The Ramsey Show - App - I Can’t Seem To Catch Up on My Debt (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, one of the more popular podcasts on the Ramsey Networks, is my co-host today. He's the author of the number one best-selling book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future,

and the soon-to-be number one best-selling book that is in presale right now, Building a Non-Anxious Life. We put this out on presale a couple of weeks ago. It is breaking all kinds of internal records, meaning a whole bunch of you want to build a non-anxious life. And that is a good thing. The book actually comes out October the 3rd. And we will let you buy it now for $20, and we'll give you $75 worth of extra stuff, including a talk, instant access to his newest talk,

Smoke, Fire, and Freedom, that he did at one of our events. We're going to send that out to you. It'll break down a lot of the lies about anxiety and help you begin to fight it. So that's $75 worth of free stuff and the book for all for $20. In other words, we're bribing you to buy it early because it helps John. It helps us with the marketing and the bestseller lists and all that kind of stuff. If you buy it in the pre-sale time, thank you.

If you want to be of help to us, you can do that. Thank you. And you're going to get a lot of good stuff when you do it. It's fun. And it's selling like crazy, John. Yeah, it's a good time. It's a good time. Very good stuff when you do it it's fun and it's selling like crazy john it's a good time it's a good time very good stuff let's talk about building a non-anxious life for a second we need to we need to yes let's talk about it um i mean it's bad out there it's ugly out there

yeah it's um you and i were recently um on another podcast together and we we talked about we always knew that one guy who had a nervous breakdown back in the day like back when we were kids there was every church or every neighborhood had that one guy it was kind of a mysterious thing when i was a kid somebody just kind of disappears for a while yeah and um when you asked like what happened well there was this kind of Well, there was this kind of trauma and there was this kind of work schedule and there was this kind of this and just running and running.

And that's the world we've created for all of us in the 21st century right now. And so I think everybody is running around trying to whack-a-mole their stress and whack-a-mole their frustration with their spouse,

whack-a-mole their relationship with their kids. whack-a-mole their relationship with their kids. And we are just- Their loneliness. Yeah, and we're just dumping gasoline on a fire. Their financial problems. Yeah. And it's just running in circles. The frenetic movement, and yet it feels like a rat in a wheel.

Right. It doesn't feel like it is a rat in a wheel. It is a rat in a wheel. And we're all in our own wheel by ourselves. Yeah. Right. And so- The good news is it can be fixed.

That's, yeah, I wouldn't have written the book if it was just a, we've got enough of it's all coming down. Yeah. That nonsense. It's burning. Yeah. We've got enough of that. I don't want to participate in that sewage pit.

But yeah, Dave, I really in my soul believe there's a path out. And the hard part is it's an inexpensive path the, the hard part is it's an inexpensive path. And the hard part is it's not a complicated path. It's hard, but it's not complicated. And so there's not a lot of money in, in not super complex cures. There's not a lot of money. If, if I tell you, Hey, what if you just turn the phone off? Well, no, you actually, you got to get the special app and you got to go do this. You got to do this. You got to buy this. You got to go see this doctor.

What if I told you just to go meet with friends? What if I told you to go back to church? What if I told you to go move your body? Get out of debt. Yeah, it stopped owing people money. There's some basic things that our bodies are trying to get our attention, and it's just a call back to humanity is what this book is. Yeah, six daily choices that fill your cup back up

that gets drained by the phonetic things and the empty cup is really where anxiety comes from right and i had somebody recently asked me um hey that seems like like doing this every day seems like a lot and what i told them was you can never brush your teeth so great on monday that you don't have to do it again until thursday every day you decide i don't have so great on Monday that you don't have to do it again until Thursday. Every day you decide, I don't want to have bad breath and cavity, so you brush your teeth twice a day. And we do the same thing with our exercise. You can't tell your wife once a month you love her, or she's going to find somebody else that will tell her on a more regular basis. And so similarly, if you want to build an unanxious life, it's an intentional commitment.

