The Ramsey Show - App - How Do You Teach Your Teen About Money When Your Ex Spends Like Crazy?

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

George Kamel discusses: What to do when you drain your emergency fund, If consolidating credit cards is a good idea, How to teach your kid about money when your ex is irresponsible, Should you take a job that requires a lot of travel, What to do when your car dies in baby step 2. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

I'm out. For Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you get control of your money, get ahead in your career, and get on the path to living well. I'm George Camel, and I will be your host today, flying solo as the rest of our team finishes out the Entree Leadership Summit event with about 3,000 business leaders in Orlando, Florida. It's been a great

time there as our team has been watching the live stream back home here. Jocko's taking the stage right now. Pretty epic. I'm pretty much baby Jocko. I've been told that in the past. Kelly's looking at me with a face, so we're just going to get to the phones here. Free call, 888-825-5225. Let's talk about your life and your money. Let me help you take the right next step and work through whatever you're working through. John joins us up first this hour in Grand Rapids. John, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. How are you? I am overwhelmed, but still way better than what I should ever be. That's a beautiful take. Let me help you get whelmed today. How's that? That sounds absolutely fantabulous. What's going on in your situation? Quick breakdown. Both my wife and I are 20. My wife is six months pregnant. We're doing, of course, about three months.

We had, so about three months ago, we started to remodel the house with money that we had above and beyond our emergency fund. Well, since then, we've had about $7,000 to $8,000 worth of unexpected bills come up, and I got a new truck to me. I was going to sell my old one. I should have been able to make a couple grand. When I did that, I was... Hey, speak directly on your phone for me, John. You're cutting in and out.

Is this a little bit better? Yes. Okay. Okay. So you've got a new-to-you truck. Yeah. All right. That's where you left off.

Okay. Paid $6,000 for it. My old one should have been able to sell for $8,000 and cannot sell it. And that was, the stupid part was that was supposed to be our emergency fund with that. I was expecting a quick flip on my old truck, quick sell, but it's not selling, and we have absolutely no money now in our savings because of that. And my wife informed me this morning that she needed tires like yesterday, and so I checked it out, and we had to get herself a brand new set

of tires. And work right now is a little bit rocky. I just had my three-month meeting, and it did not go too hot, and so I'm scared to take overtime. Okay. So let me recap here. How much debt do you guys currently have? Just like $500 from the tires from this morning. Okay, do you put those on a credit card? Yeah, I did. How much money do you have in the bank? Nickel and diming everything probably about there.

We'll get rid of that little bit of debt by Friday. Tomorrow my paycheck is sitting, and Friday my wife's is. Okay. So right now, how much money do you have in the bank? Not counting the $500 on credit card. That's about it. Okay. So you're pretty much zero dollars to your name currently until this paycheck hits yeah and you drain the emergency fund uh to pay for these random

emergencies plus you paid for the truck with the emergency fund hoping you'd flip the other one yeah okay so why can't you sell this other truck that's worth eight thousand i have no idea i have it listed for $7,000, and there's absolutely no interest. Where is it listed? I have it on 26 different groups on Facebook and Facebook Marketplace. Okay.

Have you checked with some of these companies like Carvana or Vroom or local dealerships to see what they would buy it for? Not a whole lot. Pretty much around me there's just a whole bunch of little mom-and-pop places. I could try. I'm going to keep pushing to sell this truck ASAP because right now it's just sitting there, right? You have two trucks?

Yeah, correct. That's my A1. It hasn't been on the road in three weeks. Is there anything wrong with the truck? Are the photos good? What do you think is wrong with it? Why it's not selling? Just typical cosmetic. Okay. What's your household income? Right around 55. Okay. And your wife is currently working correct will she work outside the home once baby's here um yeah she will she'll take the first little bit um and stay home with the baby but she she loves what she does too much she said she doesn't think that she can stay home

so she'll go back to work after maternity leave. Correct. Okay. Well, I know life has been punching you in the face, man, but the good news is you're not that far in the hole. You're $500 in debt. When these paychecks hit, you'll be able to pay that off, and then your focus is going to be saving up for this baby.

