The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Choose Which Job I Should Keep? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, and host of the ever-popular Dr. John Deloney podcast. He is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money. It's a free call, and some say the advice is worth what you pay for it. 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225 Mike is with us in Columbia, Missouri to start this hour. Hey, Mike, what's up? Hey, Dave. First off, I want to say I've listened to your show for a while, and it's changed my life. So thank you for that. Thank you.

I'm honored. Yeah, kind of facing a decision now. I'm kind of looking to make a change in my career, and I'm looking at two jobs. Both of them are paying a little better than I'm making now, but the one kind of on the lower side has a better location. It has just a lot of intangibles that are great about the job as far as a good boss,

be a part owner in the company. But on the other hand, I have another high-paying job that the location's kind of up in the air. It's a bigger company, and there's probably more room for advancement. I was just wanting to see kind of what you thought about that as far as what does each one pay um the lower paying job pays about 80 000 and the higher paying job i could probably within two or three years probably make double that okay um doing what in each case um they're sort of in the sales industry so you're so you're a sales guy? Yeah, sales and consulting.

Yeah, okay. So the intangibles must be pretty stinking high for you to be willing to take half pay. Yeah. Like I said, it's kind of my dream location. The boss is a really successful guy, and I think just being around him. Yeah, but you're not going to be. I don't really care about his success i'm worried about yours yeah unless you're 23 and you're going to put in two years and learn from an extraordinary mentor is going to carry along the way and you're gonna have somewhere to go yeah how old are you yeah i'm 24 okay all right so is that your

idea you're thinking you can kind of write you can learn from this guy because he's a he's a butt kicker um i think that's part of it and then yeah the location is i want to live there there's something else here what's the what's the the thing you're not saying are you looking for permission to not take this job that you don't really want because it's going Like, there's something else here. What's the thing you're not saying? Are you looking for permission to not take this job that you don't really want because it's going to pay a lot? I don't know, I guess. What's the location of the underpaid one that's so appealing? So I would be in training

kind of around the Columbia area and then it's up in the air where I would go. It's been thrown out. Georgia That's the 80,000? No, that's the higher paying job. Okay, what about the one that's got the great location? Where's the great location? Columbia? No, it's

in the Pacific Northwest. Like where? Like Seattle area. Okay, so you want to move to Seattle. That's appealing to you. Yeah, that area. That's appealing to you. Yeah.

Why? Like the outdoors, and, you know, it's nice to be able to kind of go in your backyard, and it's all there and go fishing after work and different things which i know you can do in georgia but it's just not the same it sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to make a forever decision you're 24 years old man and if you were telling me that hey i've got the opportunity to work for dave ramsey for two years learn the ins and outs of this thing and he's going to take me along on the ride and then i'm going to have

skill set uh i'm going to get a ringside seat to a world-class leader and then i'm going to have him on my um as a reference the rest of my life yeah dude i'll i'm gonna be real rude for a second make the money i'm gonna be rude for a second okay if you're coming to work for me and you want to move to franklin tennessee and the reason you want to come to work for me is because you can go fishing i don't think i want you well i i also like i mean it's in my industry and it would be, um, it'd be like more responsibility and it would be more, um, I would just have the freedom to do a lot more in the company and, and, you know, help the company make money.

And you grew up in Columbia, didn't you? Uh, yeah, I've moved all over the country doing different things. I worked for a large contractor. Oh, so you've already, so, so, I've moved all over the country doing different things. I worked for a large contractor. Oh, so you've already, so, so, okay. All right. I, um, okay, here's the only way I know to help you answer the question, because I'm just confused about this call. Yeah, me too.

Um, the, um, what, a good way to do this is to, John was on to something there. It's not forever, but do ask yourself the question, what do you want to be doing when you're 34, 10 years from today, and where do you want to be doing it, and what kind of money do you want to be making, and what kind of a career field do you want to be in, and all those kinds of things. And once you identify that, ask yourself the question, which of these takes you there? And the love of the great outdoors, I'm sorry, that's way down the freaking list of the discussion on this.

