The Ramsey Show - App - How Can I Earn More Money? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and build great relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Jade Warshaw. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jade's going to be answering your money questions. I'll join in on that. And I'm here to answer any question related to work. Are you in a job that you want to get out of, but you're afraid to because you're in debt or you're in the baby steps in a toxic environment trying to figure out what to do do i go back to school anything work related

that allows you to make more money uh i will take those questions on and jay jumps in on to those so uh we always enjoy being together and and i can i tease that we have a little fun thing coming up later in the program let's go ken tell them just just enough just enough to keep them around we are going to talk about the true difference between store brands and generic brands with a taste test. There it is, folks. You don't want to miss that. It hits you right where you're at, your budget on groceries. So let's get it started. Again, the phone number is 888-825-5225. We're going to stay right here in our backyard, Nashville, Tennessee, where Andrew is awaiting. Andrew, how can we help? Hey, Ken. Hey, Jade. It's a pleasure to speak to you all today.

You too. So it was a very basic question, but it's kind of a loaded question. So do we owe our kids, do we owe it to our kids to pay for their college? No. What is Ramsey's and what is y'all's viewpoint for that? Let me frame the question real quick, not a long story. This last Monday, me and my wife paid off our house, which was phenomenal. Wow.

Let's not just roll past that. Way to go, Andrew. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, we's not just roll past that. Way to go, Andrew. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, we're grateful to God for that. But anyway, so we, so, you know, when you have debt, you, it's easy to focus where your money's supposed to go. But when you, all of a sudden you don't have debt, it almost feels like you're floating. And so I'm just want to make sure that I get, you I got my investments I'm trying to get

those in line but I want to make sure I you know I'm later in life I'm how old are you 47 right now 47 and so I can't afford to make any mistakes um and so I'm just extremely cautious and how many kids uh two uh two uh okay I mean I jumped in right away and said no i want to point it out in case he missed it yeah i look i agree with that i just want to roll it back just a little bit and kind of explain that for people who are listening not just you um andrew so obviously there is the baby step five right comes right after baby step four which you're putting away 15 and then simultaneously you're putting away 15 while you do that you have the ability to fund a 529 or whatever, you know, kids college account. And at the same time, you have the ability to put extra on your mortgage. So four, five and six,

you do simultaneously. But if you notice when it comes to the baby steps, baby step five is almost one of the ones we talked the least about it has the least amount of guidance around it you know everything else is a very specific amount it's a very specific thing and with baby step five we don't ever say and when you do your kids college you have to do this amount right because it really is and ken can go into this in a minute it really does depend on this child it depends on their what profession they're pursuing. And you as a parent, I think that the bigger conversation is, is it a responsibility to pay for college?

Is it a responsibility to pay for further knowledge? Like whatever that is. And then within that, you can say, okay, what would I like to do? Because as a parent, I think that it is a privilege to be, if you were able to, to fund some bit of their further knowledge, whatever that is, whether it's trades, whether it's education, whether it's certificates, college, traditional, whatever that is. I do think as a parent, it is, I will not say responsibility, but I will say it's something that we get the privilege to do if we can and that does not mean 100 it does not mean 50 you get to decide that as the parent

yeah I think the way you worded it if I and I correct me if I'm wrong the reason I said no immediately is I think you said do we owe them and there you go and so when if did i get that right andrew yes sir i did say it that way i don't know if i really meant it that way but you may not because you know the overall social norm is like you're a parent so the feeling a lot is that you have to pay for college right so let me tell you why i said no let me tell you why I said no. Let me tell you why I said no. Because it's just as good for you as it is for someone else. So you don't owe them. It's not your responsibility. You are responsible to your kids to provide them safety, to provide them food, to provide them a litany of things that we all, we don't have to go through the list. Sure. provide them a litany of things that we all, we don't have to go through the list. But, you know, I'm thinking of the single mom in a low income area. I would never say to you that it's your responsibility to pay for your kid's school because I wouldn't say it to her because that's an unfair burden to put on her in the first place.

