The Ramsey Show - App - Helping Kids Become Thriving, Responsible Adults (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Nicole is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Nicole. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you today?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I have roughly $64,000 in debt, income before taxes around $53,000. I work at a company right now that currently I have stock vesting over the next two years, and I'm trying to find out if it's best to go ahead and sell that stock as it's vesting or I should just sit on it and try and pay it off. Well, no, I would cash out anything that is not retirement, down to a $1,000 starter emergency fund, while your own baby's step two, paying off your debts,

and pay it on your debt as fast and as early as you possibly can. Now, that's assuming, of course, you're going to be on your every dollar budget, you're going to actually do this stuff, you're going to be on your every dollar budget. You're going to actually do this stuff. You're going to play all the way through. Now, if you're kind of going to ish this plan, then our advice is probably bad advice. But if you're really going to do it, if you're really going to punch this debt in the nose, then yeah, definitely cash out everything that is not retirement. Okay, so let me ask you a follow-up question.

The company does sell a portion of the stock to cover the taxes, so if I sell whatever is left of that, am I going to be taxed again? You would only be taxed if it has gone up in value since you received it on the amount that it's gone up in value. Okay, perfect. So they're selling off enough to cover the fact that this is a benefit. This is income to you, and so they pay the taxes or they withhold the taxes and turn them in, like they're withholding taxes on your paycheck, right? And that's what they're doing here in terms of your income.

This is part of your income. But then in addition to that, let's say you got that stock vested after they took the taxes out three years ago and it doubled well that amount that it went up would be taxable in addition to what you've already paid does that make sense it does thank you so much hey good job keep it up kiddo all right caitlin's with us in denver hi caitlin welcome to the dave ramsey show hello mr ramsey thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up so my husband and i have been kind of going back and forth on what our next step should be. We're completely debt-free. We have our emergency fund and all of that set up. And our question is, should we focus our intensity on paying our mortgage off or save for land so that we have cash available

when an opportunity becomes available for us to purchase a small, like, 5 to 10-acre piece of land and kind of start the little hobby farm that we want to do in the long run. Okay. Is the hobby farm something you're going to build a home on? Yes. We would build a home from scratch, which is why we want to buy a piece of land and not buy a home that already has acreage around it. Right. Yeah. Then, yes, I would. I would go ahead and save for the land, pay cash for the land, then pay cash for the building as you go,

sell your home, rent, finish the building, that kind of stuff, whatever you've got to do, whatever your process is there. But you're going to end up living on this property. The answer would be no if the hobby farm was not going to be lived on, because at that point, the hobby farm is a toy. It's a second home, a second investment. It's not your primary residence. But this is a transition piece for your primary

residence so it does make sense to go ahead and save up and pay cash on the uh to pay cash for the land you see how i'm doing that yes and and that's part of the the conversation that we've had on on that one side and then the other side is we don't know when this would become available if it's in the next five years or 10 years yeah there's no rush but but the point is you're gonna instead of paying extra on your mortgage for your baby step six you're gonna end up paying extra on your mortgage because you're getting ready to buy some land for cash that you're building up that fund to do that and it has the same net effect five years later right right, when you move into the house. Right. And so your long-term plan is you effectively are paying down on the mortgage.

That's why I said do it. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for the call. Paul's with us in Washington, D.C. Hey, Paul, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my wife and I are living in Washington, D.C. We make $70,000 a year, but then our job provides us living expenses, so rent and utilities and all that as well. Should we take our 15% based off of our $70,000 and throw everything else at saving for what will eventually be our house? Or should we take our 15% based off of what we make calculating living expenses in? That's an interesting idea. The concept behind all this is once you're out of debt except your home

and you've got your emergency fund in place, maybe step four then is 15% of your income saved for retirement, which is what you're talking about. The idea there is it's not 25%. It's not 2%. It's a good, solid chunk of money going towards retirement while you reach over, start saving for kids' college, and reach over and start paying off your house early. So the idea being we're going to get a really good strong start on retirement and so there's no magic to 15 you're not going to fail if you do 14 you know it's just