I'm going to live this way way and then my body's gonna stop going off the rails on me every day yeah this is i'm going to completely panic attacks all these kinds of things that are all anxiety based yeah yeah by and large anyway yeah so and other good news brand new announcement today regarding the launch of the building a non-anxious life it's the first time it's been said in public right now this thing we're getting ready to say right yeah this is pretty cool i'm excited about this so the book comes out on october the third which is a monday on wednesday the fifth i think i've got thursday thursday thursday october 5th october 5th is a thursday okay and our book comes out october 2nd correct i got that wrong okay mond. Monday it comes. No, I don't know. The Tuesday, October 3rd.

Okay. Book comes out October 3rd on Tuesday. On the following Thursday, October the 5th here in Nashville at the brand new Ramsey Event Center. Dr. John is going to do a mini live event. We're going to blow it out, man. On this subject. It's him talking on this subject, building a non-anxious life.

He's going to talk about some things from the book, and he's going to do an in-depth Q&A with the audience as well. And you're going to get a copy of the book when you buy this. So you've got a book. You're going to stay and sign them. I'll stay late to sign every one of them. Sign every book. We may have some musicians pop in and out.

We'll have a good time. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a Q& a and a talk at the brand new ramsey event center on our campus it's a book launch party that's what we're doing we're gonna have a big book launch party for this and so it's 35 bucks including the book you get the book and we want you to come party with us yeah it's gonna be at seven o'clock here seven o'clock in the evening central time on the ramsey campus at the Ramsey Event Center. Please get a ticket and come. We'd love to have you.

A talk from John, live Q&A. Get the book signed. Get a copy of the book. Tickets start at $35. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to get yours. And, you know, spoiler alert, it's all about the book Building a Non-Anxious Life. So the talk will be about building a Non-Anxious Life. Yes.

And the Q&A can be whatever you want it to be if you've got the guts to ask a question in front of a room full of people. That's exactly right. My wife might even show up, so we'll see. We'll have a good time. Is she going to tell stories about you? She wants us both to continue to remain employed here at Ramsey Solutions, so I don't think she's going to do that. I don't think she's going to do that. I don't think she's going to do that. Darn.

But it is. The live events team, they said, what do you want people to feel? People would pay double this for Deloney dirt. Oh, man. She said, hey, I mean, the live events team said, what do you want people to feel when they leave? And I said, I want them to look at the person they came with and say, what just happened?

That was incredible. And so that's what we're building up from the floor up. It's going to be fun. Oh, that'll be fun. It's going to be fun. That's a big call right there. That's a desired future that's real. All right, check it out.

October the 5th, the week the book comes out. It's a book launch party with John speaking, doing Q&A, signing your book. It includes a copy of the book. Tickets start at $35. RamseySolutions.com slash events. Get your ticket now. Come to Nashville. We'll have a blast. Hey, or if you're in Nashville, just come on down the road. We'd love to have you. Anywhere around here, it's all good. This is The Ramsey Show.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Day is with us in Washington, D.C. Hi, Day, how are you? Doing well, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm relatively new to everything. I've been listening to you all since about March this year. And currently, I'm a brand new mental health therapist in the area. I'm working seven days a week as a therapist. I have over $220,000 in debt. And I feel like I'm literally drowning in it.

Yeah. Because you are, right? Yeah. It's hard keeping my head above water at this point. How did you rack up $200,000? Did you go to private undergrad and private grad school? Not even private. So it's a total of $190,000 in student loans.

$5,300 for one credit card. I just had a hospital bill for 750 hit my account yesterday. And then I have 9,200 left on a car. What's your hourly rate right now? 45 per client. Plus I also do some administrative work for the practice and i babysit on the weekends are you still working through licensure 45 is about one-third the market rate right now um i'm a brand new like i just graduated uh grad school so you're still working you're working on your 3 000 hours yes golly man What a mess. Okay. What a mess. So what does that mean you're making a year total household income now? It's been fluctuating. So I'm anticipating in the 53,000 range this year just because of it.