You know, people, we've got to be honest here. You know, people are in low income situations for a variety of reasons many times not of their choosing but i can't tell you how many heroes there are in the form of single moms who are in poverty situations and just scraped everything together just to be able to food and clothe their children right i am not about to say to her that she has the added responsibility to pay for higher education. That is absolute burden. And now it's putting on this unbelievable guilt if I don't provide that. So I know you didn't mean it, O, but you said O.

And I think that's coming from the feeling that you have. And if you're not in a financial position to where you can do it it you should not then feel guilty to try to figure a way around it they can work to pay for their own school uh let me also say this because jade set me up and i just want to point this out part of what's going on with this feeling you have is that most american parents most believe that their kids should go to college because that's been the cultural message. You're not a good parent, Jade, if you don't send Junior and Susie to school. So let me just point this out. At some point, we've got to be intellectually honest with ourselves and say,

what does my kid actually want to do with their life if I get out of their hair and I don't put all this pressure on them? And we step away from the cultural pressure. And I would say, if we figure out what they want to do, I think that is your responsibility. I think you have a responsibility to help your kid figure out their direction. Help is the key word, not decide. And then I would tell you that if college isn't the only way or the best way, otherwise there's another way that's a whole lot less affordable and a lot less time consuming so i would tell you my friend you need to do what's right for you and your wife and your financial future they got more time conceivably than you do and so i want you to be set free from that burden

because that's what it feels like on you and let me add a two cents on there andrew because what ken said is absolutely right you don't owe owe, you know, you don't owe that. Like, it's my responsibility to pay for their school. But it is your responsibility to set clear expectations. Absolutely. And let them know, hey, if you're pursuing whatever your form of further knowledge is, here's what we will and will not do. Have those conversations so they know going in, hey, if you decide to go to trade school,

here's what we will do, here's what we won't do. Tell them ahead of time so it doesn't get down to the wire. And it's like, well, wait a second, I thought you were supposed to fund four years at Columbia. Don't let them get that far down the line. And by the way, for Andrew, hang on a line, I'm going to give you the student assessment, the Get Clear assessment, the student version.

And for any parent out there, you can help your teenager figure out their future. It's called the Get Clear Student Assessment, RamseySolutions.com. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined this hour by my colleague, Jade Warshaw. And friend, Ken. I know. You really don't like the colleague. I mean, we're so much more. Jade Warshaw. And friend, Ken. I know.

I need to, you really don't like the colleague. I mean, we're so much more. You want everybody to know that we're friends. Okay. You know what, though? When people say my dear friend, sometimes I always go, are we? My good buddy. My acquaintance.

We're beyond acquaintance. Oh, no, no. We're actually friends. Yeah, we're friends. But I'm saying when you see that like in public, public figures go, my dear friend. My good friend. I'm not sure that you're dear friends yeah we're good you just want people to know that you know them yeah but in this case jade and i are friends and so we are thrilled to

be with you 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in the ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by neighborly your hub for services. Neighborly is the place to find reliable help for your home and trusted locally owned businesses like Glass Doctor, Precision Garage Door Service, and Mr. Handyman. Visit Neighborly.com today to find home experts available to serve you. Yeah. Today's question comes from Phillip in Kentucky. He says, I'm a student at University of Kentucky studying to earn my bachelor's of science in electrical engineering. Very cool. My question for you is, as a full-time college student, what are some ways I can earn money to support myself? I doubt I will be able to fit a job into my schedule and scholarships have paid almost everything. I'm not looking for a quick fix, but rather a learning opportunity. I'm very

conservative money-wise and only spend money where I need to and I save the rest. If you have any tips or advice, I would greatly appreciate it. Well, you came to the right place, Phillip. I love what you said and I'll point out that what you said is why I'm giving you this answer. You're not looking for money. You want a learning opportunity. So if I were you, I'd be using the proximity principle. That's why I wrote that book. You want to be around people who are doing what you want to do. And so I would be looking for any type of work you can do for somebody in that space of electrical engineering. So you know what that space is far better than I, but I'd be working for an electrical

engineer, even if it's five hours a week, 10 hours a week, even if they wouldn't even pay, but you're like, I just want to hang around and learn from you because money's not the object here. I want you full on proximity principle, which says in order to do what I want to do, I got to be around people that are doing it and in places where it is happening. That's where opportunity knocks on the door. The fact that you're getting a major in that, I would absolutely be working as much as I could shadowing if there's no money. And my friend, you watch opportunities open up for you. So I love the question, Jim. Very mature question. Very, very good. Yeah, I'll leave it at