So I want you to start working on that fully funded emergency fund slash baby fund and once baby is here and safe then we can move on to our other goals but a1 in the next three months is to sell this truck work your tail off to stack up as much money as possible would that give you some peace of mind and let you breathe a little easier well my my only concern with um alice taking overtime is I'm already kind of rocky here with this job. Rocky is in what? I just had my three-month interview last week.

Sorry, not interview, review, and it was not too hot. So you're basically on a probationary type period right now. Yeah, correct. So they feel like you're not performing at probationary type period right now. Yeah, correct. So they feel like you're not performing at the level you should be. Correct. What kind of work are you doing? Construction.

Okay. Are there other construction jobs out there that would pay equal or more if this thing fell through? The answer is yes. It was a trick question john there are some there's not a whole lot um but most people around here they've all worked with each other the previous guy that i worked with everyone knew that i worked with them and they wouldn't even return my phone calls because they wanted to honor my previous employer okay well i'm gonna do what i can to not biff this job here.

And then on top of that, I'm going to go find other side hustles, maybe outside of construction, maybe it's handyman work. I don't know what your skill set is, but find something that can pay $20, $25 an hour in this market. I think that's really reasonable. And this is temporary, remember. But for the next three months, your job is to stack up as much money as possible, avoid going into debt, because once this $500 is gone,

you're in baby step three working on the emergency fund and kind of taking this pause to go, we've got to stack up money for this baby, make sure mom and baby are healthy, and then we can take a deep breath and figure out what life looks like. Yeah. But right now, there's no time for excuses. There's no time for, well, I don't know if there's – dude, you've got to be hustling, grinding because you're about to be a dad, and I want you to be able to take care of your family and do it with some dignity. So that's my A1.

If I'm in your shoes, I feel the pressure, man. I'm not trying to say this is going to be easy, but for 90 days, if you can just dial in and focus, and I want to help you get there. I'm going to gift you one year of Ramsey Plus, so hang on the line. Austin will pick up. It includes Financial Peace University. It includes Every Dollar Premium, our budgeting tool. That will give you some peace of mind, some control over where your money's going

and some next steps. That's what I want for you. Good luck with the baby. Hope for everything to go smoothly, healthy and happy for you all. And thanks for the call, man. This is The ramsey show we've been giving away cash all month long and it's been a ton of fun. Now we're giving away a grand prize of $3,000 in our Ramsey Cash Giveaway. You can enter daily for extra chances to win and you don't have to

purchase anything, but you must be 18 or older to win. To enter our giveaway, go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Plus, to help you crush your financial, personal, and professional goals, we've put our number one best-selling books and tools in the Ramsey $10 sale. That's 67% off. If you need a proven plan to get out of debt and build wealth, check out the Total Money Makeover while it's just $10. And if you want to have better conversations with your spouse, friends, and kids, our Questions for Humans conversation cards are also just 10 bucks. Here's the catch. Just like the cash giveaway, this sale is ending really soon. So shop the Ramsey $10 sale at Ramsey Show.

I'm George Camel, Ramsey personality, and I will be your host this hour. Open phones, 888-825-5225. That is the number to call. Let's talk about your life and your money. Marie is up next in Seattle. Marie, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Absolutely. What's going on with you? I've been budgeting. Well, my husband and I have been budgeting,

and we're trying to get rid of our debt, and we're trying to do like the snowball effect. But I was wondering, we have three credit cards with a total amount of debt for those credit cards around 12 grand, I think, right now. Okay. Would it be more beneficial to add, put all those credit cards onto one, all those balances onto one credit card versus having three separate payments? No. No.

What do you think the benefit is? You know, I wasn't sure if having them on one credit card would lower the amount of interest, but I wasn't sure if the cash, because it's considered a cash advance when you pay off something like that. I wasn't sure if that interest rate would end up charging more. I mean, in rare scenarios, you might get a better interest rate. But right now, what I love about them being separated is you feel the progress. If you're staring at one mountain of $12,000, it kind of takes your breath away a little bit. But when you see one that's $3,000 and you see one that's $5,000, you go, okay, let's attack the small one first. Let's get rid of that payment.