it's just meaning a good solid start now oddly enough when you run the calculations out at almost any income range it works out beautifully at 15 that's where we came up with it was doing case studies but um so all of that to say it doesn't matter because the concept is punch retirement really hard before you move on in the baby steps so if you want to only do 15 percent um of your actual income i mean your actual cash income or if you want to do 15 of the overall benefit package which includes housing both are logical there's a logical argument for either uh it's just whichever direction you guys want to go but i wouldn't i wouldn't do it if you're going to do it on the 70 i wouldn't do a dime less than 15 right right you know round up you know when you're doing your calculations and all that if it's you know fifteen thousand four hundred

fifty dollars rounded up to sixteen thousand you know that kind of thing uh or whatever the number is i don't know your income but overall but that's the thing look at that and try to calculate that through and you know run some numbers out each way and and you know out into the future with some future value calculations and say if i do it this way this is how much I'm going to end up 10 years from now. If I do it that way, there's so much I'm going to end up with 10 years from now. And in this direction, I'll have some money for a house. This direction, I won't. And so, you know, what are you going to how long are you going to be doing this job with the housing furnished?

And, you know, what's your time horizons? And just kind of reach out there and kind of build you a business plan, so to speak, for this money or for these different ideas. And if you'll look into the future instead of at Friday, it gives you, look out there 5, 10, 20 years, that gives you a good, wise answer. Friday always gives you an immature answer. Because people that live, thank God it's to Oh God It's Monday always struggle. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. I get asked all the time about what people need to do to improve their family's money situation. Two of the most overlooked things are term life insurance and disability insurance. Both plans make sure that you have income to pay bills and take care of yourself and your family

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They've been helping my listeners find the right plans at the lowest cost for almost 20 years. Call 800-356-1780 or visit zander.com and compare online. That's 800-356-1780 or zander.com. So you guys know that I do my radio show on the glass here in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions headquarters. And at the breaks, I always go out and take pictures and sign books with people. And what you probably don't know is that it's not unusual at a commercial break for me to sign a curriculum book from a high school curriculum looking into the face of a 16-year-old that's taking my class, my foundations and personal finance class somewhere in America. From the very first time I started teaching these ideas of being on a budget and getting out of debt, someone said, they ought to teach this stuff in schools. And so over the years, of course, we have developed a curriculum that now over 40 percent of the schools in high schools in North America now teach Dave Ramsey's personal finance curriculum called Foundations in Personal Finance.

Yay. That means we only got 60 percent of schools to go. So we're almost halfway there. And that means a lot of people are learning this stuff and it's it's hilarious on twitter to see the 16 year olds who hate dave ramsey the old bald guy on the thing and then some of them love me and and we're creating a whole other generation of financial peace babies is what it amounts to and it's wonderful because financial literacy is a big deal not you know being dumb about something will get you killed you know you don't know how to drive

a car you're going to wreck your car you don't know how to drive a car, you're going to wreck your car. You don't know how to drive your money, you're going to wreck your money. You know, you don't know how to be married, you're going to wreck your marriage. And so knowledge is a powerful thing. Literacy is a powerful, powerful thing. So we've been blessed to be doing this for a while. We've now had over 4 million high school students graduate from this from from this curriculum go through the curriculum and you know actually learn something about money or at least have the opportunity to while they

sat in the class watching me bark at them from a video screen and so one of the things that happens is organizations come alongside us and sponsor high schools in their area or sponsor high schools in a group or or whatever and one of the organizations that come alongside us is jackson's jackson charitable foundation they're providing this curriculum get this to 250 schools 20 000 students so i wanted to get with my friend he's become my friend in this process, Barry Stowe, because we're cut from the same cloth. We both share a concern for this subject. I wanted to get with Barry and A, just tell you thank you, Barry, as the CEO of Jackson Insurance, Jackson National, what do you call that now, and the chairman of the Jackson Charitable Foundation.

