um as a second vehicle it was a collector yeah yeah it's not but you're gonna build it up it's no it's nice okay it's just like a summer vehicle okay um but you know it was just a toy yeah it's a toy yeah but being intentional and setting the money aside did, you know, it's baby steps four, five, and six. It's, you know, if you want to be, you know, have a sinking fund for that, that's the time to do it, you know. Way to go, man.

Way to go. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? I see some very happy folks off to the side. Yeah, mom and her boyfriend have been huge cheerleaders. My grandparents have been awesome. It's just don't let normal take over. Yeah. So one of the things we've always enjoyed about being around Grand Rapids in general, the area there, you're a little bit north of there, I know, but it is the work ethic in that

part of the country. It's kind of a Dutch thing. It's kind of a Midwestern thing going on, but you've got that work ethic. You're not afraid afraid of hard work you just get with something to stay on it yes and that's uh that must have come from family yeah yeah yeah well done very good stuff yeah moms and dads if you teach somebody to work and teach them to stay on something in a culture where nobody knows how to work and stay on something they're gonna be like rock stars that's what's gonna happen and so that's who you are man way to go good stuff man way to's what's going to happen. And so that's who you are, man. Way to go. Good stuff, man. Way to go.

Thank you. It's awesome. We got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. That's the next chapter in your story for sure. A financial peace membership for a year and a total money makeover book. And be sure and give some of those away and be sure and read some of them yourself. And you've read everything back to front you said already. So maybe all of these are giveaways. We don't care.

We want to give them to you. You can pass the love on and somebody be inspired by your story we're inspired by your story thank you you're a hero thank you well done i've actually given away the total money makeover i don't know how many times there's a wedding present yeah i'm sure it's a coaster for many people but it is there's a there's a few that have actually opened it it actually it has two lives it starts as coaster, and then there's a moment in time that people pick it up. Yes. And so it is the world's best-used coaster, without a doubt. So I'm proud of that.

I'm proud of that. It works good for me. It stays on the table. It doesn't get thrown away. It's a good start. We got a shot at it still. All right. Ryan from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

$103,000 paid off. House and everything! In 36 months, at 39 years years old as a single guy driving a truck 110 000 128 000 income count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt-free yeah that ladies and gentlemen is how it's done If you thought you couldn't do it, you can do it We're going to put the cookies on a shelf where you can reach them

Because that's the only place we can set them This is the Ramsey Show We'll see you next time. Christina Ellis Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Cameron is in Los Angeles. Hi, Cameron. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call today. Sure, what's up? Hey, so I need a little bit of help and guidance from you. I'm kind of where to start. I'm a little overwhelmed with a lot of my finances. I started yesterday by figuring out debts and I've realized that I'm really behind a lot of my basic utilities and taxes. And I'm trying to get started on the baby steps, but I just feel so overwhelmed because I'm behind in so many things. So I kind of need to

know kind of how to start on all this. It's a scary place, isn't it, brother? Oh, yeah. How old are you? 33. And what's your income? I would say on average right now about $30,000-ish a year. What do you do? I work in the entertainment industry, so I do a lot of stuff for musical theater, so anything from costuming to wigs and all that kind of stuff. About how much debt do you think you have? Well, when I totaled it up yesterday, I'm going to just

probably rounding it to about $10,000. Well, you know what? I know it's scary right now, but I just want to say good job getting on board. Like we're really happy that you're calling today. Thank you. So here's the thing. Number one, we're going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. All right.

And that's what close to 9 million people now have got that book and have used it. And I'm not selling you a book. I'm giving you one. So you just have to read it. that's all you got to do now so here's what I would do in your situation before you start the baby steps you need to be current with your utilities and current with your bill so the first goal to get current is make a list of what each bill like the electric bill what's it take to be current on the electric bill what's it take to be current on the water bill what's it take to be current on the dot dot dot fill it in okay and that's just to be current follow me and then your goal when you do out your written budget is

you're going to budget out and any money you can squeeze out of your budget you're going to work down that list smallest to largest okay so like if it takes 20 bucks to get a bill current well then that's your little one boom that one's done right easy right it takes 50 bucks to get another one current boom that one's done that's easy right and so the more of them you get in the current side the more your stress is going to drop because right now your stress level is like up in your throat you're chewing on your stomach yeah you know what i'm saying i remember that i used to remember that like i get a little sweat in the palm of my hand a little bit above my eyebrows and um and your heart rate goes up when you make those lists of

stuff and you're just like freaked out like you've jumped off a building and you're just falling or something you know what i'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah, that's how you feel, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. So more of that is going to go away the more of this you get in control. The second thing is that just by making the list, your stress level is going to go down because now we've quantified the size of the dragon that must die.