that. That's good. There it is. Let's go now to the phones. Omaha, Nebraska is where Ellen joins us. Ellen, how can we help? Hi, guys. I'm so excited that I got through. Thank you for taking my call. You bet. What's going on today? I kind of have a twofold question. So one is career and one is what to do with the debt I have on my vehicle. Luckily, that's the only debt that I have. Great. And that's $20,000 is what I owe still on my car, but that's with interest. I'm not sure what it is without interest, but I definitely feel like I need to call and find that out, which is something I learned from the show. That's right. My payment is $455 a month. Okay And what's the car worth? Do you know?

It's still worth about what I paid for it, I think, which is $35. Jade? So you're saying that you owe $20,000, but if you sold it, you'd get $35? I think I could if I sold it on my own, like without treating it in for something else. Yeah. That's the only way you're going to get that value is you sell it yourself, which is what I'm recommending. It's rare that we get to

where you're making that much money. I just want to make sure those numbers are right. You owe $20 and it's worth $35. Yes. When I bought it, I put $13 down. She put money down on it. Sweet. Yes. Okay, great. Well, I want to know about your down. She put money down on it. Sweet. Yes. Okay, great.

Well, I want to know about your income. I got so excited because usually folks are upside down, so it rarely goes in the direction where you can make $15,000. So that's excellent. I want to know more about your income. This is your only car. It's your only vehicle. What's your income?

Well, when I bought the vehicle at the time, I'm the poster child of why you don't get yourself into debt with a vehicle based on your income. So at the time when I bought this, I was projected to be making about $75,000 per year. And then that full-time position that I was in kind of got pulled out from under me. So now I'm just doing my side hustle, which is, um, I'm in a partnership with the Airbnb management company. So, which is great part-time money, like side hustle money, but it is not great. What is it? Money. So, um, I'm making about 13 to 1500 a month. Okay. And what were you doing before? What was the full-time job that got pulled out from underneath of you? It was still within the Airbnbs, but it was,

we were kind of running like a mini hotel at the time, so I was making probably $6,000 to $7,000 a month. Wow, that's a big. Yeah, yeah. So you're making $6,500 a month, and now you're making on a making six and a half thousand dollars a month and now you're making on a good month 1500 a month um when when is this going to change like when are you going to get back into a full-time job if you had to project today like jade i'm going to be working by this time next month i'll be working again like what's what do you project that to be that's the other hard thing i've been looking for about four months is when this happened.

I've been looking and I've put in probably 60 to 70 applications, but I'm looking for a job that will sustain me and my kids. I'm a single mom and right now, luckily, I'm able to live with my parents. Okay. I was going to say, how have you been living for these months? Okay. So you're with the parents. So really you're only, the only thing you've been paying for is the car and I'm guessing food. No other, because there's no other debt, right? Yep. And then my son is in private school, but he also has scholarships for that. So that's like...

All right, so we got about three minutes left and I want to get to your work question. So on the car, let's wrap that up. I think I know what Jade's going to tell you. Yeah. I mean, it's been a long time. You've been working, looking for a job. You can't continue like this. I would sell that car because for you to pocket $15,000 right now would be huge. Then you can take some of that money, you know, five or 6,000 and buy a car in cash, something that's going to be reliable for you. Maybe it's $8, eight thousand dollars either way i want you to come out of this with a decent amount of cash to your name um do you have any other money saved i did so i was really working my baby steps and i had three thousand dollars saved and that has that's been gone now which i'm grateful that i

had it yeah that was what's been sustaining me. So, okay. So yes, selling the car, putting aside a little bit to buy a reliable car in cash, putting the rest in the HYSA high yield savings account, try not to touch it. Okay. And then Ken's going to help you with the career stuff because we can't keep operating like this. At the very least,

you've got to get something that's full-time, even if it's not the dream job, because you got to get money coming in or else you're going to blow through that money that you just got on the car in two seconds. Yeah. What have you been thinking about? Because I know you've been applying, but we can't just apply. We've got to be connecting with people who know about open jobs that can put a good word in from you. That's the first piece of advice.

