The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Manage My Medical Expenses? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show. It's a show about common sense for your dollars and cents. The phone number is a free call, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

David's starting this hour off in California. Hi, David. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have sort of a question around careers.

So I'm sort of just starting out, and I'm wondering if it's a good idea to stay with the company I'm at for several years or to try and maybe move around to many different companies. It doesn't matter. All that matters is where are you going and what's your best, shortest way to get there. There's no problem with staying with a company for a lot of years. In the old days, people would say, you know,

if you had too many companies on your resume in a short period of time, that would blow up your career. That's not true anymore. People change jobs much more frequently. They even change careers much more frequently than they did, say, a quarter of a century ago. But if I'm interviewing you and you come into our company or my HR team is interviewing you and you've had three jobs in three months, we think you're an idiot.

I mean, we think you've just completely lost your mind. You know, so you kind of got to think about how often we're talking about here, how much jumping around. But if there's a good reason for have jumped around, you know, I got a guy offer me double pay at the other place. So I moved. Yeah, I'm gone, you know. Or this other thing gave me much more advancement. Or this was a toxic environment.

And there was people misbehaving around there, lying and ethics problems. And I got out of there. And this other place I've been working has been great, you know. And those kinds of things, if I see three or four of those in a year even, I don't worry about it. But, you know, so there's got to be like a real reason other than I just can't make up my mind. I see.

That's sort of because I've moved around three times in five months or five months at each company so far. Oh, okay. All right. Why did you move each time? Why did you leave each time? Just different work, different projects at different

companies. You're doing contract work? No, full-time at each company. Okay. So you just didn't like the next project and changed companies for that reason each time? Yes. Okay. What field are you in?

Technology. Okay. All right. companies for that reason each time yes okay what what field are you in uh technology okay all right well we hire a lot of technology folks i got a bunch of dev team here a huge dev team a bunch of platform you know encoders and everything else and uh you know ruby folks everything in the world you know salesforce people all that kind of stuff and am looking to, if I'm going to go to the expense of bringing you on board, I do want to know you're going to be here a while, short of us doing something wrong. I don't want you to just be fickle. And so that is, you know, think about it from the employer's perspective, and then that will tell you. Now, the thing about the technology field is this.

You do not want to get a reputation on your resume of just going to the highest bidder because everybody will offer somebody more money always in that field that field is growing very quickly there's a shortage of programmers um we're fighting to hire them and um and i don't want to bring in somebody who's going to leave you know because somebody offers them just a few dollars more a month or two later either. So if you're just out there up for bids, then you're a consultant. You're not a team member. And I want a team member.

I don't want a consultant if I'm hiring you. So, again, the way to solve this in your mind if you're messing up is look at it through the eyes of your potential employer. And if they're just hiring people, you know, whatever they can pay and getting them in there and they know they're going to have high turnover, then you want to participate in that type of an environment. Fine. I personally would like more stability to my life than that.

If I were you, Tina is in Los Angeles. Hi, Tina. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey show. Thank you so much. I'm so pleased to be able to speak with you today. You too. What's up? I'm having trouble deciding how I should allocate the 15% of our income in step number five.

That's where we are now. And we have different options. We have various different options. And so I'm just having trouble deciding both for my husband and myself. We're ignoring the pension piece of it as per your suggestion. That'll just be an add-on. Okay. I'll start with my husband. 15% of his income would be $1,600 annually. Okay. He has a 457 plan available to him from work.

The investment options are meh. They're okay. Right. Should we put all $1,600 in there, or should we put a portion of that into a traditional and then roll over to a Roth? The alternative option we have is to put 50% in his 457. The other 50%, they allow a brokerage option, and we can put the investments wherever we like. A brokerage option in what? Within his 457.

Oh, within the 457. Yes, within the 457. Yes, within the 457. So the options that you don't like in there, you can bypass that by going with a brokerage option for a portion of it. Yes. And the brokerage option would allow you to pick other mutual funds? Pretty much. It's open to almost, I mean, tons and tons of options. Right, okay.

And what about your income? What do you make? My income, I'm at $161 annually. So my total at 15% would be around $24,000. Within my organization, we have a 403B plan where I can put $18K. I also could put 50% into a brokerage firm if I wanted to. And in addition, we have an option. You can choose between two options. One is you can get a monthly annuity based on your years of service, or they'll put a percentage of your income into mutual funds. So at my current, I've been here for five years, they'll do 4%.