Because if you make $160 versus $180, you can buy an airline ticket. Well, especially if you're a salesman, for the amount of time you're going to be able to get out and go fishing. What I'm telling you, if you're my friend, if you're my son, I'm telling you at 24 years of age, you are starting to be able to get out and go fishing what i'm telling you if you're my friend if you're my son i'm telling you at 24 years of age you are starting to grind brother go make your money go to a place you're gonna have a lot of influence we're gonna learn a lot and georgia's a beautiful wonderful place to live and as dave said man go spend a few weeks in the great northwest um but man get that stuff under belt, and then you have a lot more options when you're 34 and 44 and 54. Yeah, but which of these decisions takes you to where you want to be 10 years from now? And that'll get you off the short term of, ooh, I don't want to live here. Ooh, ooh, ooh, and this guy's a nice guy.

Ooh, ooh. None of that takes you where you want to be 10 years from now. And so the decision-making variables in this are disturbing, and I can't put my finger on exactly why. I'm going to guess if we were to sit down and have some coffee with this person, there's a romantic interest at one of these places that has a – or a mom and dad interest at one of these places. Well, that's why I asked if he grew up in Columbia.

It sounded like he was trying to get out of there. Ah, gotcha. Get out of the's not like he's trying to get out of there ah gotcha get out of the south yeah i gotta get away yeah you know i'm getting away from crazy family or something i don't know i don't know what's going on i can't put my finger up but good luck with it dude look out 10 years and ask yourself which of these is going to take you there and hopefully that'll help you answer the question better than these two goofballs did and she'll go with you trust me yeah she'll come find you if she's worth it or you'll go back and buy an airline ticket or whatever. However that works. I think we overthink stuff, Dave.

You're 24 years old. Just get the ring, hit the dude in the mouth, man. Listen, yeah, you don't, you don't. Where are you going to college? So and so. Why? My girlfriend's going there. Bad plan.

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. Portland, Oregon is on the line. And Dave's calling. Hi, Dave. How are you? Oh, great, Dave. How are you doing? 5 5 2 2 5 Portland, Oregon is on the line. Dave's calling. Hi, Dave. How are you? Oh, great, Dave. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I love it. Hey, man. Good to be on with you. It's funny. We just started listening to your show recently. My wife and I, up until that point, we thought, hey, man, we got it going on.

And we started listening to your show. I don't know. I don't know if we got it going on and we started listening to your show and went i don't know i don't know if we have it going on let's play our scenario out for dave ramsey and see what he would say and what he would do any differently than what we're doing okay you know it's kind of yeah so looking for some notes i suppose okay yeah far away what do you got i don't know okay i'm 49 she's 46. We've got high school-age kids. I'm a real estate broker. I work independently. Self-employed. She's a stay-at-home. We own our home, not outright.

That's what we started questioning ourselves as we're listening to your position about real estate mortgages and debt in general. How much debt do you have other than your home? None. I have one. your home? None. That's good. We own three cars. Two are paid for, and mine is a lease.

Okay. All right. And so what does it take to pay that fleece off? Like 20-some-odd grand worth of lease payments, probably. And what do you, well, give or take, it could probably be a little less than that. Well, if you're going to keep the car, it would be more than the lease payments. But anyway. Yeah, probably more like $250,. But anyway, so, yeah, probably more like

$250,000 or something, I would guess. Yeah. So what's your household income? About $500,000. Cool. Why don't you just pay that off? Yeah,

you know, I'll tell you where I'm all spread around. Yeah, that's one of the thoughts I actually called my accountant last year and said, well,

if I at least make all of my lease payments, my remaining lease payments, can I, you know, tax deducted from the year because they better not do that. So here's what I got going out, right at least make all of my lease payments, my remaining lease payments, can I, you know, tax deducted from the year, but he said, you better not do that. Um, so here's what I got going out. Right. So I've got my house. Um, we owe about eight 70 on our house. Um, I have it on a 20 year mortgage started off on a 30. Um, and I know I don't want to have 30

years of the mortgage payment. So I refied it to a 20 at two and a half percent. Nice. Uh, yeah, yes. That's about six grand a month taxes and everything all in. Um, uh, we own four rental properties. This is kind of also where we started questioning ourselves. Like Dave, Andy said,

don't buy a property unless you can pay it in full. Yeah. Um, so of the four properties, one of them is paid in full. Uh, and the other three are about 50% equity. They're all worth, say, give or take $200,000, and what's owed on the other,

them are all less than $100,000. Okay, well, let's start with this premise, okay? You make a boatload of money. You're very successful. Congratulations. Very well done. What could I do to add to the peace in your life financially and add to the probability that you end up more wealthy than if you hadn't talked to me?

