The Ramsey Show - App - How Do We Prepare To Combine Our Lives? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

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live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio. This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. My name is Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube and podcast show, The Table, with your boy, Anthony O'Neill. And co-hosting with me today is the one and only Christy Wright, number one national bestseller, also host of the very popular The Christy Wright Show, and also the founder of the Business Boutique Academy that's opening up next week. It is on Monday, and we're kicking it off with a webinar. I'm so excited.

I'm going to teach people how to sell without feeling slimy, feel good about selling, and we're going it off with a webinar. I'm so excited. I'm going to teach people how to sell without feeling slimy, feel good about selling, and we're going to kick it off. So yeah, it opens on Monday, closes on Thursday. So we just opened a few days, but man, there's a lot of excitement that builds up to this time of year

when we get our new class of Academy members into my coaching group. It's going to be fun. It's going to be real fun. So if you have any questions about business today, business, money, I want to say relationships. Yeah, relationships, anything today. Give us a call.

Triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five, triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. And Christy and myself would love to give you our viewpoints, our thoughts and help you walk through this process. So I'm excited. Christy's in her business head mode today. So when she walked in, she said, hey, I want business calls. I want business calls. Maybe we'll give away an Academy membership if we get some good business calls. I love giving away your

stuff. You just said it, Claus. I'll just give it away. So generous. So give us a call. You never know. You may be the person to get it. 888-825-5225. Kelly standing by. She's our boss today, her and James, and they'll let us know if you get through. But Lenora is with us in Texas.

Good afternoon. How can we help today? Hi, yes. I'm calling because me and my husband, we're kind of in a dilemma. We moved here from Arizona, and we paid off all our debt we're about 220 000 free of debt and we have a house yeah we have a house here in texas and a house in arizona but my husband recently got the opportunity to move to east texas to give the kids a little bit more opportunity as well for me to get my master's degree. And I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, I'm comfortable here.

We don't have like a mortgage payment to pay. And if we were to move over there, it was like, we're starting all over again. And he's for it. And I'm kind of on the fence. So I was calling to see if you guys could give some kind of advice on what we should do. Yeah. So let's walk through this process. then I'm gonna let Chrissy talk into

this a little bit too, cause she's married and I'm pretty sure her and her husband have disagreed on some things and I would love to hear how do we work through that? Cause it's going to happen within marriages and relationships. But what's y'all's household income right now? My husband's like his pay, I guess per month varies, but anywhere from seven to 8,000 and I'm a nurse. I just finished my BSN program, so I'm going to start working. I just had a baby. Oh, congratulations. Yeah. Congrats. Thank you. Okay, cool. So you're making my $8,000 a month.

Um, and you said that you all paid off all your debt or do you still have some debt? I know you say you paid off 220. Is that all of your debt? Yeah, that is all of our debt. That's our student loans, our medical bills, our house, everything. How much is the house worth? The house in Arizona, we bought it, um, we bought it when we were 20 and we paid it off this last, like two years ago.

And I think the value on it's like two 80 and the one in Texas is about 75. It's a little older house though. Okay. And you said he wants to move there and get a new house and you all would have a mortgage payment there. Yeah. Like we live in Texas right now. We live over here around Odessa Midland and the house is completely paid for.

So we're basically paying just like water, electricity, phone, internet, just basic. Like the, yeah. And if we were to move over there, it's like we're having to start with the mortgage and hoa and all the basic bills and still i mean i get the reason why he wants to go just because it's closer to the beach and it has more opportunity for the kids to grow um the little town that we're in right now doesn't really have it's like one stop sign like a one four-way stop and that's it you know so i think he's for it because it gives more opportunity for our kids to grow but i just i mean i remember struggling being able to pay the bills when we lived in arizona and i just don't want to go backwards why what's the arizona house for is

that a rental what's that what are you yeah it's it we're we just um we're renting it. It's a rental right now, but a couple, about last July, the house burned down, so it's getting remodeled right now through the insurance company. Why would you not want to sell that house? Because ultimately our goal is to move back to Arizona. Okay. I mean, I think that's where we want to move back. When? Do you know? We were planning on moving back within like the next five years.