How are you, Barry? Thank you. I'm fantastic, Dave. Thanks very much for having me on the show today. You know, we're big fans of what you're doing, and we couldn't be prouder of this association, honestly. Well, thank you. Now, let me sidestep for a second, because I goofed up in the intro there. So Jackson is called what now? The company is called what? Well, technically, it's technically it's jackson national life insurance company most people just call us jackson okay okay or jackson national or something like that and you're now the large the company is the largest provider of variable annuities in the

nation today uh which i actually answered one of the questions correctly on the air yesterday about that fantastic and so but but out of the out of the company then has been formed the Jackson Charitable Foundation, and that's who is sponsoring these 250 schools, these 20,000 students. So talk about the foundation and why it exists a little bit. Well, the principal rationale, Dave, for starting the foundation was to focus on financial education across the U.S. because, as you know very well and as you've just been talking about, this is one of the huge issues that we face today. We're a retirement company at our core, and every day we interact with customers who haven't saved enough or don't know what to do with what they saved. And so

it's painfully clear to us that many, many people lack basic financial knowledge. And it's a real pressing societal issue in our view. So we want to do everything we can through the foundation to address that issue. Yeah. And you guys have been addressing financial literacy for some time. And then last year, we all connected up and got to sit down several of us. I got to meet you and some of your team and over here in our offices and got to talk through this thing so what was the deciding factor for the foundation to say we're going to sponsor this foundation's curriculum the ramsey curriculum in 250 schools well i mean to me it was just a perfect and elegant way honestly for us to continue to grow the impact of this foundation help young people learn the basics of personal finance and help manage their lives.

Because, you know, when we studied your program, Foundations in Personal Finance, as you know, Dave, we studied it very carefully. And it's clear to us that it's about more than just avoiding financial calamities. It's about giving students real life skills that they need to become thriving, self-sufficient adults. And honestly, I mean, we just really are impressed with how the curriculum empowers students to take charge of their future, you know, financial future and otherwise. And so our view is, look, if we have the means, you know, to do something to make it easier for educators to teach these important topics. And that's the right thing for us to do, and we're proud to do it. Very cool.

Now, when you and I were talking, we were talking about the importance of having these ongoing money conversations with these students. But it's not just at school. It's also at home. So share with everybody what you and I had talked about that day, the importance of that. Oh, it's critical. It's critical. I mean, the behavioral research shows that people's money behaviors are rooted, you know, not necessarily even in their early adulthood when they get money.

It's really in childhood. And, you know, as with everything else in life, children follow the examples set by their parents and what they learn at a young age. So financial education has to begin at the earliest stages, honestly. And as you know, we're already deeply involved, our foundation, in a program that's reaching, in the United States is reaching 100, or excuse me, 1.5 million elementary school students with financial literacy programs. And that program actually initially launched in Asia where we reached millions more.

But what I love about this program and the fact that we're working with high school students is that these kids are actually entering an important life stage where they're going to start making adult decisions around their finances, and many of them, most of them, for the first time in their lives. And so that's really what was so attractive to us and why we wanted to deploy the resources of the foundation to partner with you and ensure that as many high school students as possible get access to this program. Now, when Jackson Charitable came alongside us and sponsored 250 schools

and 20,000 students, that's mind-boggling when you just think about 20,000 students. You had to hear back from some of the teachers or some of the students. Have you gotten any response? Oh, of course we have. I mean, we've heard from schools in California, here in Michigan where I am today, in Mississippi, really from everywhere, all over the country. We've had people come to us and thank us and tell us about how impactful the programs are. So, you know, it's clear and it's verified from the feedback we get from these educators.

This program really changes the trajectory of these students' lives. Yeah, very cool stuff. Talking with Barry Stowe, the CEO of Jackson National and the chairman of the Jackson Charitable Foundation, who has sponsored our curriculum this year for, again, 250 schools, 20,000 students. Well, Barry, thank you, my friend. I'm honored to get to know you, and we appreciate you coming alongside us. We're doing good work together here, man.