No, I didn't start seeing clients until March, March, April. Okay. And once you get licensed, your take-home will triple, is that right? Once I get licensed, if I stay within the practice, I think it will go up to $65 or $70 an hour. You're not staying in that practice then? Or you're doing your own clients on the side at full rate on the back end? Yeah, I do want to start my own practice at some point,

and I'm trying to get as many pointers by doing administrative work too. Sure, that's excellent. That's wise. Man. So how long does it take for you to finish and get licensed? So it's looking like it's going to take a total of two years. I know that I'll definitely get a pay bump in March for being licensed for one year and another pay bump the following March once I get fully licensed done with all my hours. Um, but in the

meantime, I'm trying to figure out exactly how I can, you know, be gazelle intense without also bringing myself out working five to seven days a week. Dave, hop in here if you think I'm wrong, but I would consider the phase you're in as an extension of your graduate school, because you can't fully take on your job until you get that licensure, and you can't get the licensure until you get those 3,000 hours. So really, I would look at this as a fourth year of your graduate degree and you're getting paid for it. And so if you're going to stick to that, I would suggest you cashflow everything and make sure you're working as many hours as you could possibly work towards your licensure to get that that thing out of your head i think you could knock that out in 18 months if you flipped and

flopped some things around um the other thing is the decision i made was i just looked at the dollars and cents of it all and i ended up staying working at a university where i could use the skills i learned with that graduate degree in counseling towards another end and it it just paid better quite honestly and so that may be something you want to do um that might be taking a a short-term a short-term route out when you're playing a long game and want to be a licensed therapist on the road but man you've dug yourself quite a hole yeah so you got yeah you have two options one is change change directions, like John's saying, and get your income up. Or two, stay the course of what you're doing and fine-tune it to get the hours in and the licensure as quickly as possible.

I'm not sure the firm you're with is going to pay you market rate. It sounds like you're going to be underpaid off the back end of this. Are they going to bill you out at $125,000 and they're going to take half of it? Bill me out at $200, 200 and take over half yeah yeah if they're billing you out at 200 then you can put yourself out on the market at 150 and take cash only and you could do pretty well okay but that's a couple years away right you have a full book and all that you got to have the license to do that yeah and you got to build a clientele base to do that so so i'd almost tell me if i would almost rather her focus less on trying to pay the debt off in this madness and more do everything you can to get every inch of an hour you can get to get that licensure done but the but the hours pay better than anything else she's doing right

it's better than babysitting it's better than administrative all day long so you know that's what i mean by fine-tuning get you you need to talk to them and say guys i'm drowning over here you got to give me more billable hours i got to get these hours behind me can i do a can i do a two saturday group therapy sessions can i do sunday sessions instead of keeping somebody's kids on saturday you know you know that kind of thing so that's what i mean by fine-tuning it if you're going stay the course, you need to fine-tune it and jack up the hours, the billable hours and the hours that are counting towards your licensure, so that we shorten the time frame from two years down to one or 18 months. That kind of a thing is what I'm thinking about.

If you're going to do that, then yes, John's right. We'll treat this like you're an intern. We'll treat this like you're doing your residency if you're a medical. And you do what you can do during this time but you don't have the gazelle intensity towards paying off the debt because you're not going to move the needle at fifty thousand dollar income in washington dc very much you can move it but it's not going to move dramatically but it will move pretty good if you start making 150 uh you can start knocking this out real fast especially if you get used to living on 40 and you push everything towards this.

