The Ramsey Show - App - How to Avoid Bankruptcy by Settling Your Debts (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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, America. Thank you for joining us. Open phones this hour. As we talk about your life and your money, it's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Wanda starts off this hour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Wanda. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, how can I help? Well, I become a widow when I was 49, and I retired at the age of 49 also.

I worked for the state. And since that time, I have made very poor decisions financially, and I have got myself very much in debt how old are you now i'm 60 okay so the last 11 years then yes okay all right and how much debt do you have kiddo everything including the two houses i have in my car, $266,000. Okay. All right. And when you retired from the state, did you have an income that is provided to you still?

Okay. And how much do you make a month? I draw $1,350 from the state, and then I draw $850 from a portion of my husband's pension, and then I draw my Social Security at $1,350. Okay. And I get $600 rent on the house. Gotcha. All right.

And the $266, let's break that down. You have two houses? I do. I've been trying to sell the other one. Okay, is it a rental? Yeah, is it a rental? It's a rental. My husband was murdered there,

and I can't find anybody that will buy it. Oh, my goodness gracious. Well, 11 years later, though. So what is the house worth? It's worth right around $120,000. Okay. All right. You have it on the market with a real estate agent?

I have in the past, and I luck selling it. Yeah, you don't now. Okay. And what do you owe on that one? $80,000. Okay. And what do you owe on that one? $80,000. Okay. All right. And would you agree with me that that house is no longer a blessing?

No, it's no longer a blessing. So if you could just get out, even, you'd get rid of it? I don't want to, but I would. I want you to. It's time for that thing to go away for a lot of reasons. It's hanging over your head emotionally. It's hanging over your head financially. You fret about it.

It is a problem child. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I want rid of that thing if I'm you. If you were my older sister, you'd be just barely older because we're about the same age. I'd be going, sis, get rid of that thing. It's a pain in the butt.

So let's get a real estate agent on the phone. Jump on DaveRamsey.com, click on ELP for real estate, get one of our top flight high-octane people over there. Let's get this thing priced, and if you price it at $99.99, it'll sell. Okay. thing priced and if you price it at 99.9 it'll sell okay and uh because you know there's no evidence in there physically of uh of the tragedy that occurred there is there no okay so it's just only people listen there's so many people moved to charlotte in the last 11 years don't even know this happened and i don't think anything about it so if it was a small town it you know it would be a

uh it would be harder to break the reputation of the of the uh crime that occurred but there's a lot of turnover here you're you're going to be fine you need to get this thing up priced and to sell and get rid of it's got a renter in it i do okay is it some kin of yours? No. Good. All right. Let's get this thing on the market and get it sold. And if you pay the renter a little bit extra to get them out or whatever, that's fine. Let's get rid of that. That helps.

All right. Now, how much do you owe on your home? Well, I owe $112,000 on the house I'm in. but I made a very bad mistake and got a second mortgage to pay off credit cards. And how much do you owe on the second mortgage? $30,000. Okay. And how much do you have? Okay, so that's $150,000, and then $80,000 is...

So you've got about another $30,000 in debt somewhere else on what credit cards or cars you said. How many cars do you have? Well, like I said, I've made very bad decisions. I have two. Okay. And tell me about them. What do you owe on them? One that I bought last year, I owe $30,000, and I'm upside down on it.

And the other one, another emotional thing, my husband bought it for me right before he died. And I used the title to borrow money to pay off credit. And how much do you owe on it? $6,000. And what is it probably worth? It's probably not worth because it's a 2006. You think it's worth $6,000? I think it's probably worth about $3,000 or $4,000. Okay.

All right. Okay. Okay. Well, it sounds like we've got a couple of cars we need to sell and get you a little $3,000 paid-for car with no car payments and get rid of the rental. And suddenly there's going to start to be some room in this budget if you did that, wouldn't there?

$30,000 car? Kiddo, you can't keep a $30,000 car. I know. That doesn't fit. I know. It was just one of them emotional moments. Yeah, I know. But doesn't fit. I know. I don't. It was just one of them emotional moments. I know.

But it was dumb. Yeah, it was. And you can't keep it. No. Okay. Well, let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of that, and we'll get rid of the other. You need somebody to hold your hand and walk with you through this and love you enough to tell you the truth and give you the strength to do what you already have the good common sense to do.

Because you didn't lose your common sense. You're just hurting. Your heart was broken, ripped out of your chest 11 years ago, and you're still somewhat recovering from that. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Okay, kiddo. I understand.