But in the limited time I've got with you, what are you thinking about? What is that forward thinking, the type of work you want to do? The stuff that I've been looking for is like administrative bookkeeping type of stuff. And I just, I've been networking. It's just not, the doors are closing and closing. That's okay. Listen, I know that's discouraging, but that's what you want to do. Something more clerical, something with numbers, administrative work. That's your jam. Okay, great. So you can't, you can't quit on this. You have to keep talking and connecting. But to Jade's point, she's spot on right now. I'm okay with you go getting a 40 hour job that's paying you $20 an hour,

even if it's a big box store, because it's going to give you some momentum. It's going to give you more stability. We wipe out the debt. I'd like to see you buy a $7,000 to $10,000 car max, and the rest of that's in savings. I'd stay with mom and dad. I think that's a blessing right now. I'd stay there until and dad. I think that's a blessing right now. I'd stay there until you get on your feet. But part of you getting on your feet is just bringing in more

steady income, 40 hours a week. And then we keep the networking, we keep connecting, and then we eventually step into that job that you're really looking for. So in this zone right now where you're like, I keep getting rejected, You keep going, but let's go get something that's just sitting there right now in Omaha, Nebraska that needs somebody like you who can come in and do a good job. Let's get 40 hours and move through the baby steps. But I'd sell that car today. Get it done, buy another car, and you're going to be fine, single mama. You're a mama bear and nobody's going to stop you. So we're rooting for you. So hang in there. Hang on the line. Let's give her the assessment, the Get Clear Career Assessment, along with the book, From Paycheck to Purpose.

It's going to walk with you through this process. Thank you so much, Ellen, for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back, America. You are joining the conversation about your life here on The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw with me as well. The phone number for you is free.

It's 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Jade will take your money questions. I'll take your work-related questions. They all have a way of working together anyway. And we're here for you. This is a safe place. You're not going to get chewed out. Well. Yeah. You think you might chew somebody out? Look, I'm feeling froggy. Let's see. All right. We'll see. I'll speak for myself. Maybe some tough love, but mostly love because we want to help you win. 888-825-5225. Brandon

is now on the line in Atlanta, Georgia. Brandon, how can we help? Hey, how are you guys doing today? We're having a blast. What's going on? All right. So I took financial peace to my fiance last year. I've been working through that over the last year with really our only debt being the truck I had purchased last year. We got that paid off last month, and we're getting married next month, and that is all being cash flowed. Sweet. So no debt whatsoever. She's had no student loan debt.

So we are completely debt-free there. Now moving on to we're looking to purchase a house next year once the lease on our apartment ends, and we're starting the process of saving up for that down payment. Now, my question would be, do we approach this like it's Baby Step 2, where we pause any investing for retirement and throw it all at a down payment, or can we do both? That's a good question. When it comes to that, what you're talking about is baby step three and baby step 3B in investing.

Do you already have three to six months saved? I do. Okay, so baby step three is done, so now it's a question between baby step 3B and baby step four, investing the 15%. And when it comes to that, you can do them both at the same time if you want. Or if it's going to take you, if saving for the down payment was going to take you any longer than like two or three years, I'd be like, no, do not wait. Like start investing at the same time because I wouldn't want you to lose that time. Like if it's going to be like a three

or four year process. In your case, if you did not move to baby step four, how long would it take you to save for the down payment, be ready for earnest money, closing costs, all that stuff? How long would it take? I anticipate seven to nine months. Okay. Then if I were you and you guys are ready to go after it, I would do baby step three B, do the home, and then move on to baby step four. So you can just focus on one thing at a time. Ken? I don't disagree. Any questions to that at all? No, I don't believe so.

I just thought about going ahead and funding a Roth and then pursuing the down payment. I mean, you can. There's nothing wrong. If you're like, hey, I'm so excited to invest. I can't wait. Then, yeah, do both at the same payment. I mean, you can, there's nothing wrong. If you're like, Hey, I'm so excited to invest. I can't wait. Then yeah, do both at the same time. But at the end of the day, it's really up to how quickly you and your fiance want to accomplish this home purchase. And I always say, Ken, cause we, we always talk about the down payment, you know, and you want to get up to 20% if you can no less than 5%, but there's a lot of cost that goes into purchasing a home beyond the down payment.