It frees up some money. Then let's attack the next one. It frees up a little bit more money. And then you see the light at the end of the tunnel. You go, oh my gosh, we can do this stuff. And so that's why I'm not a fan of consolidation when it comes to general consumer debt. What's your income household? Around $60,000. Okay. And is this all of your debt or is there other debt that you have? No, there's other debt. We don't have any car debt. We have student loans.

I think he has about $5,000 and I have $11,000. Okay. So if I'm you guys, I'm going to list this out from smallest to largest and roll with the debt snowball method, which means the credit cards, the student loans, we're going to lump these all in a giant list and list them out from smallest to largest, and we're not going to write down the interest rate. We don't care about that right now because I want you to feel some momentum and some progress. So what's the smallest debt? One of the credit cards, and I think it's $3,000.

$3,000. Okay. Now, how much margin do you guys have left at the end of the month after making all of your minimum payments and covering all of your bills? I think like $400. Okay. So you have $400 extra to put on that first smallest debt of $3,000. Yeah. So if we do that, let's just say we stay status quo as is. We're talking about six, seven months to get rid of this first debt. Correct? Yeah, that seems doable.

Okay. Yeah. Now, my question is, how do we speed this up? Because I'm okay with sacrifice for a short time, but I want it to be as quick as possible. So what does it look like to get your income up right now or to cut expenses? To cut expenses is, it's just new for me to cut expenses is it's just new for me to cut i i'm not really a spender um but we had a baby like a lot of your people today um that's fun congratulations thank you yeah so i'm a stay-at-home mom but i'm also working as a college intern um and i get to pick my hours so lately i've been

working more hours or trying to work more hours so we can get more income. And then my husband's also working overtime. That's awesome. What is the, does the internship pay? Yes. Okay. What does that pay? 1629 an hour, I think. Okay. And that's part of the 60 grand household income. Yeah. And then what does your husband do? He's a correctional officer. Cool. Can he work overtime? Yes, and he is.

Can he work even more overtime? He could, yes. I like this plan a lot. Because then I go, okay, you have $400 of margin. What if we had $600? How would that speed up the process? What if we had $800? Yeah. And so that's where you start to get excited and not feel like this is a slog. And most people I found, they pay off all of their

consumer debt within 18 to 24 months if they follow our plan. And so if you do the math on this and you do the debt snowball, you list it all out and you go, this is going to take us three years, then that tells me we've got to change something. We've got to up the income. We've got to cut every subscription. We're not getting cable. We're selling the TV. We're selling the couch. We're sitting on a folding chair.

Whatever we've got to do to get out of debt as fast as possible. Okay. Have you guys been doing a monthly budget on paper? Yeah, I've been doing not on paper. I made like a budget on Excel. And the thing is I haven't been following it lately. I've been spending a little bit more because things have been more pricey. And I just stopped looking at it because avocados went up from $7 to $12 a pack.

Time to not get avocados, I guess. Yeah. Time to find a different vegetable. Maybe we go potatoes this week, this month. Yeah. So that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, I guess we could cut back on stuff like that. Here's what I want you to do.

I'm going to gift you every dollar premium because it beats – I don't want to stare at an Excel spreadsheet. That's depressing. Let's leave the pivot tables to the nerds. So every dollar is going to make it a lot simpler for you to create this budget, to stick to it, and that's the key is you can't just make it and then look back at it a month later and go, oh, whoops, we went over. Before you make the purchase, I want you to look at your budget and go, okay, we've got this much left. I'm going to make sure to not go

over in that category. And give yourself some grace. It may take a few months to get the hang of this, but once you do, you're going to feel way more in control of your money. So hang on the line. Austin's going to pick up and we'll gift you guys Ramsey Plus, a one-year subscription that includes every dollar premium, our budgeting tool, and Financial Peace University. So watch those videos with your husband

and I think it'll get you fired up to get rid of this debt and get real creative to find any way you can to make it not a three, four-year slog. But you guys can do this. This is not a giant mountain. I mean, it's a little less than half of your income and I think if you get that up, you'll feel the progress. Thank you so much

for the call. Chad joins us up next in Minneapolis. Chad, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely. What's going on? Looking for some advice on how to make an impact with my 14-year-old son. So divorced from my ex. We got divorced about three years ago. I've really been in on the Ramsey method and got myself out of debt following the divorce. Really gotten into saving and being very intentional with my money.