And I think at 10 years plus, they'll do 10% of your annual income into a mutual fund, 403B. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to go to mutual funds in every case that I can and control my options as much as I can. It sounds like you're going to have to do all of this to get to 15% of your household income, right? It does. So should we do, for my husband, I think it's a no-brainer, put 15%, which is around $16,000,

into the 457. Potentially go brokerage. All brokerage you can, yeah. So you control your options. You've got better options. That's a better way to go. That's 457. Then the 403B does not have a Roth option, does it?

Not that I'm aware of. And you don't have a 401K also, do you? No, I only have a 403B through my employer. Okay, so you're in uh in health care or what i do i work for a major hospital in the area okay that's what i figured all right cool well you're doing great and so obviously and yeah if you take if you max out your 18 there i'm taking the 403 i'm taking the brokerage option i'm taking all the matches okay and so if i i take all the matches i take the brokerage is it okay to put 50 into a brokerage or does your money grow better if it's all in one place doesn't matter it's it's what the rate of return on where it is growing it can be if it's in 10 places at

12 or one place at 12 the result mathematically is exactly the same gotcha. So we'll do that. And then for me, we'll max out at $18,500 in the 403B. Anything beyond that, would you suggest doing putting it into traditional and then every year rolling into a Roth, paying taxes out of pocket? Yeah, I do a backdoor Roth is what I do. You guys are in the same situation. You're over the income limits for a Roth. So you open an after-tax traditional and roll it to a Roth. And that's $5,500 each you can do on that and pick you some good mutual funds for that.

And I'm generally trying to spread my mutual fund investing across four types, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And if you do that with the income you have at your age, you're going to be a multi-gazillionaire. And you're killing it. Well done. How often can you get the best of both worlds? Not very often, right? Well, with the Rate Secured program at Churchill Mortgage, it's possible. You can secure a low rate now to nail down your budget.

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We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Becky is in Phoenix. Hi, Becky. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Well, I have the last few years chosen one of your ELPs in the area, and I'm a little bit embarrassed to give it to him because I still owe him a few more docs. So I received this. It's called a cancellation of debt. It's from Midland Funding, which I think is a collection agency. I think it's a medical bill, but it says it's a 1099-C, and they have instructions for debtor that I am to add this into my income. And it looks like the identifiable event happened on 12-17. So do I need to turn this into mypa and add this amount to my rent uh to my earnings or do i find a way to call them to find out what this is because it was what it is is debt that is forgiven

debt that is canceled is income and they issue a 1099cC for that. And so have you been working with them, or they just randomly canceled this debt? As far as I know, they randomly canceled it. I don't know what it is. I think it might be a medical bill. But you didn't know you owed it? Well, probably. I have quite a bit of medical. I don't have any other credit card debts or car payments or anything like that,

but I do have medical debt. Okay. Well, you know, what I would do is keep a copy of that in case they ever try to collect the debt because this basically says they have forgiven the debt. So do I need to turn this into my tax plan? Yeah, because it's going to be turned into the IRS. Right.

Yeah. So turn it in. It's going to show as income. Debt, forgiven debt, that is not, with rare exceptions, around a mortgage. But the rest of the debt, anytime someone, if you've got a $5,000 credit card and you settle it for $2,000, the $3,000 that's forgiven, they can issue a 1099-C, and it is technically taxable income. And that's what you run into. That's what you've got here. Wendy is with us in Pittsburgh.

Hi, Wendy. How are you? Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I got a letter today from our mortgage company saying that we qualify for a cash-out refinance,

and I'm pretty sure that it's a bad thing. Just wanted to make sure that it's nothing that we should pursue. No, you would not pursue it. All that means is you're going to borrow more money than you owe now and put some money in your pocket by having gone further into debt. That's a cash out. You do a refinance and they hand you some cash. But you're further in debt is how that happens.

It's added onto my mortgage. Yeah, well, it would be a new mortgage that is larger than your old mortgage because you've refinanced and so you know whatever you owe now you know if you wanted another twenty thousand add twenty thousand to that and you would put that twenty thousand in your pocket and go spend it but you would be twenty thousand further in debt on your house so no we're not it's going the wrong way all right make sense thank you yeah that's great thanks thanks for the call. Adrian is with us in Miami. Hi, Adrian. How are you?

Doing great, Dave. How about you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I was just wondering, I'm currently in grad school, and my program doesn't allow me. Your program doesn't allow you to do what? Does not allow me to work during the program. Why?