You'll be clear in no time once you get your hourly rate up. And so if you say, all right, this is like I'm in residency until I finish this in the next 18 months or so, then I'm going to get the rate up and or I'm going to leave this company and get the rate up way up so that I can attack this very, very aggressively. Meantime, you are working the debt snowball. Your student loans are the biggest one. You're not going to do much towards those. You do the minimum payment you can do for now just to keep them afloat. And you begin to attack those little debts, the $750 medical, you need to clear that you clear the uh little car

loan maybe over this time you know you clear up a couple things here and there and being intentional will if you've got a game plan where you see a light at the end of the tunnel even if it's a three-year light that lowers the stress level knowing something's difficult is less stressful than not knowing what the flip's going on ambivalence is much more stressful than hard things right especially if the hard things have a finish line to them yeah yeah yeah and so you know if i know what i gotta do i can go do it not knowing is what kills you i think i think it's an important moment with student loans about to kick back up. Dave, let's just say she has her license and she lives in a community that's very expensive to live in. And the most she's going to make, she's done the market scan and that's what she's going to make. Or I've got colleagues that spent $150,000 to go to Duke to get a PhD in history.

And I want to be history professors. And that job pays $41,000 because there's the market's so flooded there is a hard moment when you look at how much you owe and the thing you really want to do you've dedicated 10 years five years a lot of your energy and time to it and it is not going to pay you enough to pay your bills you can sit like a bump on a log and yell and scream and kick and get mad at your employer. All those things. Society. It says everybody. Or you can grit your teeth and put your mouthpiece in and go get a job in another field. It's going to pay you $65,000 or pay you $85,000.

You're going to have to do something else, at least for a season, until you clean up that hole that you dug yourself. It's nobody else's responsibility to clean that up but yours. Talked to a guy last week. He's making $175,000 a year selling cars. You make $38,000 as a social worker with a master's degree in social work and have $400,000 in student loan debt. But you may have to go sell cars. You may have to go sell cars.

And keep that carrot out there. I want to be helping kids who are hurting. Great. You can't afford to do that right now. Same as we tell pastors. Right now, you're the kid that's hurting. That's exactly right. Yeah, you got to do what you got to do for a short period of time.

That's not a forever thing. Doesn't mean you have to abandon your dreams for your whole life, but your dream has turned into a nightmare. So it's time to wake up. And so to turn the lights on. Just stamping your feet is not solving this problem. No, it's not going to fix it. It's not going to fix it.

We are doing the student loan live stream on September the 12th. We'd love to have you join us. It is completely free. And that's Jade Walshaw, Rachel Cruz, and me. We're going to be talking about how we got here in the student loan mess and where we're going, how to get you out. And one of the things will be just what John told you, spoiler alert. So check it out. Student loan live stream, RamseySolutions.com slash studentloans.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Molly is in Boise, Idaho. Hi, Molly. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. How are you guys?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I really got to get that T-shirt. No, I'm actually, I'm very excited. I talked to your daughter back in October to get some advice. We just built a house out here, and unfortunately, while we were building it, our interest rate went from 3.8 to 7%. Ouch. So, yeah, that one hurt. So, the mortgage became well outside the Dave rules of 25%.

Like way outside, yeah. Way outside. So, we've decided to sell it, and we are currently under contract. And on the plus side, we're going to walk away with about $300,000. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So that's where I come to you guys for advice,

and this will depend what baby step I will be on after this conversation, which is we're looking to move to Florida in this community that seems really great, but do we pay cash for a townhome, or do we take a mortgage of, I think it'll be about $80,000 to buy a single-family home that will better suit our needs? What's your household income? $150,150. Okay. Well, Dave and Sharon Ramsey don't borrow money for anything ever,

so we would not have a choice. We would have to buy a town home and then save up money and make a move in a couple of years and move up, because that's how we do everything and have for 30 years after going broke. On this show, we don't yell at you for having a mortgage as you already are aware we we yell at you for wanting to keep it but but not for having it okay and so if you took out an eighty thousand dollar mortgage that is obviously something making 150 you could pay off very quickly that's a very reasonable approach to what we teach have you ever lived in florida before molly i have i went to school there okay are you familiar with this area i am yeah okay bay area because i almost university of tampa

you had to get that in didn't you uh 99 of the time i would tell somebody moving from boise all the way across planet Earth to Florida that six months of renting might clarify this for you. You might find... Yeah, we were actually considering that first with renting for a bit. That wouldn't hurt. Because you think that this is going to be perfect for us. Maybe it's not.