But I mean, the five years have already came and go. So we're kind of like, well, what are we supposed to do? Like, is that where we want to go? So we're kind of at a loss of what, like where we're supposed to go, what we're supposed to do. But he just feels like he was already frustrated where he was at, and he felt like there was no growth, and then all of a sudden, like, someone's like, hey, you know what? I have a position for you, and I think he feels like, you know, God works in mysterious ways. Like, maybe this is a sign for us to move. Like,

maybe there's more opportunities, more growth, like... Well, I think there's definitely, I think there's definitely, you guys can have a discussion about whether you move or not. I mean, that's one piece of the equation. But the way that you ask the question is as if there's only one way to do it, and there's not. There's a couple ways to do it. You could sell the Arizona house, and you could pay cash for a house, and you don't

have a mortgage again. And you could sell your house as well. One of the things I've heard Dave say a lot of times, Anthonyony on the show is that he never recommends long distance landlording long distance rentals um you've already experienced a headache of that thing burning down and having to remodel and i can't even imagine what that's like trying to manage from texas but if i were you if i were in your shoes and i'm just gonna say what i would do if i were you i would sell both houses pay cash move to this new opportunity, and then you still don't have the mortgage.

That's just me. Ayo, am I missing something? That's just, I don't know. Yeah, from the financial perspective, I agree with Christy. I mean, once I pay off my home mortgage, I'm not a fan of going back into debt. You know, if I could sell both of them. Yeah, so if I could pay off both of the houses, I mean, not pay off, sell both of the houses, move, pay cash for the house.

That's the route that I'm going. Now, are you completely wrong if you go out there and you take another mortgage? You're not. But why do you want to go backwards? That would be my question. So I think for me, what Christy and I are saying is you two just need to really sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation uh you be honest with your husband allow your husband be honest with you

and you two figure out what's best for the family moving forward and i think one of the best things especially with you all just having a baby and you just completing school and you all being a young couple, avoiding debt, avoiding going back into debt is the best thing for the couple. And you hear it in her voice. She doesn't want to. Now, it's different if someone calls and it's like they don't feel that conflict. I feel like she would regret it. Right. Getting another mortgage.

And you don't want to go against your values. I hear it in your voice. You don't want to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you, Chrissy. And that's why it's important for her to have the conversation and be honest with her husband. Like, hey, I hear you, babe, but this is what's in my heart. This is what's in my gut.

So can we please, please avoid this? Hey, 888-825-5225. This is Christy Wright, Anthony O'Neal, right here on The Ramsey Show. We want to hear from you when we come back. Give us a call i heard a statistic recently that absolutely blew my mind 43 of americans are not protecting their loved ones with life insurance this drives me crazy people what are you thinking taking care of your family has to be a top priority think about it if you died today would you be the hero by making sure that your family had the money

necessary to carry on their life without struggle and hardship would they be able to pay the bills and plan for the future that's what term life insurance is all about. Regardless of where you are in the baby steps, you've got to make this a top priority. Have I gotten my point across yet? That's why I talk about Zander Insurance every day. They keep it simple and make sure they find you the best rates out there. Zander will do their job to find you the best rates and make sure you're served like I expect. But you have to take the first step. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

My name is Anthony O'Dell, Ramsey Personality. John D. Studio with me today is Christy Wright, also Ramsey Personality and number one national bestselling author. And Marie is with us in Columbia, South Carolina, who's going to kick off this segment. How can we help you? I'm calling because I think you guys are taking my call i am a single mom and i have about 30 or 35 000 worth of debt and i was wondering if it would be a good idea to um sell my home and take those loan proceeds to pay off my debt and kind of rent for just a couple years to kind of build my credit back up and, you know, kind of save more money for a down payment on a new home.

So sell your house to pay off the $35,000 in debt right now, right? That's the main question. How much do you make? Only probably about $30,000, $31,000. What do you do? I'm actually a business analyst. Oh, okay. All right. Business analyst. All right. what's the 35 000 a debt um it's 10 000 for car payment um about 22 000 in student loans and about 3 000

in credit cards credit cards all right cool sounds good and how much equity do you have in your house um i have about about sixty thousand dollars worth of equity cool let me ask you this question um uh how much is your house worth um it's about either 160 or 165 what's your mortgage payment? It's like $860. Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're stretching this one, ain't you, Marie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a struggle. Okay.