No question. I mean, I didn't, I'm just being honest. I didn't know the first time Sam and I bought a house. I'm so glad that we had some extra money laying around because I was like, oh, you find the house you like, you put the offer in. Sometimes you have to put earnest money down and that can be, you know, one three percent sure and then if there's closing costs that are not baked into your you know loan it's like you have to pay those and it's like oh wait a second another ten thousand dollars you know you don't know so i would i would always advise people i always say come in with a stacked deck that's your down payment d earnest money e and

closing costs c make sure you know that going in what it is so you don't get caught. You know what I'm saying? And Brandon, I think Jade's absolutely right. And I would throw one other thing on top of that. And that is, I'd have some, oh, I'm a homeowner cash set aside because I've got a real story for you, Jade. Let's hear it. The house that we're in now, you and Sam were over. That front room of ours the the library room well you know we wanted to turn that from a dining room into a into a library and we just bought this house and so we did all the things you're talking about so you get in yes good inspection yes no problems on the inspection which that costs two five seven hundred bucks it does so we get in

and we go all right we're gonna put some, we're going to put some shelves. Nothing extravagant, just some shelves. So what we had to do is we had to pull the chair rail off. Yeah. And in doing so, we noticed the drywall was a little squishy. Oh, yeah. Long story, extremely short. Who knows how many years there had been, there wasn't proper flashing on the outside of the brick wall on the outside.

And when it had a strong rain and there was mold in there and everything so we ended up having to spend thousands and thousands of dollars just by trying to hang a shelf just by a basic let's put some custom bookshelves in there so all that to say we had the cash yes uh and and but it cost way more than we planned. That's right. And we had to do some real maneuvering. And we had to delay some of it. Once we got the mold out and we fixed the water, it was no longer an issue. So just to point out, when you buy that first house, you never know what's going to happen.

That's right. And so, Brandon, it's not in any way to discourage you, but I would tell you, if you can wait, wait. I'd like every couple to just wait just a little bit longer so you're not cash poor when you actually move in the house. Yeah, because when you say wait, you're saying stack up as much money as you possibly can. Yeah, don't just think down payment to your point. But I'm also going, I want to have, you know how we tell people to pause the baby steps for the baby coming? Yes. Because you don't know what's going to pause the baby steps for the baby coming yes you don't know what's gonna happen i'd say the same thing for the house i'd say let's let's have some cash so you move in this new house if something has to be fixed i'm not talking about reno the bathroom the way you wanted it and you're not so you're saying so make it to where you're not having to

dip into your emergency fund simply because you just got like it's not an emergency that you need a u-haul truck right it's not an emergency that you need to get the home like, it's not an emergency that you need a U-Haul truck, right? It's not an emergency that you need to get the home inspected. It's not an emergency that you need to, you know, all these things. I just would have some extra cash for those first three or four months because that's when you discover stuff. And of course it can happen at any time. Oh yeah. But I just, most people don't think that. They go, okay, I can get the down payment, get this, and now I'm in. Can I tell you you you told a story when we first our second house that we got we moved in and we did a reno on the kitchen before we even moved in because the kitchen was crazy and uh got in we were in there like two nights and our bedroom was upstairs we were like

upstairs for the night like ready to go to bed and like lights off at one point Sam's like I need to like what is that sound? And we heard something. We didn't know what it was. We go downstairs. The valve underneath the kitchen sink had like busted. Water was pouring in. Oh, my God.

Pouring. Thank God for his ears. I mean, we would have been asleep. I don't even know how we heard it. I wouldn't have heard it. It was flooding so quickly. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, it was enough to where like we had to stop everything. We had to call the air serve pro, you know what I'm talking about, to come and make sure

everything was dry. Do you understand if we had gone to sleep and not heard that? We would have woken up. Yeah. Did he go turn the water off outside? We had to turn it off outside. By the way, that's one of the most valuable things, new homeowners that my father-in-law taught me. Find out where your master water shutoff is before you ever get the keys of the new house. Go, Oh, where's the, where is it? Because that,

that's a lifesaver. If you know where that baby is. Yeah. He had to go turn it off. And let me just say water and home are two. Those are two words you never want going together. How bad you, you you still you got a little trauma when you recount that story because i'm like if we had not what if we had already fallen asleep we would have woken up to a pool downstairs yeah you'd have to replace everything downstairs oh god is good yes you've been there done that i'm not going to go to one more story but it is important that when you get into a home that you, because so many people want to rush into a home and you end up being house poor.