I'm proud of you, man. That's awesome. 14-year-olds with being impressionable and thinking they've got to have X, Y, and Z to be cool. My ex has very poor spending habits and a new car every 18 months, racks up credit cards so she has a very flashy lifestyle from the outside but i i because i was there for 15 years i know without having to see your checkbook what the backside looks like how do i show how do you influence your team to not be like their mom? To not be like their mom. Yeah. Without piercing my own veil to say, hey, yep, I have a truck that you make fun of, but it's bought and paid for. And oh, by the way, for the last three years, while I'm driving a

car that's got 270,000 miles on it, I've put away an extra $60,000 because of it. Well, the truth is a 14-year-old has no perception of money. And so they just see the fancy thing. They don't care what it costs. They don't care how much debt you have because they don't have any money problems right now. And so obviously, we don't want to disparage your ex. We want to be kind. But we also want to just focus on what we can control, and that's ourselves. So I think you focus on the principles and not the person. So focus on, here's why I live a debt-free lifestyle. Here's what it can do for you. Here's what I want for you in your future. Maybe you show them, you know, the documentary Borrowed Future and go, hey, this is what happens when you live a lifestyle that includes debt. It holds you back from having a family, buying the things that you want, and they may look good on the outside, but man, their life is stressful. And then ask,

have you ever been stressed? What are you stressed out about right now? That's the kind of stress that debt is going to add to your life, and I want the best for you. So if you start to have those kinds of conversations, I found that more is caught than taught, and that 14-year-old, as their brain starts to mold further, they're going to want to be like dad more than mom eventually. It may not happen tomorrow because right now, if I'm 14, I want the flashy car. But right now, they don't have an income. And so they hopefully can't make terrible financial decisions. But as they get closer, your job is to be a great role model, a great influence in their life, to be a level-headed voice of truth.

And that's all you can do. And the rest you got to let go of. And there might be a conversation with the ex and say, hey, listen, I'm trying to teach these principles. I want the best for our 14-year-old. I'm sure you do too. And that's what this looks like. And maybe that means we're not talking about money and how they should build their credit. Leave that to dad. This is The Ramsey Show. There is so much crazy going on and people are looking for direction on how to handle their finances day to day. But they're also struggling to see how it's even possible to build wealth. There's too many hope stealers out there, and that's why I'm excited for our Building Wealth live events where we walk you through all the crazy and teach you the steps to build real, lasting wealth. The financial principles we teach here are the only principles that work in prosperous times and in hard times.

And no matter where you are with your money today, we want to show you that you can get on the path to building wealth. The Building Wealth live tour has already made a couple of awesome stops in Vegas and Orlando. Thank you all for joining us there. And we're wrapping up our spring portion of the tour here. And we're just getting started. We've got a few stops planned for this fall. So if you're in any of the following cities, we'd love to see you out there. Or if you want to travel, we got lots of people that drive, hours, fly to make it to these events. So Phoenix will be with you September 13th. Sacramento will be with you November 1st. We'll be at Minneapolis November 10th, and finishing out in San Antonio November 15th. Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, and I will all be there. We can't

wait to see you guys. Tickets start at just $25, or you can get a four-pack of tickets starting at $60. So bring your friends. It's going to be amazing. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to reserve your seats now. Open phones this hour. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Mike joins us up next in Dayton. Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you. What's going on? Well, I have a job dilemma. I am doing something I sort of enjoy in terms of I've been an engineer

and I've been teaching and consulting, doing engineering work on the side for some time, a couple of years actually. Consulting has gone really well, but at times it's kind of worn me out. I've been stretched thin, working seven days a week for some stretches. And I have an opportunity now to kind of go back to a more traditional engineering type of role. It would essentially double my base pay, probably similar to what I'm making consulting or more, but only working one job. It put me on the road a couple of weeks a month. And I guess I'm just kind of in a dilemma about the path to choose here. I'm 50 years old and I

feel like I'm in my prime earning years and I don't want to short change, you know, the generations that follow, um, since I'm, you know, if I'm not working, you know, and making the most I should be making at this time of my life. So the pro is you get to work half as much and get paid the same amount. I wouldn't say half as much. No, I would say actually, okay, so the engineering job actually will probably, in the end, work a little more. The one I'm working now, I'm finally at the point where I'm kind of getting caught up, and I'm not working the seven-day schedule anymore. I'm starting to slow it down a little bit, but I'll probably end up making less money.