And my suggestion to do that would be let's take this wonderfully large shovel you have of five hundred thousand dollars a year and let's line up all of your debts your rentals your home and that stupid fleece car and let's just begin to eliminate debt because if you were making five hundred thousand and all of these properties were paid for wow what a cool place. I should think so. Yeah, and that's going to take a while. Because you got, it sounds to me like you got a million and a half or a million two in debt, and you make $500,000, and so if you put $300,000 a year on it, it's going to take you four years, maybe five years to clean up everything.

But the beautiful thing is that mathematically you can do that and still live a very tall cotton lifestyle. Or you can roll off one of those houses that you owe. If you got one of the rentals you're not thrilled with and use some of that equity to accelerate the process. But $870 on your home making $500, man, you can knock that out fast. There's no panic on it. The other stuff I'd be leaning into pretty hard. And more than anything i want you to do what you're doing with this phone call and let's start to get very intentional with

every one of these dollars it's easy to get sloppy when you have this much money coming in it's easy to get chaotic and justify this and justify that because you go i'll make a half a million dollars you know what you do that's pretty stinking incredible very few people do and that's wonderful so you're obviously a bright guy because stupid people generally don't make that kind of money so i remember but and dave you taught me this about um scale right so i see a number like 800 000 on a mortgage a remaining mortgage and my heart stops But you've got to lean that against half a million dollars. Yeah, which means nothing. Right.

So take that down. That's 87,000 making 50. Right. And so when I scale it down, I remember when I started making 30, and then I went up to 44. And you know what happened to me? Yeah. I ended up in more debt that first year than when I started because I stopped saying no.

And you're talking about 44,000. Yeah. Nothing compared to this. Yeah. But I just thought I'd won the lottery. And I quit being attentive to these details. And suddenly I owed more money than when I made less money. But, Dave, honestly, what I was hearing in your voice was just a little bit of, as you started listening to us, you went, you know, I think we're not being intentional enough.

And so I'm going to ask Dave for some steps. Yeah. So that I can be intentional i want to i want a path here because i kind of been wandering around a little bit little loosey-goosey little margin in the emotions because i made enough i could be sloppy and still look good and the good news is you haven't made a bankruptcy mistake you haven't you haven't gone crazy you didn't call me up with $87 million. Right, or $8.7 million house. Yeah, I mean, you didn't call me up with any of these things. So I just think you're wonderful, and I think you've got a lot of potential.

I would encourage you to be very intentional step by step. And a really good idea is let's just lay out an interesting little simple spreadsheet on how fast we could pay off this stuff if we were intentional and we limited our lifestyle just a little bit just a little bit because 200,000 out of 500,000 divided into 1.2 million in six years you know and and i always want to direct people back to the word you said dave i've never heard you approach somebody like that but what you asked what you told him is i want to know how i can add more peace to your life and if i can pull some of this can i if i can pull the other end of that fulcrum back right if i can pull the other end of that teeter-totter back and provide you less leverage and more peace yeah two words that don't go together financial peace right you know like

you know government efficiency yeah yeah but there's a moment when you're making half a million dollars and you think i should be sleeping better than you're making half a million dollars and you think, I should be sleeping better than this. I make half a million dollars. I shouldn't feel like I'm doing something wrong, you know. Or I shouldn't be drowning as much. Right, yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it.

And, you know, we took a call in the last hour, I think it might have even been the debt-free caller, that said, you know, we suddenly had peace. We suddenly had a sense of control just because we had a plan, not because we had executed the plan yet. But just going from, I don't know what the crap's going on to, I know exactly where I'm going. This is going to be hard, but I can do it. And this one's gone. And then you get a little taller.