That would be painful. I can't imagine what you've been through. So here's what we're going to do. We've got counselors that have been trained by us, financial coaches trained by us. All right? I'm going to pay for it. It's not going to cost you a thing. Widows don't pay here.

All right? And I'm going to put you on hold, and Kelly's going to pick up, and we're going to have one of our coaches meet with you, and they're going to put their arm around you, and they're going to walk you through this. And if you don't walk, they're going to kick your butt, okay? Okay. Because we love you, and we want you to win, okay?

It's time for you to get some of this behind you and get control again, because it's starting to own you, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. That ends today. You called the right guy. I got the antidote, kiddo. All right?

Okay. You hold on. I'll have Kelly pick up, and we'll get you signed up here. Kelly, also make sure that we know what local church she's plugged into, and if she's not, let's get a pastor around here. Okay? We've got a bunch of good ones in Charlotte that we can plug them in with. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Can you believe this real estate market? Home shopping has become so competitive. There's a ton of new buyers in the market, and bidding wars are the new normal.

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possible deal. Blinds.com. Questions from Randy in New York. I am working on Baby Step 1. I was wondering if I should take $400 out of my 401k to complete it so I can move to Step 2. No. You don't take money out of my 401k to complete it so I can move to step two. No, you don't take money out of a 401k or a retirement plan early unless it's to avoid bankruptcy or a foreclosure because any money you take out of there, the IRS is going to charge you a 10% penalty plus your tax rate and so if you're making 75 000 a year and you're in 25 tax bracket that'd be 35 interest you'd be paying well it's not really interest but it's taxes and penalties which is kind of like paying interest right so no i'm borrowing money at 35

interest to fund this it's time for you to get some extra work if you're having that much trouble funding $1,000. That tells me your income is struggling. So you need a side hustle. You need a side job. You need to be driving for Uber, delivering pizzas. I don't know, maybe cutting grass, but something needs to give. Brenda's with us in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Brenda. How are you? Hi there, Mr. Anthony. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? Well, we're in a big mess.

I just started listening to you maybe about a couple months. I read your book, Money Makeover. And my question is, I have a lot of people tell me I should just do bankruptcy, and I don't want to go that route. And I've been listening to you, so I want to see where am I at. I have Baby Step 1. I got my $1,000 saved. Okay.

How much debt do you have? I have a home equity from six years ago, $100,000. Six years ago. You still have the home? home no we lost the home but the home equity we bought we got a hundred to buy the second home which we lost both homes six years ago okay so you owe a hundred thousand on that and have you been paying on that no we uh how long has it been in default? It's six years.

You've not paid on it in six years? No. Okay. What else? I have a $40,000 medical from two years ago. And haven't paid on it in two years? Nope, nothing. And I got $18,000 in credit cards. They are in collections now.

So for the last six years, we have not done anything. Okay. Have you been paying on the credit cards? When was the last time you paid on them? I haven't paid on them probably for the last five years. Okay. And I do have two credit cards who are suing me. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, they're sending me papers, can't sue me.

Wait a minute. They're sending you, wait a minute. They actually sent you lawsuit papers or a letter saying they were going to sue you? They're from a law firm. That doesn't matter was it an actual lawsuit on court documents that said you had a court date yes it was yes when was the court day when was the they were from last year okay and and how much are those two cards? Those are $5,000. And that's part of the $18,000, or is that in addition to the $18,000?

Nope, that's part of the $18,000. And what is your household income? My husband's self-employed, and the average of every year is about $60,000. So why have you not paid bills? I don't know. I don't know. We just, I don't know. We don't. We just, I don't know. We kind of just hide under and didn't take care of it.

Mm-hmm. And now we're, you know, we've been renting since we lost our home. So I would like to move on and, you know. Well, I mean, filing a bankruptcy would clear this $158,000 in debt, okay, that it looks like you've got. It would clear that. A Chapter 7 would clear that. I'm not sure you're going to qualify for a Chapter 7.

The means test might throw you into a Chapter 13, which would cause you to pay payments into bankruptcy for five years. Is his income steady at 65, or is he starting to increase his income? It goes up and down. Are you working outside the home? Now I'm at the position I can work. My kids are now going to school, and I'm able to get a job in the morning. His job is weird, so different hours, different schedules.