And you might find, hey, we have a small rent house. We could do a townhome. It'd be great. We think we need this, but we're fine. Or you might know, no, we're going to kill each other. We've got to get out of here. And that means you have to move twice, which is the worst on top of the worst. I get that.

But, man, I think long-term it might be smart. But mathematically and falling in suit with what we teach, an $80,000 mortgage making $150,000 and having a plan to pay that off in four or five years is that's perfectly fine okay and also i just want to say dr john deloney i have pre-ordered your book the day that you announced it i can't read it i've been thinking my mom was just hitting refresh so thank you for confirming no at least one other one went to me excellent you're the best i'm grateful for you thank you molly Molly. Thank you, Molly. We appreciate that.

We have sold more than two, so we know it's not just her and my mom. I think my mom's just hitting refresh. I think she's just burning through her 401. She's going to have them all up in the garage. They're going to be piled up in the garage. Whenever she passes away, we're cleaning the house out. Tens of thousands of non-anxious life books causing your mom anxiety. Yes.

Her financial planner's going to tell me, I've got two bad news for you when she passes. You get a whole bunch of books back, and there is money this is your inheritance this is your inheritance i've enjoyed reading it again madison is in los angeles hi madison welcome to the ramsey show hi hi what's up thank you for taking my call sure um i am newly married and we're just attempting to kind of figure out our finances. We both have zero debt. We own our cars and have about $125,000 sitting in a savings account. So we are saving to buy a home. We're currently renting, but we are just not sure what to do with that money sitting in

the savings account and if we should invest into some CDs or what your recommendation for that would be. Okay. CDs are certificates of deposit. It's not an investment. It's just a savings account. Mm-hmm. So should you put it in savings or should you put it in an investment?

When are you going to buy? Hard to say with the prices around here. They're not coming down, darling. Yeah. I would say probably four-ish years, four or five years would be our goal. Why? Because then we'd have enough money to put a good... You have $125,000.

I know. How long have you been married? A couple months. all right yeah if you're going to let leave money alone for less than five years we don't recommend you play that you put money in mutual funds on the stock market i would just tell you to get get a get a cd get a high yield savings account of some kind uh and you know try to make this you know there's some four or five percent stuff floating around out there right now let's try to make some of that kind uh and you know try to make this you know there's some four or five percent stuff floating around out there right now let's try to make some of that kind of money that's not going to make you rich it's just a fancy parking spot for a really nice car that's all we're doing

it doesn't cost you anything but it doesn't make you anything okay and so it's not a good long-term play but it's a good short-term play because you're not going to lose anything and you can add to it and you know then buy your home as soon as possible but don't wait around in los angeles california for prices to come down if you walk around the streets of la you will be hard-pressed to find anyone that remembers the last time prices went down right like they don't they're not alive a good a good percent to put down on a house or home payment? Well, we want you to be debt-free as soon as possible, so we like the 100% down plan, but you're in L.A., and so putting down a good, strong down payment.

On your first home purchase, 5% or 10% is fairly normal, but we recommend the payment not being more than a fourth of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed. What's your household income? This year will probably be around $200,000, but my husband is in sale, so it's not consistent in that sense. And how old are you two? 24 and 25. You guys are doing so well.

Congratulations. What does he sell? Thank you. Are you allowed to answer that on the radio? He what meat meat good oh he's not going anywhere either no no this is california i was gonna say those weirdos selling oil chemical meat maybe the plastic exactly yeah so wow that's cool, yeah, a good, if you could put down 5% or 10%, the best thing is to put down 20% because you avoid PMI, private mortgage insurance, which costs you about $75 a month per $100,000 borrowed, all right? And that doesn't, that's not insurance that gives you anything.