So I want to ask one question before we – it's a little different than the paying off the debt with the house. What would it look like to get your income up? What would that look like in your business? A business analyst, I would think that that could have some potential to be making some good income. I know you're a single mom, so side business, you may not have the hours for that. Have you considered what a path to that might look like? I know that sometimes we're like, we want the house to be the last thing to use to pay off debt. So, you know, with your experience as being a business analyst, I would just feel like there's some options for you to get that up. Yeah, I'm hoping for maybe a promotion in the next year or so, but I'm kind of new in the role.

So it's, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here's a problem that we have, Marie, that I'm seeing. I think Chrissy was hitting into it. We have a shovel problem. You know, we have an income problem. And so right now, selling your house could be a temporary fix, but you will be right back in this situation down the road if we cannot get your income up. And so the number one thing is I definitely want to say we need to start figuring out how to get you up to at least about fifty fifty five thousand dollars, especially in Columbia, South Carolina, which is a beautiful city.

That's where I was born. So I'm rooting for you. But at the same time, let me ask you this question. Money was no issue. Would you sell your home? Yes. I'm not really particular funds. I mean, I've been in my house for it's going on five years. I'm not happy with the location anymore. And honestly, it's a lot to be a homeowner with maintenance and, you know, property taxes, HOA fees. So it's kind of a lot that I kind of jumped in kind of quickly, I think. Yeah. And I kind of just want like maybe a clean slate. I like it. If that's possible. I like it. Yeah. Then I would definitely say reach out to one of our real estate agents here and just get on the phone with them and see how can you get on the market.

I mean, if you want to sell, now is a great time to sell. Well, and I wonder, too, if you couldn't downsize, take some of that, you know, proceeds, of that you know proceeds but then you're still you know owning a home like that might be in a better location because i didn't know all that marie about the location that you want something different i just my only fear is sometimes people think well i don't like my situation here so i'm going to go over here because it's going to be easy and perfect i'm like renting has its own set of problems so i don't want us to think that that's going to just solve it maybe there's a another combination like you said, another option. There is. There is.

Let me answer this question before we let you go here. Do you have anything in the savings account? I do. I have about $5,000 in savings. Okay, cool. $5,000. So here's the thing. I would suggest, since you don't like the home, since you want to get out of the home,

go ahead and sell the home. Now, when you sell the home, you're going to pay off all your debt. And what you're going to do is you're going to invest, not invest. You're going to put three months inside of an emergency fund. Okay. So that's what the first two things you're going to pay off all your debt. You're going to put three months of expenses inside of emergency fund. And while you're building your emergency fund back up, you're going to rent for a little bit. Then you can do what Chrissy said is going back in there and see what can you buy that you really enjoy. In the meantime, I want you to connect with one of our friends, Ken Coleman, uh, jump on his radio show next week. Ask him, Hey, I talked to, I tell him, I talked to Chrissy and Anthony last week on the Ramsey show. They

told me I have a shovel problem. You're the shovel guy. I need to get my income up any suggestions. And he'll walk you through that entire process on what to do and how to get your income up. But in the meantime, reach out to one of our ELPs, and they'll walk you through the process on how to sell your home and get you out of that house and sell it for top dollar. The income piece of it is so huge, Anthony, because what I don't want her to do, and I think is really tempting for anyone to do, is when you get a lot of cash and you've been strapped financially for a long time, and all of a sudden you get this huge amount of money, you might pay off your debt, but then you might just take your foot off the gas and go, oh, I've got this big savings, or oh, I've got this left over, and you're not going to have the urgency to get your income up. You still need to get your income up because I don't want you getting another rental situation or mortgage situation that you can't afford because your income's not high enough to support your life. And so make sure you're still exploring that even if you sell the house.

Don't let that take your foot off the gas. Yeah, Chrissy, and let's stay here for a minute. I think it's a good teaching segment. One of the things that you do for ladies, which is why I'm so excited about you launching your business academy next week, is would she be a good candidate to start a business on the side? Yeah. So what's interesting is if you're a single mom and you're working every hour that you can, you're already stretched too thin.