There's a little peak. But there's peace in when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel mathematically, and it's not an oncoming train. There's some research that says the day you make the counseling appointment for the first time, you start feeling better. Oh, man, you wouldn't believe the number. When we first started doing financial counseling, people would call us up, and in order to get ready for the financial counseling meeting, they would get their crap together. Yes. And they would cancel. I talked about it that's how that's happened a lot yeah when you take that first crooked step towards a new trajectory look confused and stumble forward but stumble freaking forward there we go this is the Ramsey Show. Oh, I love it.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Gabriel is here to do a debt-free scream. Hey, Gabriel, how are you? Hello, I'm doing wonderful. How are you today, Dave and Dr. John? Better than we deserve. Brother, where you live? I live in a little township outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Oh, fun. That's a bit of a haul to Nashville. Yes, it was a beautiful drive the whole way down. Oh, that's nice. How much debt have you paid off? I paid off $88,000 in student loan debt. How long did this take you? This took me 34 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that three years, approximately?

Yes, that would be $42,000, scaling up to $58,000. Excellent. What do you do for a living? I am a software engineer for a real estate company that's also located outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Good for you. Well done, dude. Well done. So what was the 88? You said student loan.

It's all student loans? It's all student loans. And it was a little bit bigger than I wanted because I did a major change halfway through college and that adds an extra year. So that's a little extra debt. What's your degree in? Computer science. Of course. Good.

And then you're using it and everything. Yeah. So three years ago, you had what feels like an insurmountable debt, and you're making $42,000. What made you look at that and say, I can do this? Definitely looking at it and saying, you've got to get started somewhere. So getting hired right off the bat and saying, well, this is time. You know, I racked up all this debt over the four years. My degree helped me get my job, so it's time to put it to work and pay the debt off.

Stop it with your accountability and responsibility, man. We just can't have this. Yes. So what are you, 29, 28? Close, 27. 27. All right, good. Very cool.

He's not only that, he's a responsible millennial. That's so annoying. You're messing up all of my stuff, man. All your stereotypes are getting screwed up here. That's exactly right. And he actually had a plan, and he executed the plan. So annoying. You're messing up all of my stuff. All your stereotypes are getting screwed up here. That's exactly right. And he actually had a plan, and he executed the plan. Golly. Wow.

I'm so proud of you, man. Yeah, thank you. Who was your biggest cheerleader? Biggest cheerleaders, I got a couple people to reference. One of the big ones is definitely my mother, who's here with me today. Yay, Mom! My whole family. Come down to represent.

Got friends. I got an uncle and aunt that said, oh, you're paying off debt. Let's find some homework that we can pay you to do. Got another aunt that helped me to let me know of job opening positions so I could get an extra job in the final year and really knock out the debt. So thanks to all of them. Wow. Wow.

So everybody got behind you and gave you a lift. Yes. That's beautiful, man. So there is nothing cool about finally getting out of college at 24 and getting your first job and then saying, I'm going to be in it for 36 months with no dates, no going out, no running around. I'm just going to knock this out. What kept you going every single day?

Every single day, definitely looking that at some point you're not going to owe anybody money, and it just alleviates all the pain of finding money here to go do something fun there because you're restricted by debt and those payments that you need to make. So that liberating feeling is definitely what I look forward to. You kept looking at that long game. Yeah. Play the long game. It wasn't that easy off the start because the biggest thing that I found was there's a difference between Dave Ramsey's gazelle intense and Gabriel's gazelle intense. Hey, listen, Gabe, there's a difference between Dave's and everybody's.

But yes, you're right. It started that first year making $42,000, and then you look down and you're like, all right, I'll make double payments on my student loans. This is going to be fantastic. And then you get through and you get to 2019, and all of a sudden you're like, I should rebudget the whole year and see how good I did. And I paid off $14,000 that first year, and I'm like, that's not bad. Listen to Dave Ramsey while on the treadmill, and all of a sudden, I'm like, I could be doing better.

So I reran those numbers, budgeted those four things, and I actually found out $10,000. I couldn't tell you where I spent it in 2018. Wow. Oh! And like you say, you do a budget, you give yourself a raise. I got a $10,000 raise, tacked that onto the 14, stretched every dollar a little bit farther, paid off... Six, eight jobs?