It's an honor to walk with you. Well, likewise, Dave. I mean, we're so impressed with your commitment and what you're trying to do, always trying to do the right thing, and we're just proud to walk with you. And if I can put in a plug, I would just like to say to your listeners today, anybody that wants to hear more about our foundation and its work, you can go to www.jacksoncharitablefoundation.org. And, Dave, we're grateful for you, man.

You too, man. Thanks a bunch. Have a great day. You take care. All right. Good stuff. If you want to learn more about getting this high school curriculum in your high school, maybe you're a local business, you want to sponsor just one class, that's fine.

Maybe you want to sponsor 250 schools and 20,000 students, that's fine. Number one barrier to these students getting this information is not that the teachers are unwilling to teach it or the administrators are unwilling to have it. They simply don't have the money to fund the curriculum. And so that's how we pair up sponsors to cause this to happen. Get in touch with us at DaveRamsey.com. Click on our education tab. We'll talk to our education team. They'll educate you on this idea. It's a great

idea. It's a generational changing idea. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Why in the world would you trust some random guy in a cube when getting your mortgage? Do you really think he cares about your long-term money goals? Well, he doesn't. Those companies care about getting you into whatever home loan program they're pushing that week. When it comes to ordering a cheeseburger, the meal deal works fine. But let's get real, people. We're talking about the largest investment you'll probably ever make, so don't be naive and trust an order taker who pressures you into a prepackaged loan.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard. Redwood, Tennessee 37027. We're talking about the Foundations in Personal Finance curriculum and the high school students learning the stuff you and I talk about here every day on the air. And I thought it'd be fun to talk to one of the teachers of the many thousands and thousands of classrooms around America teaching this stuff. William Wolfe is with us.

He's a foundations teacher at Sun Valley High School in Monroe, North Carolina. Hello, Mr. Wolfe. That's how you're supposed to be addressed in high school, right? Hey, Mr. Wolfe, how are you? I'm doing great, Dave. I just want to say thank you for the Jackson Foundation and thank you for Dave Ramsey. And, you know, our kids don't feel like you're shouting at them at the screen. They just really love the program, and you're really impacting a lot of kids.

So thank you. Well, very cool. How long have you been teaching? This is my 12th year and third year teaching the high school curriculum here at Sun Valley High School, and we've impacted over 300 students here. Love it. How fun is that? So you've been doing it three years, so you've got some graduates out there wandering around in the real world coming back and going,

I really learned something in that class. Correct. We had a young man that joined the Navy in 2016. He came back in 2017, shared in front of the class how, in the Dave Ramsey program, that he is living on half his income, he's investing the other half, and how he's actually kept the Dave Ramsey materials in his apartment so he can look back at them and review them. It was just amazing. Very cool.

That's fun. He's serving his country, and he actually has a clue about money all in the process because of you. Thank you for teaching this class, man. We really, really appreciate it. So where's Monroe, North Carolina? What's that near? It's near Charlotte.

We're just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm a suburb of Charlotte. Very cool. And what is your main area of teaching? You teach this curriculum, obviously, and you are known as a blank teacher. What kind of teacher? I'm a career technical education teacher, and part of the career technical education program in North Carolina is financial literacy.

Ah. And so we're trying to, you know, promote financial literacy to as many students as we can. Very, very cool. So what do you think the number one thing when the kids are watching this stuff that they look at and they go, I actually get that. When do the light bulbs come on over the top of their head? Because as a teacher, I know you can see when the light bulbs are coming on. Yeah, well, it's really cool because I have them journal every day.

So every day my students get 20 minutes of Dave Ramsey and then they journal. So I get to read their journals and what the light bulb moment is. And, you know, they share with me how they're learning about how to stay debt-free. They're sharing with me about the power of cash and what cash means to them, student debt and how to stay out of that. And I had a young lady that really shared with me today this powerful story, how she did the life after high school section, and that really helped her focus on what she wants to do now.