So I'm the only one who can run the kids around. So I'm considering getting a job. Good, good. You need to add some income. If you can add $20,000, $30,000 income to this situation, it changes everything. Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. If we add up all that debt and say it's $158,000, $160,000 worth of debt,

it is very, very old debt. By by and large they have given up on it even the one that sued you even the one that sued you isn't doing anything with the lawsuit they just took a judgment against you but they're not doing anything with it meaning they've not come and garnished wages uh they've not come and tried to take money out of your bank account or anything like that so you know they're not they're not being that aggressive or proactive. I mean, they're probably calling you occasionally, some of them in Raising Cane, but they're not actually doing anything. You follow me? And the debt has probably been sold. And if it's been sold, a lot of it's been sold to debt buyers, and they buy that at around a nickel on the dollar. Five cents on the dollar.

Okay? Fifty dollars for a thousand dollars. You follow me? which means that if you made them an offer of $0.10 or $0.15 on the dollar, you could clear all this debt. And I would take a lot of work to contact each one of them, negotiate with them, get them to accept that. But eventually, you could work your way through this for around $0.10 or $0.15 on the dollar.

No, the home equity did send me an offer last year for $25,000. See, that's a quarter on the dollar. They're already close. But you don't have $25,000, so you'd have to save up the money to make them an offer. They're going to be the hardest one. So you'd have to save up. You need a lump sum in your bank account, and then you call them and go, I have $15,000 cash I will give you today if you will settle this.

And they'll take it. They'll take it. But they're not going to take it easy. They're going to whine and try to negotiate, try to get more, go back and forth. And the same is true with these others. So that tells us that it will take you two years of hard work and saving and negotiating and fighting and scrapping and arguing with these people and getting it all in writing, all these different accounts, okay? It's a lot of administrative work for you. But if you did that for two years, you can clear this debt for somewhere around $20,000, $25,000 total.

Okay. And you could save up a little bit, clear one. Save up a little bit, clear one. Save up a little bit, clear one. And, you know, the last one is the home equity loan, and you save up $15,000, and boom. You knock it out. Okay. That's your alternative to bankruptcy. Or you can file bankruptcy, either one.

But I think you can work through it, but you really have a lot of work ahead of you to work through it. But I think you can do that. You're broke, you don't have any money. As you save up money, you call and negotiate with them. Now, if you're going to go that route, make sure any settlement you agree to that they agree to before you give them any money. Two things you have to remember.

Get it in writing and never in electronic access on your checking account. Always in writing and don't let them have access to your checking account. And don't give them any information about where your husband works or where you bank or anything like that. You have to stay in the distance in the fog and negotiate with them. This is the Dave time to buy life insurance? My answer is typically now. Life insurance is not part of the baby steps because it's needed when your family has debt and not enough savings to provide for their financial needs.

That's when they're at the highest risk. And no matter where you are in your baby steps, it's a necessity, not a choice. This includes working husbands and wives, as well as stay-at-home parents. It's pretty expensive to replace those stay-at-home parent responsibilities. I only recommend term life insurance since it's the most affordable way to get the right amount of coverage and not break your budget. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. These are the guys I personally use. Term life insurance is inexpensive and your family needs this no matter where you are in your baby steps.

That's Zander.com. Or call 800-356-4282. Zander.com. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Darren and Valerie are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, how are you? We're great. Welcome. Where are you guys from?

Mechanicsville, Virginia. Fun. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way down here to do your debt-free screen. Yes, sir. I love it.

How much have you paid off? $53,355. Good job. And how long did it take? Two years. Good deal. And your range of income during that time? Right around $120,000.

Okay. What do you all do for a living? Construction management. And I stay home with our two boys, Max and Wesley. Very cool. Max, you said, and Wesley? Max and Wesley. All right.

Very cool. Good. So what kind of debt and Wesley? Max and Wesley. All right. Very cool. Good. So what kind of debt was this? $53,000. A little bit of everything. Had some furniture, a graduate degree, the IRS, and a van. You were normal. Unfortunately so.

Pretty much everybody got a little piece of you every month. Yes, indeed. That's right. And you got tired of it, huh? Yes, very much so. So what happened two years ago? What flipped the switch? Our living situation wasn't ideal for what we were making a lot of money,

and we had big plans, but we didn't have any path to get there. And so I came up with this idea of we're going to snowball our debts, and I was telling my buddy Will about this, and he said, you're doing the Dave Ramsey plan. I said, i said no i'm not i don't know that guy and about a week later i found your book on a bookshelf in a used bookstore i was just happening i said well will said i'm doing this i'll pick up the total money makeover and instantly read it in a day and spent six months trying to get her on board with it after that oh so how did you mess up because you she probably would have got on board but you messed up how you ask her huh yes um actually you got her on board more than i did i was trying to work the

plan with somebody and it's finally i said if i become an fpu coordinator and teach at our church will you take the class with me while we coordinate and she said yes and that's what got her on man you went all in i mean you you drug her all the way into the pit with you. He sure did. Wow. He said, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it 100%, and I need you on board with me. And so this is the best way for you to learn what I've been reading and what I've really bought into. But you didn't want to do it before then.