Yeah. Yeah, $30,000 the next year, and then I got those extra jobs going into the third year of 2020, and then I paid off 44 of the remaining debt in that final year. Wow, that's a curve right there, baby. Yep, power of the snowball. You're kicking it. Dude! You are kicking it. Well, it was more of the snowball. It was intensity snowball. Yeah, that's a curve right there, baby. Power of the snowball. You're kicking it. Dude. You are kicking it.

Well, it was more of the snowball. It was intensity snowball. Yeah, that's a snowplow. Sacrifice. Well done, sir. Very, very well done. Okay, so you're a professional now. $88,000 paid off.

You're a professional get-out-of-debt guy. Tell America, how do you get out of debt? For me, what worked best, I'm a numbers guy. I had spreadsheets. I made my own amortization charts. So every payday when I sent it off to pay parent minus loans or government loans, I was like, all right, you know, I only got 24 payments left and then 23 payments left. But having that visualization really helps.

I also have my debt-free payment sheet here. So every time I paid them off, it just went out of here. There's the refrigerator magnet. Yeah, baby. Visualization. That's what helped me get through it, being able to see and actually say, all right, we're getting closer. It's going to happen. You know it's gazelle intense when he didn't pull out an $80 dream journal.

He pulled out a single sheet of notebook paper. It was like, done, done. Six folds. Hey, you mentioned hitting the treadmill what are some ways you kept yourself sane and whole during this time that's a long time to sprint it is um definitely finding activities that don't require a lot of money are really good so anything that has to do with a little bit of charity work um doing mountain biking that's free going on nature walks uh staying home watching movies with friends and family.

It's being active and enjoying life, just not with the super lucrative end of it for a short amount of time. Yeah. So what's the biggest thing you're going to splurge on now that you've paid off $88,000? Oh, geez. I could spend a while talking about it. I already got it all budgeted out and things. But ideally, I'm saving up now. I got my emergency fund, so we're saving for a home.

But after we get that home, I already have everything picked out for my home theater setup that I'll probably have one day. Ah, this is going to be a home theater. Wow, this is going to be the real deal. It's going to be a massive home theater. Your neighbors are not going to be glad you moved in. That's good. I already planned on soundproofing

the walls, so they won't hate me that much. You're awesome. Oh, I'm so proud of you brother well done very very well done well we got a copy of rachel cruz's book for you know yourself know your money our latest new york times bestseller congratulations you're a hero man you did it you took control of your life in a culture where uh the the stereotypical news feed is that your generation is lost and can't do anything, and you proved all of that wrong just by taking the reins of the horse and riding it. Well done.

I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Well, well done. Gabriel from Cleveland, Ohio, $88,000 paid off in 34 months, making $42,000 to $58,000. Count it down, brother. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free.

Yeah. Woo-hoo-hoo. I love it. Wow. That is fun, fun stuff. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jason is with us in Norfolk. Hi, Jason.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Good, man. What's up? Well, I'm calling for a couple of reasons. My wife and I are working on purchasing or building a house, and we've been doing the program for now for a little while.

We've paid down, I think, nine or ten accounts, and we are in baby step number two. And I think it's been around $42,000 that we've paid down in combined. Now, the problem is this, is that the land that we're building on was deeded to us from families specifically to be used for that kind of thing. And we're looking to get our house and stuff like that. But we have now the only three accounts left are our two cars and a trailer, RV trailer that I got stuck with with a previous marriage. I owe too much on it than what it's worth, and so we're trying to find out what to do

and where we go. What do you owe on it? We've been snowballing everything. What do you owe on it? Doing that. 27. What's it worth? Well, I was told by some people 19, and I've been told 12.

Okay. So you need to borrow the difference or have the difference. What's your household income? We make about $152 right now. That's good news. You can come up with a $10,000 difference and get the thing sold. Yeah, we're working on that. Is it up for sale?

Is it up for sale? Is it up for sale? Not at the moment. I have it at a friend's house because our current place we rent is an HOA, and I haven't been able to get it here to prepare it for sale, and I don't have a truck anymore to tow it. How long has it been sitting at the friend's house? About a year. I'm calling bull crap.