I don't want to add stress to single moms. Now, if, for example, if you have, and I don't know the ages of Marie's kids, but if you have older kids that are in school, if they play sports after school, like you've got a little bit more time, maybe your hours in your full-time job are flexible and you could work more hours, whether it's on the weekends or in the evenings and you want to, and that's not going to just stress your life out to the max. Then, yeah, I mean, it's so easy to start a business right now. So you could even, like, for example, Marie, one of the things you could do, you could use your business analyst skills on the side as a freelancer, as long as there's not a non-compete or something, as a freelancer for small businesses and help them analyze what they're doing,

their goals, their metrics, their records, all that good stuff. And so there's options for you to earn extra income by starting a home-based business or side business or small business. The thing is, I just want to make sure that people are prepared to work because it's not just free money. You have to put work into it to make it work like anything.

But that's definitely an option if you've got those hours that you're willing to allocate to that. And I ask that question because when we talk about having a shovel problem, sometimes we go straight to, hey, which is important, go get a second job or go get a pay raise. But sometimes that could be for a single mother like herself. You know what? Hey, maybe I should just start a side hobby, a side gig. Yeah.

You know what my first one was? Have you heard me talk about this? No. So when I worked in a nonprofit right out of college, I was making like nothing, like college graduates are right out of college. And I wanted to move to this 40 acre farm and it was more rent than I could possibly afford, but it had an 11 stall barn. And I was like, I think I'll just start a horse boarding business.

And so I did. I used the 11 stall barn to board horses to help me pay my rent because a similar situation where I couldn't afford that rent on my income, but I really wanted to live there. So I was like, well, I'll get my income up. I'll get my shovel up by starting a side business, boarding horses. So I did. And that's how I was able to afford to live there. So yeah, you can, you can get scrappy and creative. You can use your skills, your talents, your stuff. If you've got a computer, you can write, you've got a swimming pool, you can teach some lessons, sewing machines. So you can get really creative to earn extra income. And what's cool about that, Anthony,

versus getting a side job is that you set the hours and you call the shots. You set your pay. You get to decide when you work, when you don't, on what terms, what customers you keep, which ones you don't, how much you pay yourself. You get to set the rules. And that's a nice benefit to starting a business. So ladies, I want you to get the training and tools you need to take your business further and faster with Chrissy Wright. Her exclusive online training group for women with businesses opens next week, April 19th through the 22nd. Where can they join the waiting list?

How can they do this? Yes. And you can join our webinar at businessboutique.com. Businessboutique.com. We'll be right back. well america we have this amazing couple on the debt-free scream stage. And I'm super excited. Nate and Tiffany from Orlando, Orlando, Florida. That's right.

Welcome, y'all. Man, listen. All right. So how much did you pay off? We paid off $49,873. And we did that in 10 months. Whoa, in less months. Nice. Whoa, in less than a year.

And what was your range of income? So that's a tough one to say. We were transitioning and doing some other things, but somewhere around $80,000 and ending up at about $110,000. At $110,000. I love it. What do you do for a living? So I'm a teacher, and then I'm also transitioning to work for a smart investor firm. Are you?

I am. So we love Dave Ramsey. Yeah, yeah. I was about to say both professions are amazing you know you're a school teacher you're helping these young people out like this right here in the lobby and then you come to work with us to help more people that's right i love it i love love so what what kind of debt was this uh student loans credit cards that was uh mostly my student loans okay so. So mostly normal people. Yeah.

We were very normal. Oh, man. I love it. I love it. So what happened on this journey about 10 months ago? Well, the journey is really quite a bit longer than that for both of us. My journey actually started pretty much after a divorce. Okay.

And so I was a single dad, and you guys will get to see my son soon. And I had to figure out, you know, how I was going to change, change my life. I'd followed Dave Ramsey previously, just hadn't been able to accomplish what I'd wanted to accomplish. And so I started off that process, paying that off by myself. And then along came Tiffany. Yeah. And I had read Total Money Makeover years ago. Okay. And so I started working on getting out of debt but i was very ish and um anyways when we met we had a financial conversation very early on i think it was date three date three a little too early yeah who started that conversation him i did i did but

it was good i was ready for it i was ready for that. So we had that conversation. And then we actually did FPU when we were engaged. So that was very good premarital counseling on top of the other premarital counseling. And yeah, so I was very open to it. He helped me understand a lot of things I didn't understand when I originally read the book. And we just instantly started working together. And as soon as we got married we just hit the ground running that's awesome what a cool kind of season of your life to be focused on this goal and working as a team while also bringing your lives together and getting ready to get

married and all that must have been a really good kind of training ground for teamwork because you're having to have these conversations and having to align on values and sacrifices and all that what was that like um that was really uh for me it was the prerequisite class but making sure that we're on the same page um so my past i experienced that that's very important um so we wanted to make sure we were setting goals we were on the same page that we wanted to accomplish the same things and so part of that for us was reading a lot of the books. Everyday Millionaires was a big part for us to be able to look at the future and say, this is where we want to be.