And I just think that's amazing that she just got that one part in it and could focus really on what she really wants to do for a career and a living. So it's really making a powerful impact on these students. Very cool. Very cool. Well, man, you're a hero. We appreciate you being in the high schools, good people in there teaching our kiddos, and we appreciate you carrying the curriculum and schools, good people in there teaching our kiddos, and we appreciate you carrying the curriculum and leading the charge on the front lines for the young people's financial literacy.

Thank you, William Wolfe. Okay, thank you, sir. Have a great day. You too. God bless. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Richmond, Virginia, is Ashton calling. Hey, Ashton, how are you?

Good, and yourself, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I just recently got laid off from my job where I was making really good money, and I took a job where I'm not making good money at all. Basically, I'm underqualified for the job that I'm in right now, so I'm taking quite a huge pay cut with a lot of debt. Okay. You're underqualified for the job you're in that pays a lot less or overqualified? I'm underqualified. Okay. So you

don't know how to do the job you're in? It requires a degree and I'm 20. Okay. And it pays a lot less than you used to make. Correct. Okay, what did you used to do? I was a marketing agent for a pharmacy. Okay, and you made what kind of money? Take home was about $130,000. Wow, at 20 years old, you're rocking it, man. Pretty amazing. I used to be.

So what happened to that job? My boss, the pharmacist, is facing 17 selling accounts of drug trafficking. Hmm. So he was marketing the wrong stuff. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so he paid you to do what? What kind of a deal? What were you doing?

So there's a lot of medications that reimburse much higher. So, for instance, if you have a lot of medications that reimburse much higher so for instance if you have a lot of pain you might take an aproxen uh if you take a specific dose of that instead of making about five dollars we'd make about thirteen hundred dollars and i would just get those physicians to get on board with switching the lower to the higher paying one okay and that and so you were calling on physicians changing the dosage legally, I assume. What you were doing was legal, but he got caught for doing other stuff, right? Yeah, he was selling narcotics without prescriptions.

Yeah. Do other pharmacists not do what he does then? I've never heard of this. This is interesting. So it's all independent pharmacies. Independent pharmacies try their best to find these high-remitting drugs, and they will attempt to change them. We kind of just had it down to a science. Okay. So why can you not go knock on the door of an independent pharmacy and show them what you could do for them?

I have. There's only a few in my area, and all of them kind of turned off about the reason why he was fired. I got one job offer, but it was making about $5,000 more than I'm making now, and I just had a newborn, and I need insurance, and he wasn't willing to provide that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. $5,000 will buy you insurance. Okay. You could have bought insurance and stayed in the same career field.

What are you doing now? I'm a marketing agent for a home health care agency. Okay. All right. Here's the thing. You have the ability to get your hand around what a value proposition looks like and how to sell it to people and how to go through the rejection to get it sold to people

and develop the relationships to get it sold to people. That is a high paying skill that you have. Selling is one of the highest paid professions in America. And what you're doing, what you've learned how to do, whether you realize that or not, was selling. And so, you know, I don't know what it is you're going to sell, but you need to find something that you can sell. And you've obviously developed, you've fallen into, probably somewhat accidentally, a career field here that's very niche. But you know how to call on physicians and get them to do things. The medical device business, the pharmaceutical business working for a drug company selling pharmaceuticals,

those guys make good money. Both of those guys make good money in the sales world. And so you might be standing over the shoulder of a surgeon where they're inserting an apparatus into a patient that you sold to them, and you assist in that whole process. That's the medical device salespeople. And several of those guys and gals that I know make a couple hundred a year. Now, they're not 20 years old. They developed a career over time.

But I think you've got the skill set to go into the pharmaceutical world or the medical device world. And those are the places I would be looking if I were you. Jump on the Ken Coleman show dot com and read everything that Ken has got there and download his resume builder and download his process for tracking and getting into a position at a new job. I think you've been spiraling and falling backward because you were attached to an embarrassing situation that embarrassed you, even though it wasn't your fault, and it kind of stained you a little bit, even though it wasn't your fault, because that's why those other people are turning you away. But if you truly had no knowledge of all that other stuff, you're very employable in these other areas, and you just got a little bit scared because you got knocked down, and you got a new baby, and you're 20, and you're just getting started in life.