You need to get your butt in the car and go over and get that thing cleaned up and get it up for sale man get your ten thousand dollars scraped together quit hanging on to your old marriage brother this thing needs to go bye-bye and some of these cars need to go bye-bye and you don't need to be building a house till you get this mess cleaned up you stay in that rental house till that happens time to get focused dude you're playing you're eating around the edges you need to bite right in the middle of the apple here this is the ramsey show Dr. John Deloney, my co-host today. This is The Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jack is in California.

Hi, Jack. Welcome to The is in California. Hi, Jack. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I wanted some advice on my current situation. I started binge-watching your show about three weeks ago and decided, okay, I'm going to

– because I want to buy a house soon. So I paid off all my credit cards um but the problem i'm having right now is i have a car that's i spent way too much on last year and i bought it brand new because i drive about 100 mile round trip um so i spent 52 000 on my car um and it's about an 836 payment um and i I was thinking, okay, I'm just going to go ahead and pay this off because the value has already decreased to like $38,000 when I looked it up on Kelly Blue Book. So what I wanted advice on was I have about $20,000 in my savings.

Good. And I put my 401k on hold just last week because I had about 15% going in there. I'm 25 years old. I got 40k in there, which I want to use for a house. This year I'll make between 120 and 150. Excellent. Okay. So, and the balance on the car is what? The balance on the car is about 47,000 because I just bought it in September of last year. Gotcha. So you throw $20,000 at it, and that leaves us with $27,000, and you make $100,000 and some change, and you pay it off in a year, right? Yeah.

So that's what my question was because I was thinking of keeping like $10,000 in my savings. No, you need to get rid of this car. Okay. You're broke, man. $800. Yeah. No, it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's horrible.

I'd be freaking out. Yeah. And I realized, you know, watching your show, and then I started paying off my credit card, and I was like, you know what? If I want to buy a house, I'm going to have a mortgage payment and an 800 car payment no you're not doing that realistic i'll come to california and box your ears you're not doing that no you you know you you're too smart to do that let me tell you where you're struggling okay you've learned all of this information and implemented all of this

in a very short period of time your intellect went way ahead and left your emotions behind right you know what i'm saying like you understood this intellectually and you went like ding ding ding ding ding and you start doing it and then you're kind of like getting a little bit of emotional whiplash because this is all happening in a relatively short period of time agreed yeah and and you know what watching your show helps me out so much because a lot of this stuff is the stuff that my parents are very frugal and they taught me all this stuff and they were freaking out when you bought this 52 000 car yeah but they let they let me make my mistakes well you're a grown man and that you know stupid

is not illegal and you explained it to them in a good way why you needed this one too yeah 100 miles a week which means i'm going to destroy the value faster that was that was me justifying it in my head yeah but i knew i heard you good when i was doing it yeah i heard you but you made me realize uh how stupid it is when i started watching your show i think i think you're smart and i think you're going to turn this around it's just the reason you're saying, but, but, but, but, but, I'm going to keep the $10,000 is not because you intellectually don't see how this is all going to pan out. It's because you've done it all in a very short period of time,

and you went from way over here in the land of stupid to rushing over into the land of the wise, and you got a little whiplash doing it emotionally. It takes your emotions a little time to catch up so give yourself permission to go this feels weird but i'm gonna do it anyway and you feel exposed when you get down to that one thousand dollars and i think that's the point right yeah we want you're running well and we want all that money thrown at this stupid car to get rid of this debt so but when somebody binge watches dave they realize oh gosh i'm not safe and they immediately want to get safe now. Yeah.