We wrote some things down and just really made the plan. Yeah, we're already following the plan. But once we read that book and we did the discussion at the end and answered the questions and started answering where we wanted to be putting a deadline on everything that's when like it became real and we're both very competitive so we were on a mission to beat the goal that we we wrote down and we actually did by over a year we became debt free um over over a year yeah sooner than what we had originally planned wow because i'm looking at the math i'm like if, if you started off making $80,000 and you ended up making right around $110,000, that's gross.

I mean, so half of your income was going towards your debt. Yeah. So we were saving up for our wedding and a honeymoon. We were going to kick off after that. But then, obviously, COVID canceled our plans to go on our honeymoon and really just forced us to use our money the way that we saw best, which was to get out of debt, which was our plan and start our future in a way that's going to allow us to really change lives. And I went from part time, full time to part time because of COVID, then back to full time. So that is where that range, that big gap came from. So once I was back to full time,

then we were able to put everything that we had saved towards our debt. But we just had it just in case. We listen to the show. That's awesome. Yes, we would listen to you. We've heard you guys many hours as we were driving Uber Eats

and having our headphones in to be like, there is a reason I'm delivering this food to somebody else while I go back home and eat leftovers. A reminder, keep you motivated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. So what would you all say is the key to getting out of debt?

Do you want to take that one? Yeah, sure. I would say definitely the budget, but having the budget meeting. I think the budget is obvious, but that budget meeting every month, if not twice a month. And then for us, it was really writing down those goals, putting a deadline on it. Because without that deadline, we could have easily made excuses for a trip or a night out or something like that.

I love it. I love it. We have a bunch of kids, young kids in the studio today, and they're watching you. What would you say to the young people listening why they should avoid debt? For me, and as a teacher, I tell kids this because I deal with high school students that are deciding where to go to college. And of course, many of them are looking at places that are more expensive than they can afford. And I just tell them it's not worth it. It's not worth giving up for me. Basically,

eight years after college that I was working to pay off debt for a school that was four years long. Wow. So that puts things into perspective. Yeah, it was not worth it. And you did it fast. It could have been a lot longer than that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Man, I love it. I love it. One last thing before we bring your son up, right? Yes, he's here. What was the hardest thing during this process? For me, we had, because of the transition with her job, we had kind of paused and we were saving up all the money that we would pay off debt. So we had a pretty big chunk in savings and actually having to go take that money and go back to the $1,000 and pay off all that debt, which would feel good. But then we look at the bank account,

it's a little stressful. That was a tough decision. But I think also the most important thing we did to actually say, hey, we're actually going to do this the right way. I love it. I love it. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, he's the saver and I'm the spender. So the toughest part for me was the same thing, but I had the opposite perspective. I wanted to spend that big chunk of money and throw it on the debt and saving it and putting away and not putting it towards the debt for me was the hardest.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So she pushed me to do it as all good. Hey, I helped Matt. I helped Matt spend money as well. It's a gift.

I just really, I really bring that to our marriage. I think I'll probably help my wife spend money too. I'm a spender. I hope she's the budget one. You're going to need one. Why are you bringing your son on up? Because I definitely want him in this shot as well.

I got to say, man, you just hurt a lot of single people out there saying, wait, did he bring up finances on the third date? Yes. That is so funny. Yeah. It was great, though. That's impressive. Hey, let's get this out of the way.

We got to be on the same page. I like that. It accelerated all the other important conversations we need to have. That's right. I wasn't going to budget for too many dates if I wasn't sure that he was on the same page. Well, let's go ahead and get this straight. I love it. I love it.