That's insurance that pays the mortgage company in the event you get foreclosed on and they lose money. So, you're buying them an insurance policy because you didn't put down a big down payment. So if you can put down 20%, that is the best of all worlds on a 15-year fixed on a conventional mortgage where the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. I think you guys are just getting started at life and getting started at this marriage, and you're doing really, really well. You've got an extremely good start, but it's just causing you some lack of confidence because you haven't done this stuff before, and that's fine. But I don't think you've got a four-year wait here, and I'm going to tell you one more time.

Prices are not coming down down so if you're waiting on that don't wait but if you want to wait and i want to pile up some more money in this time next year by that's certainly not the end of the world especially the way you guys have had the ability to save money congratulations it's never occurred to me dave whenever you get married everyone just you get the the stupidest advice from all corners of your life. Everyone's got an opinion and a thing you need to do. You need to make sure y'all are whatever. And most of the time when you're newlywed, you can't afford anything.

And so that advice rolls off your shoulder. But they're in such a great position when somebody's saying, you got to buy it right now. You got to do this. Why y'all driving those cars? Whatever. It can be real tempting to say, okay, well, I got to do something with this. And it's almost the same advice I'd give a newlywed couple that had nothing, which is just chill.

Yeah. Work real hard and chill. And don't listen to your broke friends and your broke family. That's exactly right. Because they're broke because of their beliefs. And so what they believe is wrong. Why is that hard? This is The Ramsey Show.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Erin is with us in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Erin. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm so excited to be talking to you. We're honored to speak with you. What's happening? Okay, so I have kind of a what should I do, would dave do if he was in my shoes question for you um my husband was unfortunately diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago um they yeah what kind they did um we don't they can't um quite nail

down the cell type but from what they can tell, it's probably slow growing. So we don't have an actual diagnosis at this point. But so long story short, they did the surgery, the successful surgery, removed about 90% of the growth, and we have not had to do any treatments or anything so far wow and how's he doing almost a year ago he's doing so well good praise god yeah yes uh he's doing really well um but the the part that i'm wondering about, we're surrounded by just the most tremendous community. And they got together and did a big benefit for us. And they raised a lot of money.

We, however, are still in debt. So we know that this money is for his possible impending treatment for this cancer if it happens to grow back, which we go for MRIs every three months. So we're kind of in limbo every three months wondering, okay, is this when we're going to do radiation or, you know, that's kind of a tough situation. So my question is, we do have this debt. We have about $83,000 in debt total, but the sum of the money from the benefit from our community is about $103,000. And right now it's just sitting in our savings account doing nothing because we have no idea what we should do with it.

What does the $ the 83 000 in debt consist of um we both have student loans um that's approximately like total for the both of us is like 67 000 for that and then we have 16 000 on one of our cars. Our other vehicle has already paid off. So medical is all cleared up right now? Yeah. Okay. So insurance and some other monies have kept you clear of medical debt so far? Yes, exactly. So if he needs treatment, does insurance give you similar coverage to what you've had so far?

I failed to mention, he is able to go back to work. We're living like things are fully normal until they're not on this again. That's what you should do. That's why. Yeah. Because they are. I don't quite know the coverage of the insurance, I would assume. Well, I mean, it covered brain surgery, and you've gotten out with no debt.

Right. Medical debt. No medical debt. Yeah. So you've got good insurance, it sounds like. Yes. Yes, we do. Okay.

And have you used any money out of pocket? How much money out of pocket to cover co-pays and non-insurance covered things have you done? We've just been cash flowing those things um it's not been much no what's your household income handle that just fine i would guess about 85 000 okay all right well i mean number one let's just say out loud all of this doesn't matter compared to what you're already fighting. Okay? Yeah. Like, brain cancer, 12 out of 10. Right?