So basically, I'll have a better schedule, make less money versus making more money and, um, being able to, you know, leave a little bit more, solve a little more financial. So you're taking a slight pay cut, but you get your life back. Where I'm at now, I'd be taking a slight pay cut. Yeah. Uh, if I took the job, I would, um, be getting more time on the road, um, less of my life. And of course more money. Are you single? No, no married. Um, two kids that have just, uh, essentially they've left home. Yeah. They're in the area, but essentially they've left home. Uh, they're in their twenties. What does your spouse think about this?

She's kind of on the fence as well. We are debt-free. We're both about 50 years old. We don't have a house payment at this point. We've got our net worth up.

We followed a lot of the Ramsey principles. It took about 17 years from having nothing to to be in a i don't know i guess with the house about 1.1 million wow way to go man so what i'm hearing is you don't necessarily need the money uh not necessarily no it's more for i think think, I guess, legacy purpose. I guess I'm kind of driven by that just because I feel like... What does legacy look like for you? Well, it's certainly not just financial, but it's about kind of changing the direction, and that's already happened with one generation, but I really feel like I want to be involved in changing direction for multiple generations.

And I think that part of that is the financial. Yeah. I mean, I think you guys are already doing that. I don't know that taking this job or staying with this one is going to change that very much. I'm just wondering, does your wife want you at home more versus being gone half the month as the kids are out of the house? Yeah, I think, at least so far, I think she would prefer me to be home. Could you find something that's just, you know, 40 hours a week local that you could do for the same pay or more? Have you looked into options? Yeah, I actually think, well, I certainly could.

I think, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have pretty high-demand skill set at this point. That's what I'm thinking. Being on the road is fun if you're a young single guy. Some people are built for that, to be on the road that much. But at your age with where you're at in life, I don't think it's something that you're jonesing for. Does that excite you to be on the road? Not to be on the road. The work excites me. Being on the road doesn't. I don't have any particular love affair with being away from home. That's lost its cool factor a long time ago. And that's why I go, I think you need more options. Right now, you feel kind of backed

into a corner where you go, well, it's either this or that. And I think there's more options out there for a sharp guy who's 50 with your experience in the engineering field, which, as you know, our millionaire study that we did, engineers were the number one millionaire career. And so that tells me you've got a great head on your shoulders, and there's a lot of great engineering jobs. And I'm sure there's ones in your area that are a little more sustainable for your lifestyle at this point you can still leave a legacy whatever that looks like for you without having to be on the road all the time and without a pay cut yeah I think oh well that's definitely true I actually think the job would be on the road even though though there's road stuff to it.

Actually, I think it provides more flexibility for me schedule-wise than the traditional 40-hour job. Now, do both jobs have equal kind of benefits? Yeah, benefits are similar. Benefits are similar. I probably would be able to put an extra, by my numbers, probably put an extra $5,000 a year in a 401k. But at this age, the extra $5,000 a year certainly matters, but I don't know what's already built up pretty well if it's going to be that big a factor. It's life-changing.

Yeah. Well, I think you have this conversation with your wife, and I think you've got some homework to find out what the other options out there are. Maybe you start getting some interviews with other places locally. I don't know. What kind of engineering are you in? I'm an electrical engineer. I do a lot of automation work.

Yeah, a lot of automation, a lot of industrial security and networking. Cool. Well, I'm going to keep doing research. I'm going to go into research mode and find out what all the options are and who wants to hire Mike in today's market and what do those pay, what makes sense for my family. And the truth is you don't need the money. You're not desperate. So I'm going to find something that's sustainable for the next 10 years, however long you choose to work, that won't burn you out. And so that's the route I'm going because you guys have done the hard work. You've sacrificed to get to this point. You've got a paid-for house. The kids are out. And now it's like what is the vision we want for the next 10 years, the next 20 years, and start making decisions through that filter?