I love it. Man, well, love it, love it, man. Well, listen, we're going to give you a copy of Rachel Crew's latest book because you all are definitely there. Know yourself and know your money. And I'm excited for you all's future. But let's get to it. Nate and Tiffany paid off $49,873,000 in 10 months, making $80,000 to $110,000 a year. Let's count it down and hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free. We're debt-free. Oh, man. Listen here. You know, I think the coolest thing, thing christy is watching those young kids watch uh this older couple pay off their debt and young in real life but older them older to them yes yes yes yes you're right you're right thank you for anybody that's listening i can't see i'm like they're actually quite young yeah yeah they are younger uh uh thank you christy you're saving me

from getting in trouble i know youtube's like well anth well, Anthony, man, they're not old. I'm here to help. They actually bring me onto the show for your support for that reason. They really do. To keep you out of trouble. They really do. Because Chrissy would give me those looks, the eyes. Because Kelly gives me the looks through the window.

And James just looks down and says, oh, Lord. But I love it, man. But this is what it's all about. It's just really hearing stories like that. And I love it, man. But this is what it's all about. It's just really hearing stories like that. And I'm super, super excited. Get you motivated. For those people listening that are on that journey, listen to that debt-free scream. It's going to be you next. It sure will. It sure will. Hey, we're going to be right back. 888-825-5225. We're going to take your phone calls right here on The Ramsey Show. show. Chrissy Wright and myself, Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personalities,

taking over the Ramsey show during this hour. We're excited because Camilla and Yafet are in Atlanta, Georgia. They're going to kick off this segment for us. Good afternoon, ladies and gents. How can we help? Hey, good afternoon. How are you doing? This is so cool. I love this. I like this. I hear it. Hey, how are you doing?

What's going on, man? How can we help? All right. It seems like Camilla and I are newly engaged and we have a really, really blessed dilemma, which is should we invest our money in a new mortgage or basically pay for a nice wedding? This is like the real life show. This is like the real-life show. Yeah, this is going to be hard. Okay, well, first, let's get some numbers. How much money do you have?

And let's talk about all the options, not just either or, all the options. Yeah. Are we talking about just investments? Well, no, the cash that you're asking us what you should do with. Yeah, so it's a little bit short of $200,000 we have between us. And that's including retirement and cash on hand savings and all types of stuff kind of wrapped up into that. But we did that math about two weeks ago. We came up with about $190,000 something or something of that nature.

Okay. How much is not retirement? Like actual? Cash. Yeah. Combined between the two of us, it's about $23,500. $23,500 cash that we have. Okay, cool.

And what's your combined income once you get married? That would be, I believe, $240. Nice. Well done. Okay. How old are y'all? Can I ask that's $240. Nice. Well done. Okay. How old are y'all? Can I ask that question? 32.

32. Y'all young. That's what I'm talking about. Let's go, Christy. Okay. Now, here go the question. You know I got to ask this, me being a money guy. You know what's coming next?

Do you have any debt? Yeah. They said it have any debt? Yeah. Yes, we do. They said it kind of excited. Yeah. Yeah, we do. How much debt do we have? We knew it was coming, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much debt do we have combined? For me, I can speak for myself. I have about $40,000 to $70,000 a student loan. Okay. I did work really hard last year and paid off my car note and my consumer debt. Okay. I did found home in 2018, and I refinanced last year, so my mortgage is probably about $240 something left on me.

Cool. I'm not worried about the house. So just your only debt, consumer debt, is $40,000-something left on me. Cool. I'm not worried about the house. So just your only debt, consumer debt, is $40,000 in student loans? Yes, that's correct. Okay. What about you, bro? How much debt do you have? All right.

So I've got a little bit higher, but student loans is about $70,000, and then I still have just around $9,000, $10,000 on my car left, which I'll pay out this year. Okay. And so that combined is probably around 110,000. Yep. Yep. Okay. And do you have a house or are you renting? No, I don't have a house. When COVID hit, I mean, I gave up my place to stay at home with folks to save up and pay rent.

The goal was to buy a house. Gotcha. But I did not do that yet. And Camille, how much did you say your home is worth? I don't know if you said that. Oh, well, knowing the market right now, probably around $350. Okay. How much do you own it?