Yeah. $83,000 worth of debt on a student loan and whatever, 2 out of 10 on importance in life. Okay? So we'll help you with it. I'm not saying we don't need to work on it, but these are not the same discussions. So you've already won the biggest battle i hope you ever face in your life for at least for now you want i don't know if you won the war but you won the battle

agreed right yeah agreed pretty incredible so this is this is just the you know cleaning up the uh the dust on the shelf in life it's not much you know i mean we can get there so uh the more sure you are that this is behind you the cancer is behind you and there's not going to be needed treatment the more you could use some of the 103 because the people did not give you that money only for future treatment no one wrote a check and said this is only for future treatment the people gave you money and said this is only for future treatment the people gave you money because they love you and you're going through hell and they wanted to be there for you and they gave you money they did not have tags attached to it am i missing something

no you're not now i don't want you to go put the 103 on the 83 right now just because i want you to have it until this diagnosis is further in the rearview mirror but not because those people in the community are going to start screaming well i just paid off their student loans no they gave you this money because they loved you and nobody needs to know anything about your personal finance you don't have to publish this in the newspaper right and you know you know that itchy feeling you've had for the last six months that you want to do something and you can't, and you're sitting there with your husband holding his hand, and you just want to do, and you want to do?

I got something for you. Okay. I want you to call the insurance company and get in writing from them what they're going to do in case you have to go get chemo, in case you have to go get radiation. Okay. I want you to become a bulldog and enjoy it. Enjoy the bulldog. Enjoy being the bulldog.

Enjoy saying, no, no, no, I need you to know exactly, I need you to send me in writing. If they don't send it in writing within 48 hours, you're calling them back, saying, I need this thing. This person at this time said this. Keep exquisite records. And I think you're trying to make decisions without data. And, man, the more data you can get in this moment,

the more peace you're going to have in your home. To John's point, let's say we're six months further down the road and now this is in your rearview mirror a good ways. Agreed? Yeah. Okay. And you had conversations with the insurance company that said, we got you. It's not going to cost you hardly anything if he has treatment.

Those two things, those two pieces of data will release some of the 103 for me to put towards your debt. Does that make any sense? It does, yeah. But the more unsure we are, the more we need the 103. Right. And the surety will come with distance in the rear view mirror and with the data points from the insurance company that'll give you the sense of confidence to use some of this without being unwise and uh right now you're just a little

bit paralyzed by the total freak out you've been through the trauma you've been through and i don't blame you i get that so i'm fine not touching the 103 and let's just chip away at the student loans for the next six months. Just beat on them as hard as you can, as if you didn't have this money. Okay. And it's sitting there until we know that we know that we know that you're not going to need it. Okay.

While it's sitting, do I leave it in savings? It doesn't matter. You put it in a high-yield savings account. Make 4% or 5%. So here's the thing. $100,000 on 5% makes $5,000 a year. It makes $2,500 in six months that we're talking about. $2,500 does not enter into the equations we're doing right now.

It's a non-issue. Okay. Okay? $25,000 would enter into it. But $2,500, it's not relevant. It's 2% of the situation. We're dealing with the whole situation, not 2% of it. So, yeah, just park it in a highly-yield savings at your local credit union.

Try to go find 4%, 5%, 6%, something like that. It doesn't matter. And then get the insurance company's assurance of insurance, and get this further in your rearview mirror. When was the last – how long has he been out of the hospital and moving forward? His surgery is coming up on a year ago. Okay.

So we would be 18 months at that point, and we don't need to wait the five-year um you know we don't need to wait for the five-year cancer mark we don't need to wait that long but you know if we've gone 18 months and had almost nothing happen um and you got real good data and in writing from the insurance company that you're 98 95 90 covered by them then you use this money to write a check and you're out of debt. And that's like Christmas we're talking about. It's like Christmas in March now. But, yeah, that's where you're going.

So that's a good point, John. And if you get to the end there and you have $5,000 or $10,000 left and the spirit stirs you, go find a young pediatric family going through kid cancer. Give them $10,000 of that money if you feel so moved, right? Yeah, nothing wrong with that. It's your money that they gave to you because they love you. Yep, and you can pay it forward. That's right.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.