It's a nurse anesthesia program, so you're doing about 40 to 50 hours a week of clinicals gotcha okay um so my question is i have about five thousand dollars in a 401k and i was wondering if i were to pull that out um would i just get be subject to the 10 penalty And is that something I should probably do to minimize anything that I borrow? Hi. Yeah, you're subject to a 10% penalty. My general answer is never pull money out of a 401k except to avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure. Do you have an income at all? I do not. Okay. So you don't have an income tax rate. And if you did, it would be very, very small. And so, yeah, the 10% penalty is all you're going to get hit with.

Yeah, I probably would clean that out. All right. Very unusual. Adrian, in 30 years, I bet I haven't answered that question that way twice. But you're in a very unusual situation. When I see pull money from the 401K on my screen software up here where Kelly's typed in what you're calling about, before I pick up the call, I'm like, oh, no, we're not going to do that. But you're in a very, very unusual situation. So, yeah, I probably would use that money to avoid this.

How much further do you like being out of school? Eleven months. All right, because you are in a great field you're going to make some bank aren't you that's the plan to jump into baby step two yeah just roll up your sleeves and keep living like a college student and clean up whatever student loan debt mess you got with this fabulous income you should be getting so way to go man finish it up get her done open phones this hour this is the dave ramsey show our question of the day comes from blinds.com you can upgrade your home with blinds.com the number

one online retailer of custom window coverings always put in the promo code ramsey and you'll see the best possible deal out there that's the magic word ramsey at blinds.s.com. Blinds.com slash Ramsey. Today's question is from Jeremy in Tennessee. I've got an elderly family member who's bought into the whole bank on yourself idea. She wants to buy a divided whole life policy and swears it is different from whole life, is it? No, it's not. It's crap. I want to make sure she isn't getting suckered into a bad product.

Oh, she's suckered beyond belief into a bad product. If you look at her lip, you'll see the fishing lure hanging out of it with the hook. She's been hooked. This is awful. I mean, whole life is bad. This is one of the worst whole life products out there. So, I mean, it's like, you know, this is the dumbest horse in the glue factory is what this is. I mean, this is bad, really, really bad.

So, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bank on yourself. You're not banking on yourself. You're loaning money to a life insurance company and getting ripped off in the process. So, not bank on yourself. Just, oh, man, the stuff they'll do to sell that crap is just amazing. It is just amazing. Ashley is on Twitter.

Dave, is homeownership essential to responsible money management? Hmm. Over the course of your lifetime, yes. In a given moment, many times no. What I mean is this. If for the next 50 years, you're 25 and by the time you're 75, you rent, you're going to spend a lot more on housing and have a lot less wealth than you would have if you purchased a home over the course of 50 years.

Is home ownership essential to responsible money management? If you're in debt and don't have an emergency fund and don't have a down payment, it's essential to responsible money management that you don't buy a house right now till you get that cleaned up but long term throughout the scope of your life you don't want to rent because the rent's going to go up every year every year i mean and if your landlord doesn't raise it every year rents in your area went up every year through that 50 60 70 year period of time that you need a place to live. Every year, your cost goes up. And when you buy a home on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, you've locked in your monthly cost for now,

plus the value of the real estate is going up. So you've got an investment, and you've controlled your cost of housing and so absolutely i would buy a home as a part of an overall life plan but in the middle of a certain situation there's plenty of situations i tell you you're not ready yet to buy a home so no you can't quote me and say uh we're broke we have no money but home ownership is essential to responsible money management. No, it's not. You didn't quit being broke and have no money first. That would be the first plan.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, right now you have the opportunity to take your business to the next level this new year. You can start by hiring the right people to help your business grow. At Ramsey Solutions, we post on LinkedIn Jobs because they are the best at matching the right person with the right job. LinkedIn Jobs screens candidates with the skills you're looking for so you can hire smart and fast. The thing I love about LinkedIn is they look beyond just the work skills and put your job post in front of qualified candidates who match your business requirements perfectly. That's how LinkedIn makes sure your job post is seen by the people you want to hire, people with the skills, qualifications, and other interests that will help your business grow. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn.

So this year, set your business up to succeed. Get started today and get $50 off your first job post. Visit LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. Visit linkedin.com slash Ramsey. That's linkedin.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. John is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, John. How are you? Hi, David. I'm doing well. Hope you are. Same. How can I help?

I've got a question around managing or paying for medical expenses. Thanks to your ministry, my wife and I are in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6. Good. We fully fund our HSA each year. We also have the ability to also cash flow a normal year's worth of medical expenses. In our situation, do you recommend that we will pay general medical expenses using the HSA contribution, or should we just cash flow those expenses? Depends on how big they are.