I'm here to tell you, as your coach, you're better than you feel like you are right now. You got some serious skills, young man. Let's repackage them and go back at this job market again. I think you can make a lot more in your making now. It may take you a little time to get it all done, and you may need to come into something, the entry level, where you have a chance to prove yourself. But, dude, you know how to do this you can prove yourself so the ken coleman show.com that's the website to go to the ken coleman show.com 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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What's up? So, me and my wife bought a car about two years ago, I think, or a year ago, and we owe about $21,000 on it. And my dad has an extra car he was willing to give me, and we were kind of thinking about just selling the car completely and I would drive around the free car for work and everything just to get out from under that. But we would owe about like $6,000 or less and get a loan to pay off the six grand.

Okay. All right. And what's your household income? We make about $75,000 a year. How much other debt other than your home and this car do you have? We're renting right now. We have another car. It's a Prius.

We right now owe $1,200 left on it. We're going to pay that off this month. And then it's just another car. It's a Prius. We right now owe $1,200 left on it. We're going to pay that off this month. And then it's just that car. That's it. That's the rest of our debt. Okay. So $1,200 plus the 6,000 hole on the car. Yes.

And then you're debt-free, and then you're going to do what? Yes, sir. Save up three to six months. Whatever my wife tells me. Whatever my wife tells me. Okay. So, I mean, what's the grand plan here? Where are you going with all this?

I save up money to buy a house. Okay. All right. So when you say it that way, what you're saying is I'm willing to sell my car because it gets me into a house faster. Exactly. Given that Dad will give me a car to drive. Yep. Okay. It's an old beater, but I mean, that's, I don't really need anything fancy. Yeah. I mean, we got a goal and so we're

going to pay a price to hit our goal. Yeah. And the goal, the goal is not the car. The goal is the house and that's a good goal. Okay. So yeah, that's your trade off. You're just, yeah. All I'm trying to do is force you to say it out loud is I'm not just selling my car to sell my car. I'm selling my car because it gets me into a house faster. Yep. We were just kind of nervous about, you know, the whole we have a new car and then getting into an old kind of just an older vehicle. Yeah. A little rundown.

Yeah. I guess. Yeah. Okay. Well, but, I mean, for $20,000, you can fix that old car a lot. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think it's a good move. I think it's a good move.

Really? Because I think it's not just a mathematical move that's good. What's good about it is that you guys are, as a team, you and your wife, are committing to sacrifice to hit a goal. Yep. And that's what this car sale represents, and I think that's more important than the actual sale of the car. So, you know, you kind of were just going along,

oh, let's buy a car. Oh, let's get a Prius. Oh, let's do this. Oh, let's do that. Oh, crap, we don't have a house. And we're boxed into the corner. We painted ourselves into the corner. And so, you know, and now you woke up and went,

hey, I want to get above this, and I want to develop a plan, a strategic plan to actually do this on purpose, this money thing. And see, all of that stuff that I hear in this conversation is the most important part of where your head is right now, James. So I'm real proud of you. I think I would do this. Yes. Kristen is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Kristen.

How are you? I'm wonderful. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How are you? I'm wonderful. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, currently my husband and I are trying to tackle some of your baby steps. We're new to it. But I've been listening to you for about four months now, and I'm madly in love with your philosophy and how to tackle debt.

Currently we have about $98,000 worth of debt together. That's not including our house. We have two little boys ranging in ages seven and three, or two, sorry. And we're looking to add another one to the family. I'm kind of at the point in my life where I want to be done having babies, though I love being a mommy. And we're looking to maybe start next year, though we're only in baby step two and we still have a lot of debt. And obviously saving would be really key here to set ourselves up for success to have another baby. I'm just kind of not sure what to do. Do we wait another year or two until most of our debt's knocked out, or do we just go ahead and say, hey, let's do it.