$240 something. Oh. Camille, you may not like me. Oh. Camilla, you may not like me. Oh, no. Okay. All right. Christy, you want to go after this? What do you want to do, Christy? I'm going to tell you what I would

do. I'm curious if it's what you're going to say, Anthony. Okay. So, normally we say the house is the last thing to go, but what's interesting about your situation is you got a lot of debt. You do have a good income. So this is one option. It's not the only option. But there's something I really personally like about couples renting the first year, just because you may not necessarily know where you want to be. You're learning how to be a couple,

you're learning how to be married, you're figuring out how to merge your lives together. And you guys in your early 30s, while you're very young, you also have 10, 12 years of adulthood of your way of doing things. And so it can look different merging your lives at 32 versus 22. And so I don't think it's a bad idea to consider renting for your first year of marriage, selling your house, paying off your debt, and then buy a house in a year. That's one option. It's certainly not the only one. But it's one I would consider because of your unique one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's one I would consider

because of your unique situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. All right, grab a pen and paper. I want y'all to write down these things that me and Chrissy is going to give you.

All right. Or put it in your phone. Here's the very first thing. It has nothing to do with money. One of the things I'm looking forward to doing with my future wife is really sitting down and identifying our why. What's the vision for our life? Where are we going? What do we want?

What does our legacy look like? What does the next three to five years look like? And so when you identify that, then it's going to give you the energy to do what I'm about to tell you next. All right. So the number one thing that I want to tell you all is to eliminate your debt 100%. So I'm not worried about purchasing a new home. I'm not even worried about purchasing it and having a real big wedding. If I was in your shoes, I'm saying, okay, cool, baby, we got to get on a budget and we're going to pay cash for this wedding. And you know what?

It's not going to be a $20,000, $15,000 wedding. You know, we're going to get creative and we're going to make it a wedding that is impactful for us. But it's not going to be impactful for our friends and for our families to be all. No, we need to set ourselves up to win, to go towards our why and go towards our vision. So I agree with Christy. OK, this is our suggestions. I know this younger generation, because you're in our age bracket and especially in Atlanta, they say, keep rental properties so you can have passive income. My philosophy is I'm selling that house with the, with the revenue that I get from the house. I'm debt free. Me and my wife are debt free. We don't have any

kids. We have, we're making $240,000 dollars we're going to put three to six months back in our saving savings account then we're going to go ahead and go buy a beautiful home down the road but then in next two years you all will be debt free sitting with at least fifty thousand dollars in your savings account and you can be a homeowner with a clear vision and a clear path for your future. And so that's what I would honestly do. Y'all make great income. It's not going to take you a long time to save up for your next house. Don't think this is way far off.

It's not. We're making the right short-term decision here. Yeah, $240,000. Y'all do understand that the average household income is less than $70,000. So you all are like doubling a half that. Almost triple. So you all are in a good place and you're young like me and Christy.

So if you all do this and then start investing into the stock market, into mutual funds, into your 401ks, you guys, you all will be extremely, extremely, extremely wealthy. Let's do this, Kelly. Let's give them Ramsey Plus. Yes. Great idea.

Yeah. As a gift from Christy and I and our whole Ramsey team here. If Dave was here, he would be super proud of you all. And I want you all to go through that. I believe if you all can do this now, when are y'all getting married? We haven't set a date yet, but our families are meeting literally this weekend. So once we do that, that's going to kick off all the planning and stuff. But you said I was going to hate you, but I love this idea.

What a pleasant surprise. Anthony has pleased someone with his answer. It happens maybe once a month. I'm glad you are the lucky recipients camilla you just made my day you know i love it i i love it thank you just made my day uh just to hear you say you all like that i mean yeah i'm telling you right now your future is so bright the conversation that will come out of you all taking financial peace university through ramsey

plus that uh kelly's gonna give you access to is going to be amazing for setting the foundation of how you manage money moving forward. Not just getting out of this predicament, but moving forward, how you budget, how you set goals, how you manage your money. So I'm excited at this season of life when you're engaged to get to have those conversations and take that class. Absolutely. So stay on the line. Kelly's going to get you that information. And also as well, Kelly, get their information too. I want to bring them on my show. I like them. I like them a lot.

I want to interview them on my show as well. Because I think young people need to hear this. So yeah, get their information, Kelly. And I'm going to call them personally and have them come on my show. This is why I get excited about doing a Ramsey show, especially with you, Christy, because we just have fun. I want you to bust into this new marriage or mortgage show and just be like, neither! Neither! Pay off your debt!

I want you to have this surprise in all the episodes. Just you be the neither guy. Yeah, listen, they don't want me to do that because I hurt someone's feelings. But it's all good. But America, thank you all so much for joining us this hour. 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.