Oh, it's terrible. You can't actually afford to live in the house. And that filters into everything, Ken. When you're house poor, it filters into how you work and how you show up at work. Oh. Because you're realizing in that moment, it's like the only reason that I'm working is to pay this bill. Right. And I'm not even there a lot because I'm at work 40, 60 hours a week.

It's true. You know, a home should be a place of peace. Yeah. And if your home was a place of stress just because of the finances, I'm telling you, that dream turns into a nightmare quickly. So, hey, here's what we're saying. We've been there, done that. Your older cousins here talking to you. Don't rush into a house.

Be able to afford the house and what comes with it. It's going to be a whole lot better situation. But if you didn't and you're in some trouble, Jade and I are here to help. We can help you get out of it. It's okay. We've all dug out of stupid before. You're not the first. You won't be the last.

Don't move. More of your calls coming up. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my friend, Jade Warshaw, and we're here for you, 888-825-5225. Hey, if you're new to the show, and we know a lot of you are, it's so exciting, Jade, when we sit in these meetings, they give us updates. And then we're getting a lot of calls. I mean, we were on just a couple days ago. Hey, I just started listening two weeks ago. So a lot of brand new listeners and viewers.

And we want to say, number one, welcome. Number two, we know there's some lingo around all this money stuff. And so when you start thinking about the process and you maybe you're new and you're picking up on some of these phrases and baby steps and what does that mean? The team has done a great job. We've got a get started assessment. It's just a couple of minutes at ramsaysolutions.com. It's under the get started button. And with just a couple of questions about your financial situation, we'll be able to get you caught up as to where you are in the journey and now you feel like okay i get it i see where i am and where i'm headed so check that out the get started button at ramsaysolutions.com dalma is up in orlando florida dalma how can we help hi um so i my husband and I recently moved from Illinois to Florida to help my parents. We pay half of their expenses there elderly. In the move, I sold my house and saved about $45,000 and put in a CD in the event we decide to purchase a home. But the only thing I have left to pay for debt is my student loans.

And I was wondering if I should just use the money that I have in the CD and some savings that I have accumulated since moving here to throw it at the student loan and take care of that first or moving, like even thinking about moving into a new house or buying a new house or what. Yeah. How much is the student loan for? It's about $78,000. So $77,000 something, but we'll round it up to $78,000. Okay. And so you've got the $45,000 in a cd and then i think you mentioned you had some other money saved as well yeah i have about a thousand dollars saved in a flexible savings account like a high interest okay savings account so a thousand dollars there anything else um no i do have like a 529 plan that's for my daughter's college.

And we won't touch that. And then I do have a Roth IRA. Okay. And we won't touch that either. So we wouldn't touch the college fund or the retirement. And just for clarity, did I hear you say we moved? Is that you and your husband? Yeah, my husband and I.

Okay. Your husband and you. Okay. Sorry. I'm digging deep on this i'm digging a little bit deep dalma um you said your student loan and i've heard you say like my i've got this saved i just want to be clear does your husband have any debt or is it just your yours uh no actually i paid off all of his debt that um he had he had we just we just got married last year okay so in

so part of the proceeds from the sale of the house i used to eliminate his debt and also a car loan and so the the leftover money um after like the expense of moving i put in cd because i didn't want to touch that i I see. Okay. So to answer your first question, yeah, I would clear out all debt before buying a house. So I would keep the $1,000 that you have. I'd keep that set aside. But effectively, you're in what we call baby step two, which is when you're paying off all of your debt except your mortgage.