Well, I didn't really quite understand how it all worked and how it was going to play in our situation. I mean, it sounded great, but I thought, how are we going to do it? The results sounded good, but the process sounded painful. Absolutely, but I thought, how are we going to do that? The results sounded good, but the process sounded painful. Absolutely. And I thought, how are we going to do this at the same time? So what happened to you when you went to the class that changed? What did you learn or experience or whatever that caused the shift in you by going through the class?

You know, the biggest thing is live now like nobody else so you can live and give like nobody else later. That phrase stuck with me throughout the whole course when that started. And I thought, you know what, we still have many years ahead of us. We have our boys. We need to set a right example for them, you know, and really put this instill in them so they could see us do it. If we do it, you know, you lead by example. How much of the, because you said earlier you didn't see how it was going to work. When you learned the details of tactical, the step-by-step thing of what you were going to do,

did you have kind of a, oh, I can do this? Yes. I mean, because you said you didn't know what he was doing before. And then when you learned what, the why is live like no one else so later I can live and give like no one else. That's a great why. But the tactical help or I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. I'm just trying to understand the process of what happened for you. It made sense.

You take what we have now, you know, what we can and put it into the debt. And then when you see that debt go away, I was very much the one. I was visual. I needed to see it. So I had my lovely spreadsheets that Darren made up for me. And each month marking off how, oh, my gosh, we just knocked off three months of a payment. And so it was big for me being able to visually go down, knock off what we were paying, and then putting it at the end. We're done.

And then move on to the next debt and watching it. So just being able to see it. Very good. It's very smart to do that. That's very wise. Good. Good for you guys. And our numbers are really telling on it, too,

because in the first six months, we only paid off $3,000 of that debt. Whoa. 18 months, we paid off $50,000. And in the last year, when we really dug deep, it was $30,000 in one year. So once she got on board 110%, doing it partial was not working. Wow. Yeah yeah and working together absolutely what do you tell people the key then to getting out of debt is now that you're coordinating a class together budget budget and communication i mean that's been our biggest

thing we've talked more and more about money the last two years than I think we ever really did before. And so that communication was, I mean, huge. What did the budget do? What did doing a budget do? What did it cause? It was a raise, first off. I mean, that expression you make when we sat down and did the budget was like, we have a lot of money to spend every month. Where has it been going the past couple years?

So we figured out where it was going. And also coordinating our dreams. We sat down and talked about what we wanted to do in the future so we had a direction to go to and move in the same direction together. That's a big deal. So Valerie, what do you tell people the key is? You said budget. And the

communication. That's what Sharon always says, my wife. People would say, you're sitting down and talking about your budget again when we would do the class and say yeah, it's not just a one-time thing. Every month things change. Something else comes up, and we have to sit down and revisit it. And we don't dread it because we're getting results. Exactly.

We enjoy it. It's not like a root canal. I mean, the first one is. Yeah. But by the time, you know, every month when you do it, it gets a little better where you actually go, hey, I want to see how good we're doing. Right. You know, you want to look and see. It's not, yeah, that's important stuff.

How long have you guys been married? It'll be 12 years in September. Have you ever been debt-free before now? No. No. Wow. Well, congratulations. Thank you.

I'm very proud of you. Did you bring the boys, Max and Wesley, with you? We did. Cool. All right. Well, let's get them up here and see their ages and their names and everything. And Max is really big into your program, too. He's actually the first class we coordinated.

He basically sat through the whole class, so he can probably teach most of it himself. Okay, so he's ready. We're growing our second generation of coordinators. That's exactly right. Yes. All right. Very cool. Very cool.

Well, we got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you. That's the next chapter in your life, chapter in your story, for you guys to be millionaires and outrageously generous, which goes right with that saying, right? Yes. Live like no one else so later we can live and give like no one else. All right. Well, it's Max and Wesley, Darren and Valerie.

$53,000 paid off in two years, making $120,000 a year. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Love it! Way to go, you guys. I love it.