Okay. Mike was flabbergasted by that. Absolutely, Mike. He's got the dilemma, man. That's a tough one. There's no right or wrong answer here. And the truth is a guy as sharp as you, if you take the on-the-road job and six months later you go, this ain't it, chief, you can go find something else. And I think a lot of places would be happy to hire an electrical engineer who has no debt, no debt hanging on

their shoulders, who's just happy to be an electrical engineer. So thank you so much for that call. Open phones this hour. The number to call is 888-825-5225. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey personality and host of the Fine Print and Entree Leadership Podcast. If you want to check out those other shows, then you can do that on the Ramsey Network or wherever you listen to great podcasts. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, your host this hour. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure or pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free. You get free samples, free shipping,

and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Just use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Jake in California. He says, I'm confused about your recommendation to invest 15% of our household income. Do my wife and I each invest 7.5% into our 401k to meet the 15% rule for Baby Step 4? Sounds too easy when I type it out, so I need some clarification. Well, Jake, yeah, you're probably overthinking this. So here's an easy way to do it. 15% of your household income means you invest 15% of your income and she invest

15% of her income. And as a total, that adds up to 15% of your household income. So no need to overcomplicate it. You don't have to do seven and a half each. If you make 40 and she makes 60, just take 15% of both of those and invest that into your 401k. Good question. It does come up more often than not, and it's simpler than you think. It means exactly what it sounds like, and it's simple, but it's hard to do. And that's why we teach people in Baby Step 4, once you're out of consumer debt, once you have the fully funded emergency fund, that is the time to invest 15%. A lot of people call in, they're doing 17 things at once, they're trying to pay off some debt, they're trying to get the match because it's free money,

they're trying to save up the emergency fund, trying to save up for a down payment on a house, at a car, and they're wondering why they're not making progress. And so that is why we teach Baby Step 4, 15% into retirement at Baby Step 4 and no earlier. And 15% is not 20% because we want to have margin to save for college, pay off the house early. And once we do that, we can increase that and really build wealth. Thank you so much for the question. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. Connie joins us up next in Virginia. Connie, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. Happy to take your call.

What's going on? So I recently found out my car is kind of on its last legs. I'm driving a Beater 06 minivan, and she doesn't have much time left. Does she have a name? She doesn't. Oh, that's sad. You've got to give them a name. Yes.

Give them some dignity. She's just a she for now. Okay. But I wasn't able to get an estimate on exactly how much time that means, but I'm in step two, and I've made significant progress. Well, to me, it is in paying off my debt. I have my thousand dollars emergency fund um but i've started saving for a car also because if she goes out on me i have no

way to get to work so um i was wondering my question is should i cut back on paying off debt and go back to minimum payments on all my accounts to be able to save up for the car in case it does go out? Or should I keep kind of splitting 50-50 how much money I'm pouring into those? Yes, I would definitely, this is your A1, is to save up for this car. And if that means pausing the debt snowball temporarily, then I'm okay with that. I just don't want you to get too comfortable where you go, well, it's been seven months and i'm still saving up for this car this is like an emergency where we're going how do i find four five thousand dollars in a few months to be able to switch cars so is this thing in the shop what do you mean by last leg you've gotten estimates on it uh i got a second opinion but both people i took it to said

this is going to be i probably have through through the summer. Through the summer. So, wow, they're putting a life expectancy on this thing. Right. That's dark times. But they weren't able to say if that means through the winter also, or it could go out in two months or six. And there's no use in trying to repair the issue. It's probably worth more than the car at that point. No, it's an engine issue, and I got the car for $3,000.

And how much money do you have to your name? You said you have a $1,000 emergency fund. Anything else? I have a $1,000 emergency fund. I have right under $1,000 saved for the car so far, which I started just last month. I've been really trying to focus on that. I make about $2,500 a month. What do you do for a living? I'm a peer recovery specialist at Addiction Recovery Clinic. Cool. And that $2,500 a month, is that take-home pay or is that gross? That's take-home. Okay. So you're taking home about $30,000 a year and are you working 40 hours a week? Correct. Okay.