Just in a normal year, the ebb and flow is how much medical? It's no more than $2,000. Okay. And your household income is? We're in the $165,000 range. Okay. Well, what Sharon and I did, John, was we just paid it, and we left the HSA alone because it's tax-free money that's going in there.

Right. And tax-free if you use it for medical, and after 65 it's tax-free if you don't use it. So I've just used it as an additional investment account, and I've just cash-flowed my medical. Then if you get into a major medical situation, you need to use some of it. You've got a huge account. But I've got like $200,000 in my stupid HSA now because I just kept loading it in there every year and put it in mutual funds, and I traded it like an IRA basically. That's what we thought we should be doing, but I wanted to check with you before we take that step.

Yeah, it's not the end of the world either way. If you get into some medical, and, you know, you certainly wouldn't go into debt or anything like that, and you need to step into that HSA, it's always there, and it's tax-free when used for medical. You know, so anytime you need to step into it, you can, and I've always thought that. But I think it sounds like you guys are kind of like, I mean, around the Ram the ramses we've been really blessed with health and so we haven't had the health problems uh to where we couldn't just whatever it was pay for it you know and usually what we're talking about in most cases if it's even if it's a major hit is it's just your deductible and um you know you got your first out of pocket-pocket $5,000 or whatever it is max, and then after that it's 100% for a lot of HSA plans.

So, again, it's just if you get into something where you're in a pinch, use it. But I have used it. I've cash flowed my own medical and used it as an additional investment account. That's how I personally have used it. Alex is with us in Montana. Hi, Alex. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question about buying a house. My husband and I are first-time homebuyers, and it's a pretty competitive market here in Missoula. So we are wondering if it's better to rent longer or move into something faster that's possibly not our ideal house. The only thing I'm sure about dream houses is about the time you move into your dream house, your dreams change. So there is no ideal is my point.

I mean, we built a home about eight years ago that is absolutely fabulous. It's a world-class property. And, you know, that was eight years ago that is absolutely fabulous. It's a world-class property. And, you know, that was eight years ago. So I could do something different now if I wanted to. You know what I mean? It's just we put everything in it we wanted at the time, but now we'd want something different if we did it today, right? So what happens is your life changes and shifts, and technologies come and go,

and, you know, things you learn about inside a house that you think you want you don't and things you didn't you do and all that kind of stuff so i would just get started in the closest thing if you're ready now that's assuming you're out of debt and you have your emergency fund in place and you've saved a good down payment is that where you are yeah okay all right so you're a baby step 3b and ready to buy. But, you know, and you don't have to be, like, in a hurry or something. You don't have to be crazy about it and overpay for something or buy something that you basically hate 50% of it, you know. Well, that's, yeah.

I mean, it's not that we would hate 50% of it, but it seems like the market here is so crazy that you possibly have to put in an offer before even seeing the property. Well, I'm not doing that. I mean, that's unwise. Okay. So, I mean, you know, just take your time and you'll find the right thing. It may take you a few months longer. But these people that are putting in offers on houses they've never seen, that's rash.

That's impulsive. And that's how you get burned on something and no i'm not doing that um okay so just rent until we find well just take your time yeah just you know this is a this is a this is a it's it's a marathon it's not a sprint so make make good solid basic decisions that feel like wisdom and having said that we're not looking for something that's 100% perfect. We're looking for something that's 80% perfect, you know, because you're not going to get perfect was my opening statement, you know, into this discussion.

So no such thing as perfect. No such thing when it comes to a house. It's a stupid house. There's always another one. Open phones at 888-825-5225. David is on Twitter today. What's your opinion on a temporary halt on retirement savings for someone to pay off their home? I tell people not to do that.

I want you to put 15% of your income into retirement and baby step four, and everything above that goes to five and six, which five is kids' college, and above that is six. We pay extra on the house. What's interesting is if you will figure out what 15% of your income is and look at that over the next five years and compare that to your mortgage balance, it's not what's keeping you from paying off your house. In other words, if you run it out and you say, if I don't save for retirement, I can pay off my house in five years. Usually you can pay off your house in seven years by saving for retirement. And so we're not really arguing about anything except two years difference.