And so I get that impulse, I got to hang on to this. And let me tell you the other thing. Those of you out there that are, you know, you've been broke for 20 years, living paycheck to paycheck. And you work through this stuff and you work your butt off and you're selling tents for three years. And then you're debt free and you don't have any payments. And then you start actually getting some money. And then you look up and you go, dadgum, I have several hundred thousand dollars and then you're debt free and you don't have any payments and then you start actually getting some money and then you look up and you go dadgum i have several hundred thousand dollars and i have no debt there's a there's another thing that happens is your emotions

are still back there when you were broke yeah and it feels weird to be able to buy a ten thousand dollar thing and just write a check for it and it's not a big deal yeah mathematically intellectually but your emotions are like back there when you were broke right so you got a heel along the way too yeah i mean we spend more on copier paper and coffee here than i used to make right in this building i mean it's okay i have a thousand employees but when i look down at that number i see your heart stops numbers going through i'm like i'm that little 28 year old guy that's back there broke 30 years ago i'm like crap yes you know it's like oh it's a lot of coffee so you know the last time i bought a new car when i was an idiot was was a long time ago i went to we're looking at buying my wife a

new car and or a used car and new to her i thought when did the prices go up? And she was like, 25 years ago. Yeah, it's that same. They want what for a used car? But as you move away from one set of financial values and operating in one financial reality, and you move into another one, your intellect often goes before your emotions. Almost always. And then often goes before your emotions. Almost always. And then it's like later on. So I have to look down at the coffee bill and go, okay, this company did bring in $350 million,

so we can probably cover this coffee bill. So shut up, you little whining boy. Yes. But on the other hand, I look at that number, and it still activates those old emotions. And so that tells me that still today, my emotions have not caught up with the intellectual activities required to run a $350 million company. And it may never. It may. Well, every time they do, the company grows.

So I can't keep up. That's right. That's right. I can't keep up. That's right. That's right. I can't keep up. The same thing with me. Sharon and I were looking at buying something last night, and she goes, I want to get this. And I'm going to spend a lot of money. And then she told me how much it was.

And I went, that is not a lot of money, you little goop. Buy it. But that nine-year-old little girl from Easton is still like, whoa. Well, that one that was terrified and didn't think we'd ever be able to fill up her grocery basket again in the grocery store. Yeah. And now can and not think about it. But she's like, that's a lot of money. She's like a mischievous, like she's doing something wrong.

I'm like, honey, put two zeros on it and we'll call it a lot of money. It's not a lot of money. I think, Dave, that is so wise. Whether it's your marriage, whether it's your kids, whether it's you're in a new stage with your money. To always just pause. Have some built-in pauses to go, whew, here's a conversation we were having upstairs. We're working on this new book.

We say here, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I asked the team, it just hit me like a lightning bolt. What does growing mean to you? What does growing mean to you? And they were saying, intellectual stimulation and exercise plan and a good morning routine and reading and spiritual growth and all these things. And David

occurred to me in this conversation. This is just yesterday by the way, so I'm still processing it, but when you go lift weights, you're actually tearing your muscles down. It's when you rest that the growth happens. And so it's both and, right? It's crushing it and reflection. And so it's gazelle, right? It's crushing it and reflection.

And so it's gazelle intense and I'm in a new stage here. You are busting the lactic acid, man. Yeah. I'm in a new stage and a new stage and a new stage. And there's the pruning that causes growth. Yeah. And, man, it's always a breakdown to build up. Always.

And when you read that hard book or that hard class, it's at night when you sleep. That's when the neurons grow. That's when the growth happens, right? And so it goes back to, it's both and. Maybe I should sleep more. I'll always tell you that, yes. But I love this gazelle, gazelle, gazelle. And hey, don't forget to be reflective and realize, hey, you're safe now.

You're safe now. And now we're going to start working about giving and building. And it's just keep letting your, make sure your head and your heart stay connected through this whole process man yeah that that's um so jack all of that rant to say that um for everybody else out there listening what you're going through is normal yeah it's a it's a normal part of the process for your emotions to catch up with your intellect take the whole 20 000 down to 1000 work the baby steps like you heard when you were binging. And let's get that car paid off and get that debt out of your life.

And the good news is you can look back when you're 54 and go, you know, one of the dumbest things I ever did was back when I was 24. I bought a $50,000 car. When I was 24. And you can look back. You know, you may have gotten the dumbest thing out of the way. I wish I'd gotten the dumbest thing out of the way. You may have already checked that box. The dumbest thing you're ever

going to do could already be on the list. That's a win. That's a pretty cool win. That's a good way to think about it. And at the end of the day you end up with a $50,000 paid off car. That's not a bad consolation prize. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show.

If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.