That is so fun. That's exactly how you do it. Man, powerful, powerful stuff. Rebecca is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Rebecca. How are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. I just started listening to your show about a month ago, and I'm loving it. And I have a question for you about whether I should fix my car or replace it. Okay. So the air conditioning broke on it about a month ago, actually. No fun.

Which is not the end of the world, because I walk to work most days. It's going to cost about $800 to fix it, and there's a couple other things broken on it too, but it doesn't impact how the car runs. It's worth $1,500, and it has just under 100,000 miles on it. Okay. Well, here's the mathematical formula on a hoopty like that as to whether you fix it or turn it into the junkyard and use the money or not to fix it. Okay. So what would it sell for as is with a broken air conditioner? Well, I put it into Kelly Blue Book and it came up $1,500, but I didn't put that the AC was broken, so maybe under $1,000. Okay. Let's pretend for a minute that it was $900, okay? Mm-hmm. Let's say it would sell for $900 as is.

If you take $900 and you put $800 invested in it, you now have $1,700 in a car that's worth $1,400 or $1,500. Yeah. You follow me? Mm-hmm. So if that's the real numbers, you would not fix the car. You would sell it for $900. Take the $800 you were going to spend on the AC, put it with your $900, and buy a better car.

Okay. But if it's worth only $600 without the AC fixed, then that's 1,400 with your 800, right? Yeah. And you wouldn't have more in the car then than it's worth, so you would probably fix it in that case. What I'm going to do in your situation is I'm going to try to find another way to get the AC fixed cheaper, maybe a used AC from a junkyard and maybe a shade tree to help you put it on of some kind, rather than spending quite 800 bucks. I bet there's another way to get at this and get it working again and then maybe sell it.

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question for you today is about how to plan for the near future when we have a couple major life events that are converging at the same time. I'm going to be graduating with my master's degree this May. Yay! You want? Yeah. And we are also planning on moving back out west, closer to family

at that time. And we also want to start trying for a baby within the next six months or so. So we know we need to stop our debt snowball once we find out we're pregnant. But we're wondering if there is something else we should do for that time next summer when we're potentially going to be unemployed and moving. So it sounds like you guys just got married and just graduated and are just moving

and are just taking jobs and a lot of transition going on. Does that sound right? That's correct. Yeah, we got married just over a year ago. What's your master's degree in? It's in teaching. I'm going to be a high school English and Latin teacher. Okay, great.

Very cool. Good. And have you got employment where you're moving to? We have a couple of potential jobs. We're kind of going to go where the jobs are. We're still just researching what my options are. Oh, I thought you were heading to family in a certain place. Well, there's going to be teaching jobs pretty much within an hour or so radius of my family.

Oh, okay. Not for which job exactly yet. I got you. But you're just still going to be in that same general area. Okay, cool. And so what do you think it's going to cost you to move? Probably like $1,000 to $3,000. Yeah.

And what's your household income today? I'm getting about $18,000 funded from my grad school this next year, and my wife is making about $22,000 at her part-time jobs. Okay, funded from your grad school. I don't understand. You finished the master, right? wife is making about $22,000 at her part-time jobs. Okay. Funded from your grad school. I don't understand. You finished the master's, right? This upcoming May, I will finish.

Oh, a year from now. I'm sorry. I thought you meant you just finished in May. I'm sorry. No, yeah. So after that, you're going to move? Correct. Okay. Well, as you run your budget out between both of your incomes

and you're working on your debt snowball, how much debt do you have? We have $41,000 in debt. Okay. All right. Somewhere during the year, stop soon enough before May gets here to save $3,000 for the move. Okay. Because your incomes are going to,000 for the move. Okay. Because your incomes are going to go up after you move.

Correct. Where are you moving? What general area? Like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming. Okay. So your cost of living will go down then? Correct. So that's a big reason for it.

Yeah. And so you're going to take some leaps forward with your income increasing, your cost of living going down. And so the move is not only smart from a family perspective and lifestyle and the things you want to do with your life and all of that, but it's also financially smart, economically smart. You're going to come out ahead with the move. And so, you know, in a sense, we're saving up to invest to make that happen, this $3,000 for the move. So somewhere before May, long enough before May to make it happen, stop your baby step two and build your emergency fund. If any time during this calendar year a baby is actually on the way, not just being discussed, but there's actually a pregnancy has occurred,

then, yeah, you would just stop everything and pile up cash, and you'd use some of that cash to move along the way. So, you know, anywhere in there like that. But the point being that it's a good move to go ahead and knock that out. You're not going to knock out $40,000 in this calendar year before May he gets here with the income you're not going to knock out 40 grand in this calendar year before may he gets here um with the income you're telling me okay so you're still gonna have that yeah you're you're still gonna have that when you leave okay but so if you could knock it all the way out i would put it up there as part of your you know your emergency fund and some of that other stuff later but you're

not going to be there so you're just going to have to stop in time to make this move happen, and it's very logical to do it. Just pay cash for it. Don't let it be added net and use the fact that you don't have any money as an excuse. No, plan it. Plan it. Plan it. That's how you do it.