And so I'm going to tell you, take a little bit longer to pay off your house and get a good, healthy dose of retirement saving going at 15% of your income. Might be a few rare exceptions. If you owe $20,000 on your house, you make $200,000 a year, and you want to just reach over and knock it out right quick in the next three months rather than bother with it over a period of time, that's fine. It's not a big deal. But most of the time when you're asking this question,

the average household debt in America on your mortgage is around $200,000. And so if that's the case and you're sitting there with $100,000 income, you know, you've got a 5 to a 7 to a 10-year plan here. And we're only talking about a few months or a couple of years max difference between the two decisions. And no, I would not in that case i have 99 of the time i'm going to tell you to um do the baby steps in order that's why i have them in that order because they work in that order kelly is in canada hi kelly welcome to the dave ramsey show hi dave ah it's absolutely insane to talk to you and thank you so much for your work. Well, thank you. How can I help?

I'm calling today because I've been listening for a while, and I love your advice, but ultimately I still have a lot of anxiety around my finances because I have a family history where my mom had a successful career but then flopped because of a health issue, and then it destroyed the rest of her life, and I don't want that to happen to me. So my ultimate question is, when do I know that I'm going to be okay? When you're in heaven. Until then, you don't. Okay, how about here on earth?

Yeah, you don't. I mean, you don't, because there's always some possibility. You know, the greater your wealth and the better your insurance program overall, the less percentage probability that you're going to have a problem that completely overtakes you. But, I mean, I'm debt-free. I've got, you know, a net worth of tens of millions of dollars and tens of millions of dollars in cash in addition to that. And something could happen that I could hypothetically lose that.

I'm probably more okay, though, than I was when I was broke, agreed? Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, the more wealth you build, the more you lower the probability or the more you increase the probability that you're in quotes okay. But, you know, I could have a car wreck that's my fault and someone sue me and take everything. Hypothetically, it would be a really long trip for them because it's all set up to where it'd be very hard to get to, but it still could get there, you know. So, you know, it's just a matter of the more wealth you build in your long-term investments, the more your emergency fund's in place, the more you're debt-free,

the more you're on a budget and you have a sense of plan, the more you have good insurance in place, whether it's liability insurance and health insurance and those kinds of things, the more you're okay. And so, you know, you're going to get progressively more okay. And that's what we're doing with financial planning. That's what we're doing with the baby steps. And you can do it.

You can do it. And other than that, it's the boogeyman that you're worried about. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us. What if you never had another debt payment? What if you never had another credit card bill? You got rid of that student loan that's been around so long you think it's a pet? What if you never had another car payment? What if you never had to worry about money again?

What would you be willing to do to get there? Well, you'd have to change a lot of stuff, for sure. I mean, you'd have to take some of the stupid stuff you've been doing off your list of things to do, right? I did. I used to do stupid with zeros on the end. I know exactly what it looks like. I looked in the mirror and there he was stupid. You know, you got to change, right? You can't keep doing the same thing over and over and again, expect a different result. That's the definition of insanity. How do you change? Well, the only way I've ever figured out that people change is you give them new information that they didn't have.

You put them in a community that walks with them and holds them accountable and encourages them. And you show a very clear path for transformation. You don't want to be normal. You don't want to be normal. Financial Peace University has helped about 5 million people take control of their money and change their lives. If you join one of these groups and get a membership that lasts you a year for the online and the every dollar plus to tie to your bank. And you go to one of the groups and go through the nine lessons at your local church,

and we'll give you the kit to go through that. And you learn to stay on a budget, a written plan, using that EveryDollar app, the most robust, beautiful app out there when it comes to budgeting. Four million people now using that app. By the way, you can try it for free if you want. When it comes to budgeting. Four million people now using that app. By the way you can try it for free. If you want. But if you want to get in Financial Peace University. And do that one year membership.

And then go to the group. It's going to change everything for you. Because you can't be. We will not allow you to be comfortable. Being normal anymore. Check it out. Go to DaveRamsey.com. Visit Financial Peace University.

Or call 888-22-PEACE, 888-227-3223. You know, I started talking about this several years ago. When I very first started teaching this stuff 30 years ago, I started pulling up statistics. The Wall Street Journal says 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That means 7 out of 10 houses on your street have too much month left at the end of the money. Normal is a car payment, a student loan, a MasterCard, a Discover card, an American Express card. Normal is if I go on vacation, I pay for it for the next year after I go on vacation. Normal is Christmas is a crisis. Normal is the brakes go out on my car.

The tires go out on my car. It's a crisis. Normal is I have no freaking idea how my kid is going to go to college. And I feel like a dog because I've not done a good job prepping for my own kid. Normal is I don't know how I'm going to retire. And I'm really sure that social insecurity is a stupid plan, but I've not done anything about it. These are all normal things. Normal is the number one thing couples fight about in their marriage is money i think it's pretty safe to say normal sucks i don't want to be normal i don't be

normal at anything for that matter normal is not okay and i love love that scripture in Romans that says, be not conformed to this world. Don't be normal. Find out what people are doing that are not winning, and don't do that. Hello. Is that what we're saying? Don't be conformed to this world.