Is there anything you can do beyond that 40 hours to bring in extra income right now? Yes. I have started. I do makeup for weddings, bridesmaids, and stuff on the weekends, and that's not a consistent booking, though. It's kind of when I can get it and when it's needed, but when I can do that, I can make a couple hundred on a Saturday. Good. Well, I would do that on top of something that's steady where they just go, hey, how many hours can you work this week? All right, you can give us 15 hours. Let's go do that and make 20 bucks an hour to save up for this car. And then

once you're out of debt, you can stop doing all the side hustles that you want. Maybe continue the makeup one if you enjoy it. So that's what I would start doing is looking for ways to increase income, make your minimum payments on your debt, and once this car situation is remedied, then we can get after the rest of the debt. So what's the total debt that you have? I have a little over $40,000 left to pay off. What kind of debt? It's all medical debt. Oh, wow. How old is the medical debt? Up to, I already had one. They were all several in collections and a couple fell off. So they were over seven years old. But how old are they? Up from about five years to recently. Wow. Well, the silver lining with medical debt is that it can often be negotiated. Have you tried to negotiate it down and ask them what they would take in a lump sum?

I did that with the more recent ones. I haven't done that with the ones in collections yet. I was able to get financial aid for more recent stuff, but the old debt was, I have not tried to negotiate or settle that yet. Okay. There are some kind of hardship programs and income-based programs that you can look into with these hospitals because sometimes if your income is below a certain threshold, they may wipe out the debt. Okay. So maybe something to just look into. I don't know for sure in your area in which hospital and the medical bills,

but I want you to really get creative and do some research and do all that you can to negotiate this debt down so that if they go, hey, you got 40 grand in debt, we'll take 10 to call it good. And at that point, you got to have that money ready. And so I would stack up money, get the car remedied. I'm going to stack up more money so that when they come at you with a, here's our lump sum. If you can pay this, we'll wipe it. I would go for that. Okay. And that will get you out of debt a whole lot faster. Yeah. I hate to slow down on the debt to save for the car because this has been such a big step for me. I'm in recovery from addiction myself and I have spent the last few years piecing my life

back together and getting financial freedom is a huge step for me. So I'm not excited about slowing down my debt-free journey to do this car thing. Wow. Well, Connie, you are a warrior and I love that you're now helping others get on the path to recovery. Thank you. That's so cool. That's a lot of meaning and purpose in that kind of work and we're rooting for you. I want to give to you Ramsey Plus, which includes Every Dollar Premium and Financial Peace University. I hope that encourages you along the journey and allows us to kind of walk with you through this process and allows you to start to budget even more. Get that budget dialed in to where you go, okay, I can spend less, I can save more. Here's what the budget looks like. I'm tracking it. I'm giving every dollar a job.

And you feel some control over your situation. So hang on the line. Austin's going to pick up and gift that to you. And watch the Financial Peace University lessons as well in there. And I think that will give you some pep in your step along this debt-free journey. And please, would you call us back when you're debt-free or come visit us? Yes, thank you. Love to hear that. Rooting for you, Connie. What a cool story. Recovering addict now helping others get on the path to recovery, cleaning up this debt. We love to hear stories like that.

Wow. Well, as you know, folks, there's a lot going on in the world right now, and financial peace is a huge part of it. And I was just on our local Fox affiliate, Fox Nashville here talking about inflation and what to do with your 401k and how to find margin in your budget. And we acknowledge that it's not easy right now. It's easy to give you some blanket advice and tell you, hey, go follow the baby steps. But we know people are really, really struggling right now. And we're rooting for you. And if we can help in any way, please check out all the resources we have at ramseysolutions.com. We would love to be of service to you. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to all the folks in the booth, Austin, Will, Zach, Kelly,

Andrew, you name it. They're in there making it happen day after day and some engineers in there too. And you, America, appreciate you guys listening. We couldn't do the show without you. We love you. We'll be back with you before you know it. Do you love a good day, friends? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show channel on YouTube.