We're both still young, and we'll keep going on with your program and hopefully manage it somehow. Okay, so what does your husband make a year? $50,000. $50,000, and you have $98, 000 and what kind of debt uh it ranges from student loan to a HELOC loan uh credit card and a car how much do you owe on your car um what has he's going to tell me uh we recently actually just traded in and upgraded for a minivan. So we're kind of set up for a bigger family. So we're at about $43,000.

Okay. All right. Well, that was pretty freaking stupid. Yeah, I know. So sell the van. So sell the van, okay. Half of your debt, and you want to have babies, half of your debt was a stupid van. Right. And you called a talk radio host to ask permission to have babies because you bought a van you couldn't afford.

I'm fussing at you. You feeling it? I'm feeling it. I'm feelinging at you. You feeling it? I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. Okay. I mean, really. You just traded the right to have children financially for a van. So trade back.

Trade back. The reason this doesn't make sense in your mind and in your heart is you're overwhelmed with debt, and you're worried about whether or not you can afford to do this. And the reason you can't afford to do this is you bought a van you couldn't afford. Right. Conclusion's real simple. Sell the van. Well, I work, too.

And I make commission on top of what I bring home monthly. I don't know if you've talked about it or not. You think that changes this conversation? Okay, because I was like, whoa! It does. I bring in about $70 on salary, and commissions can range from anywhere. You bought a van you can't afford, and so you're having to ask in your own mind, and then asking me whether you can afford to have children.

And the reason you're asking the question is you're pinched, and the reason you're pinched is you bought a van you can't afford. Right. That's the bottom line here. And so, yeah, I think you ought to have kids. Are you going to quit when you have kids? No, no, no. I love working and also being a mom.

Great. Okay. So get a $5,000 van and sell this van. It was a really dumb idea. You doubled your consumer debt all in the name of babies that aren't even here yet and a place to carry them in a car you can't afford. It's just nuts. You even knew that because you know what you said when I asked you about it?

My husband's going to kill me. Well, he's going to kill me on how it all happened. I went in for an oil change and came out with a minivan. But to be honest, I was doing it in an effort to have a reliable car because previous cars were all used and were not reliable and costing me a fortune. They didn't cost you $43,000. True, but I looked at this van as if... I don't think I can looked at this van as i don't think i can help you darling i don't think i can help you okay i mean i'm not gonna argue with you about this

anymore this is a this is a dumb move you can't really justify it you can't really rationalize it if you're not going to undo it i can't help you okay you do what you want to do it's okay you're an adult you're allowed to do what you want to do but It's okay. You're an adult. You're allowed to do what you want to do. But I'm not. It's absolutely absurd. The whole process was absurd. How you got there was absurd. The decision was absurd. The fact that you're now worried about having kids because you made this decision is absurd. And then the fact that you don't want to undo the decision is absurd.

So that's what you're facing, kiddo. So you got to decide. You got to decide what you're going to do here. You want to have kids? You want to have a van? Because it's really tough for you to afford both. That's why you called me. Because you were feeling that pinch. Not because you

actually needed my permission to have kids. That's crazy. You know you don't need my permission to have kids. So, hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. By the way, folks, let me help you with this. There's an easy way to know if you can't afford to buy something.

You didn't pay for it. If you borrowed the money to go on vacation on a credit card, you couldn't afford the vacation. If you borrowed the money to eat out last night, you couldn't afford to eat out last night. If you borrowed the money, dot, dot, dot, you couldn't afford to eat out last night. If you borrowed the money, dot dot dot, you couldn't afford dot dot dot. If you can't write a check and pay for it, that means you can't

afford it. You haven't earned the right to do that yet because you don't have the money. It's a real simple formula. It'll really help you. You can't pay for it in cash. Right then, in total, don't buy it. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey guys, it's Blake Thompson, Chief Production Officer for The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour's up, but you'll find more on our YouTube channel, where we have over 6 million YouTube views each month. You can find debt-free screens, millionaire hour clips,

Dave rants, and so much more. Go check it out.