Don't do what people that are losing are doing and expect to win. I don't know why that's rocket science, but it seems to be. And in that scripture continues, it says, but be transformed. How are you transformed? When were you ever transformed? I've been transformed in different areas of my life. Sharon, I've been married 37 years. It's a really good thing for Sharon. She's not married the same guy that married her 37 years ago because he was a twerp. I'm a lot better person than I was 37

years ago. Oh, I've not arrived yet believe me you know she'll tell you that straight up too okay just don't get her started but she also in a moment of weakness will tell you the truth and that is that thank god her husband's not who she married 37 years ago have you ever been transformed i've been transformed i'm a better dad i'm a better grandpa than I was daddy. Yeah, Papa Dave, man. I don't know how great grandkids are going to be. I'd have been nicer to their parents.

Are you better than you used to be at something? I hope so. I hope you're getting better. Were you ever transformed? Be not conformed to this world but be transformed transformation be transformed how this is by the renewing of your mind you have new information in your brain she didn't have that's why a lot of you listen to this show you listen for new information and for the inspiration that comes from people that call in and you go, wow, that lady just inspired me. That guy just inspired me.

That debt-free scream just inspired me. You do not listen for the fact that this show has absolutely new content every day because it's basically the same content every day. For 25 years, I say the same thing over and over. My preacher told me the day he goes, you say the same thing over and over. And I said, so do you. I say the same thing over and over. My preacher told me the day he goes, you say the same thing over and over. And I said, so do you. You got one story, dude.

You tell it every Sunday. The gospel, right? I mean, come on. I got one. I'm a one trick pony. I help people transform their lives and believe that they can take the steps to not only get away from the edge of the cliff financially, but then also become wealthy. And I'll show you exactly how to become a millionaire, exactly how to become a multimillionaire. And it's not theory. It's proven now. Tens of millions

of people last year in the last several years have done this. Last year alone, the debt-free screams were over $50 million on this show. That's the ones that were on the air doing their screaming, and it's a six-week wait list to get on the air here. And we don't let everybody on. If you're still using your stupid credit cards, we're not going to let you do a debt-free scream. You don't qualify.

You ain't figured it out yet. And not everybody gets on that wants to get on that qualifies. So there. It's not a privilege. It's not a right. It's something we do

to inspire the listener. It's not for you. It's for the listener. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. New information in your brain. New inspiration in your brain. The renewing of your mind. the renewing of your mind the renewing of my mind yeah my pastor does tell the same stories essentially that in you know 37 years i've

been going to church you know 35 years i've been going to church and still hearing the same stories but you know what every sunday they're different aren't they every sunday is another experience with god isn't it that's why you go to church i hope i hope you don't go because of some obligation or something you go for the renewing of your mind it transforms you it transforms you and that's what we're doing here and and that's what you need to embrace because i got to tell you, you don't get transformed by osmosis. You get transformed by, you get your mind renewed,

and then you change your habits. You change your decisions. You change your beliefs first. You change your attitude second. And then that causes you to change your following, your activities. And so you change your beliefs about that, and you change your attitude towards debt and then the action is you get out of debt and that's when you get out the credit cards and actually cut them up

that's when you look over and go i have twenty two thousand dollars in my savings account and i have a twelve thousand dollar debt why am i still in debt you know why just because you hadn't written the checks only reason you need to be out of debt, like right now, at this moment. But see, if you haven't done that yet, that means your belief system has not changed. You've not yet been transformed, so I still have work to do, because that's what we do here. We're all about making you believe that if you plant corn, corn will grow. So plant some corn, that you're going to reap what you sow.

If you'll take these steps, if you submit yourself to a different process than you've ever used before, you're going to get a different result than you've ever gotten before. If you want to get something you've never gotten before, you've got to do something you've never done before. In your marriage, your parenting, your career, and your money. Some of you need to just repurpose yourselves at work and say, I'm actually going to work while I'm at work. Wow! There'll be a breakthrough. That's transformational, isn't it? It's transformational.

Your belief system has to change that something good's going to happen if you do that because otherwise you're just a slave to the man and you whine and carry on the little man can't get ahead blame everybody else for your crap because you're making stupid decisions it's time to not be normal normal sucks transform

this is the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.