Bryce is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Bryce. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve, sir are you? I'm good Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve sir, how can I help? So my wife and I are starting on baby step two and she has a medical need for hearing aids and we're trying to decide if we should put them on, we have a care credit account, or wait,

or what's your recommendation on that? You know, we're starting baby step two at this point. When did she lose her hearing? It's not, it's poor. I guess it's not necessarily a need, but a... How did she lose the portion that she's lost? Just over time. It's hereditary in her family.

Oh, okay. How old is she? 37. Okay. And what's your household income? Roughly about $150,000. Okay, that's great. How much debt do you have?

Roughly about $150,000. Okay, that's great. How much debt do you have? Roughly about $96,000. Okay, that's good news. And you said you had how much debt again? $96,000. $96,000, I'm sorry, and your household income is $150,000. So what is that $96,000 on? Credit cards mostly and car loans. How much of it's cars?

Probably about 50 or so. A little strong on the cars, aren't you? Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So what ends up happening is there's something emotional that is a big deal, like a hearing aid situation like this pops up, and it's a tiny little thing in comparison, but it points a big red arrow at the stupid stuff on your list.

Yeah. And it makes you deal with those cars, because that's keeping you from doing the things that are more important. Does she have any hearing aids yet? No. Okay. All right. So I've lost a portion of my hearing wearing these headphones for 25 years,

and so I wear hearing aids, which are absolutely awesome, by the way. Digital. They work with my iPhone. My phone calls come into them. My tunes come into them when I'm running. They're awesome. You ought to get them even if you haven't lost hearing. I mean, they're amazing.

And I can turn them up and down on my iPhone. It's just nuts. It's very, very cool. And so, you know, when I'm not on the air And I can turn them up and down on my iPhone. It's just nuts. It's very, very cool. And so, you know, when I'm not on the air, I've got them in. And they're the little ones you don't see. Nobody knows I have them hardly, but they're amazing. And so I highly recommend this. It's mainly like an ambient noise, like in a restaurant and that kind of thing is probably what you can't hear.

And that's usually the stuff we lose in situations like that. So the quality of life, it does help. I highly recommend it. And you're probably looking at, what, five, six grand in situations like that. So the quality of life, it does help. I highly recommend it. And you're probably looking at what, five, six grand, something like that? I think she was quoted around $4,000 or $4,400 or something. Okay. You're not getting the ones I was talking about. But anyway, so, you know, here's the thing.

One of the things I had to learn to do when I'm breaking this cycle of debt is no more borrowing. So if I need something, how am I going to get it? In your case, you probably are selling these cars you need to anyway. They're out of control. Then the second thing is that doesn't get the hearing aids. But if you just say okay i'm going to put four thousand dollars in our debt snowball and we're going to save up the money and then we're going to buy them but no more borrowing dude you got to break the cycle of

every time i need something want something or can't tell whether it's a one or a need but i'm still going to get it i'm going to borrow money no no so your stupid little what was that stupid little medical credit thing you were about to put money on, you need to close that account. Right. Because you need to stop borrowing. It's not working for you. You have $96,000 in debt.

Because every time you guys want something, you go borrow. That's what we used to do, man. That's how I can tell. We were dumber than you. We did it with zeros on the end. But, man, you guys, you got a lot of debt debt and it's because you don't say no to yourself you figure out a way oh i gotta have this and you just buy it and some idiot will loan you the money for it at 36 interest or 22 interest or whatever but save up and pay for her hearing aids and get her

some somewhere in this debt snowball process while you're in Baby Step 2, but also stop and go, crap, we make $150,000. I can't come up with $4,000. This makes me mad. It should. It ought to make you mad, mad enough to sell some stupid stuff and get your life back quick. That's how I got it. I said, that's enough, man.

I make too much money and be broke. Can't buy a $4,000 thing making $150,000. Ought to make you mad In a good way, brother. In a good way. Thank you for calling in. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Blake, Chief Production Officer for the show, and here's a little tip for 2018.

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