And so you keep the $1,000 saved as a starter emergency fund. And then in your case, you would clear out that $45,000, put it towards a student loan debt. And then with your income and your husband's income, I want you both working together to clear the rest of the student loan debt that's going to remain the other $30,000 or whatever. Does that make sense? And you're doing that as quickly as possible. Then you're both working together to save up your down payment somewhere between five and 20%. Does that work for you? Yeah, it's a bit scary. But yeah. Well, yeah. Let's talk about that. It is scary. You've got this $45,000 set aside. You know, it was probably a little bit easier when you were putting money towards your husband's portion of the debt because you knew you had this nest egg you know 45 000 that's you know that's a little

bag to keep to the side and now the idea of dropping that down to a thousand dollars feels shaky right and it should you know there's validity there it should feel like oh my gosh like this is crazy but the hope is that you're going to use that as fuel to move quickly right you're quickly paying off this debt and then the next part of this is you've got to save up three to six months of expenses because i don't want you to go into home ownership with no savings that's going to be i mean ken and i were talking about it earlier that's going to that's a recipe for disaster so you do have a little bit of a journey in front of you but it's a good journey because it's going to set you up on the right footing so that when

you purchase this home you're going to be like deep breath yeah it's going to feel great so what i hear you what i hear you saying is to throw all the money that i have saved in cd in the savings into the student loan pay that off. Once that paid off, then I work on the three to six month expenses. After that, then I work on saving for a down payment. That's right. That's right. Just make sure you keep $1,000 set aside because I want you to have some little cushion money

in case you have an emergency. I want you to have a little money there. So keep that $1,000 that you had saved and then everything else goes to that debt. Got it. You got it. You got it. Yes, Doma. And she's really going to do it. You know, she is. She's going to do it. We hear some people and you go, they're not going to do it. We just told them to do it. No, she's smart. Doma's going to do it. She's like, I get it. Give me the game plan and I'm running. Yeah. Because you always have conflicting information about student loan debt

you're like oh you're never going to pay that off why would you ever throw extra money at that and um that's where i was just like do i do it or not but yeah i don't want it anymore forever yes doma that's it look the folks telling you don't pay it you know you'll never be able to those are people who have lack of confidence in what they can do and they're projecting that onto the masses i'm like no y'all don't put that evil on me ricky bobby y'all y'all keep that over there as for me and mine we can do this i love it shake it you knew i was going there all right uh she's on a roll i think you can help help Austin in about two and a half minutes let's go Austin

Jade is standing by what can we do for you hello you're live Austin what's up first time caller long time listener me and my wife we are

at about 65, in total debt we got probably 12 000 student loans another 10 and credit cards but we also have two cars and my car and we got about 8 000 her car we got 24 000 but it's only worth 21 now because she's done so much driving last year for her previous job is it a lease and and no we uh we just thought we have it up through finance okay and uh so we over the last probably year and a half, because we started the baby stuff first off January of last year, kind of like a New Year's resolution, and we have paid off probably close to $75,000 in debt. That's great. We kind of hit a log jam.

Okay. So we're trying to figure out the best ways to get that out of there. What's the log jam okay so we're trying to figure out the best ways to get that out of there what's the log jam i'm going to move you around move you along a little bit so we can get to the end of the call but what do you think the log jam is because you were moving along good we're we're not finding extra money to pay off extra debt did you you guys change your working situation? Did somebody switch jobs? Yes, my wife switched jobs. She went from making probably close to $80,000. Now

she's down to $40,000. Well, there's your logjam, my friend. We need more revenue. Let me give you the quick answer because here's what we know. When she was making $40,000 more, you guys were moving right along. Now that that $40,000 is gone, you're not. So it's an easy equation, but it's a hard equation, right? We know where the problem is. We know it's income. So right now, y'all have got to work to get that income back up as close to that $40,000 as possible so you can move right along. And in the meantime, yeah, I'm looking at these cars. If you want to move faster, you could, if it's worth $21,000, you could take the $3,000 hit, right?

Go down to your local credit union and get that loan and then put a few thousand dollars with it and buy a car in cash and you'd be out of the $24,000. Yeah, you can do this. This is about doing whatever it takes to get more money in to get through this season. Thank you so much for the call. All right, that does it for this hour.

Don't move. More Ramsey Show coming up. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? Get your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.