This dragon must die. And you are a knight, young man. You're going to kill the dragon. And it must die. It may take a bunch of cuts. It may take a bunch of swings of the sword. You may get really tired and you're definitely going to get some blood on you. But the dragon is going to die. You're going to kill it. Because you're just the guy. That's why you called us. We're knight trainers. We're going to train you to kill the dragon. You can do this. So the second part of this equation is there's two sides to the equation,

income and outgo. $30,000 a year in Los Angeles, California, as an income, sucks. You're starving to death. You have got to do some stuff to add to your income. And I don't care if it's something that's not pretty or not fun. What you need right now is some money ten thousand dollars would change your life can't say that about a lot of people yeah so the good the bad news is you got ten thousand dollars worth of debt the good news

is it's only ten thousand dollars worth in other words if we increase your income with a good strong part-time job it's 15 000 a year you're going to be debt free 100 and less than a year if you just live on what you make at your regular job yeah so part-time job is in your future i don't know if you're delivering uber eats or if you're delivering pizzas or if you're walking dogs or you're cutting grass i don't care what it is but you need to go do something for money good money don't take something cheap not minimum wage i want you to make some money and and just be i don't want you to do anything illegal and i don't want you to do anything

immoral that puts your ethics at risk anything like that but short of that go get you some money because 10 000 bucks to change your life that's pretty cool right now that you can do that so my prediction is you're going to be debt free in a year. Yeah, I would like to. You know, I find it hard as well in my situation because I make my income varies month to month because the type of work that I do. Yeah, it varies from sucks to not sucks as bad. Yeah. So you have got to get some more income coming in.

And really, your long-term career has got to get better. Would you agree? Yeah. You don't want to be making $30,000 when you're 50. Right. So what are you going to do? What's going to move the needle? You keep doing what you've been doing, you're going to keep getting what you've been getting.

Agreed? Yes, sir. So we've got to work on the career side, short-term, long-term, and we've got to work on organizing the money and the expenses and a budget in the short-term, and you can walk right straight through this. Hold on. We'll have Austin pick up. We'll give you a copy of Total Money Makeover and get you going.

Well, and the fear you're feeling right now, it's super uncomfortable, but I want you to turn that fear into what we call here gazelle intensity, where you're like a gazelle running away from a cheetah. And the good news is with $10,000, this can be gone quickly. It's scary right now. And it feels overwhelming because you're looking at all these bills and you're behind and there's debt but you can tackle this quickly especially if you take that fear and turn it into focus and use it to propel you forward into knocking this out yeah i think you're right if you're standing in the middle of the interstate and an 18 wheeler is coming you feel discomfort yeah and that's that's a good discomfort get out of the freaking road it's time for a change where you're standing is going to get you killed and that's what you're saying here where the way i've been doing things has got to change on the income side and on the

outgo side it has to change otherwise next year you're going to be sitting exactly here with the exact same stresses different names and the exact same bill problems different names yep and so the good news is you can just decide today ready set go this is america even in california it's still america you can still go do this and you can get out of that and you can change this whole thing and you need to look long term at your career and what you're going to do but short term right now i just want you to go get some money and clean this mess up renee's in denver hi renee welcome to the ramsey show what's up thank you for taking my call today sure how can we help um i'm calling because i'm looking for some guidance and

motivation as my husband and i enter baby step number two um i'm struggling with letting go of all the control of our finances and working with him on this because our debt seems pretty overwhelming. And even though I know where to start, I can't seem to get focused enough to make any progress. Well, you're not surrendering control. You're just letting someone else have a vote while you have a vote. You still have your vote. It's hard for me to work with him. We don't see eye to eye on a lot of things um

so it's difficult for us to have those so it's not a control issue it's a disagreement issue yes if you were in agreement and both of you were voting that our goal is to get out of debt the only thing we're arguing about is how to get there that wouldn't be nearly as big a problem as i don't really care if we get out of debt versus you're saying I want to get out of debt. Am I missing something? No, you're right. I think that we're both just overwhelmed. It seems like we're being pulled in 80 different directions with our debts.

So we're disagreeing on where exactly to start. He wants to start with one debt and I want to follow the normal baby steps. How does a conversation go when you sit down and say, hey, we want to start baby step two? What's kind of his opposition? What's his perspective on things? He wants to start with things that are costing us the most money every month, so the higher payment.

But his plan got you here so that won't work here's the thing here's what i would say here's my challenge for him you can tell him i said this i get it i kind of think the same way i'm a math nerd but what i want you to do is try my way for 90 days because i'm right and you're wrong dude just try it for 90 days if i'm wrong you can go back to your old broken way. This is The Ramsey Show. Have you been inspired to make a change with your money? Want to know where to start?

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