The Ramsey Show - App - I Dare You To Put Your Credit Card Away for 90 Days (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Лавровый путь Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work they love, and create incredible relationships. I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend, George Camel, and we are taking your calls on your retirement, on your income, on your workplace, on your marriage, on whatever's going on in your life, with your kids going back to school. 888-825-5225. Whatever you're working through, we're here to help. 888-825-5225.

George, off air, you were telling me about this article that they mentioned Dave Ramsey in. Tell me about it. Yeah, that's a popular trend, John. I think it gets more clicks and views, so they just like to be like, I do something different than Dave Ramsey, and here's why I'm a genius. I'm like, okay, whatever. So this one. But this one's different.

This one is very interesting. This is as close to saying i think dave ramsey's right as you can get i break this dave ramsey rule every day and i'm starting to rethink it that is the title of the article from chris over at the motley fool that is like when um your husband never ever ever ever helps with the laundry or dishes and his response is well i'm sorry that your feelings are hurt right as like my apology is that you have a problem right this is close man this is almost so here's their situation uh he says over the past few years i've gotten into the habit of using my

credit card from nearly all expenses i've got a prime visa it gives me five percent cash back on amazon and varying levels of cash back on other purchases. At the end of the year, I have this money for cash back rewards. I put it towards Christmas or vacations or whatever. And he says, using a credit card almost daily breaks one of the cardinal rules of Dave Ramsey's debt-free living strategy. He recommends not having a card at all. While that may seem extreme, I get it. I recently lost track of how much I put on my credit card and was surprised to see the amount. And so it reminded him of how quickly credit card balance can grow if you're not paying attention.

And I don't know if you've seen the news lately, but we've hit a record, America. We're number one at a lot of things, and we've hit a wild record of a trillion dollars in credit card debt alone. So congratulations. So he ends this article saying, looking at my card balance has caused me to consider changing my credit card usage so that my balance doesn't take up any higher. Here's the hilarious part, John. Motley Fool makes money, of course, from pushing financial products, largely debt products. And so in this article is a pitch, alert, highest cashback card we've seen now has a 0% intro APR until nearly 2025.

And it's like, if you're using the wrong card, it could be costing you some serious money. Our experts love this top pick, which features 0% intro APR for 15 months and an insane cashback rate

of up to 5%. So... So, hold on. Right above that ad, it says, it ends with this. If you're like most Americans, it may be time

to take an honest look at your credit card balance right now. I did recently, and it's helped me get back on track. It may be painful at first, but I promise you'll be glad you did. Here's a new credit card. That's so good. I just don't. I mean, I get we all got to put food on the table, but this is a funny article to put in an ad for a credit card.

I today sent a text to my manager who said hey there's an ad um you guys are you interested in this and i said my integrity is not for sale and so you do have to put food on the table and you have to sleep at night and my goodness yeah but i appreciate his honesty realizing this person who by the way is very financially aware he works for The Motley Fool and is a writer on personal finance topics. And even he's like, hey, it got out of control there for a second, guys. Turns out your 5% on Amazon is not worth the rewards because turns out you spend more on Amazon, which means you're not winning financially by making Jeff Bezos or whoever runs the place any richer. So this is a question we get a lot john and i know a lot of people it's the it's the biggest hill that i will die on that other people are like no i'm not

cutting up my card this guy's insane and i'm like you're you're insane you're the brainwashed one not me and i've lived now without a credit card i cut mine up back in 2013 i had an amex the delta sky miles card i was like i'm gonna game the. I'm going to get this flight to see my family for free. I had a Discover with a rotating cashback. So it was like, oh, restaurants 5% this month. I'm going to go eat out more to then game the system, bro. I'm going to really stick it to them. And then I was $4,000 in credit card tech going like, I'm losing.

And you got to check for $40, right? Yes. Cashback. I got this message the other day. Someone who was like, hey, I have the Costco credit card. Doesn't it make sense to use it for the 4% on gas? It's up to 7,000 limit. I'm like, okay, so 7,000, 4%, you're talking like 500 bucks a year is max if you're spending

$600 a month on gas, which very few people do. And she was like, yeah, I'm not going to spend that much on gas. I was like, so we're going to play this game pretending that we're only going to use this costco card for gas in order to get 300 bucks a year back i was like that's bad math at best especially when like we've talked about before um i can't speak for costco um in fact costco probably is not involved in this but when it comes to like credit card miles and stuff like that, flight miles, those companies aren't our friend. Like, like, like the airline companies aren't like, you know what, dude, we're so happy that you use a card with our face on it. We're like, give you free flights. It's not how that works. Um, guys like me gain the system. I use that card.

I rack up miles and I get free flights. And it's that single mom who the child support check didn't come in. And she got her hours cut because her boss is a jerk. And she has to do it to survive. And she doesn't have any money to pay the bill the next month. She's the one with late fees that are paying my flights. And I'm not playing that game. And for those of you out there who are going, oh, here goes John with this with this whole single no let me read you a direct quote from a federal reserve study on this

we estimate an aggregate annual redistribution of 15 billion dollars through credit card rewards from less to more educated poorer to richer and high to low minority areas widening existing disparities so it's reverse socialism it's the poor are paying for the wealthies um free stuff yes and now a lot of people john they go well it's not my fault john that they suck with money why why should i not benefit from a broken system what do you say to that that i refuse to participate in a free flight um that comes at the expense of a mom being able to take care of her kids. I refuse to play that game. So you're saying you have the ability to opt out. I would much rather the credit card companies charge single moms no late fees than give me a free $250 flight is what I'm saying.

I don't want to play that game. Well, what's interesting is a lot of people also say, well, John, it from it's not coming from the interest it's it's coming from the swipe fees they charge to retailers so i dug into this i looked at capital one 2022 annual report turns out two-thirds of their credit card revenue comes from interest fees interest aka the people who are struggling a third came from swipe fees which is just screwing retailers which then just pass on that to you, making all of your stuff more expensive. So there you go, credit card users. And I think Blockbuster is a great example. If your business is built on your customer failing, eventually your business goes away, period.

The only way your business wins is if your customer, Blockbuster didn't make their money on rentals, they made their money on late fees. And that's why they would never budge on the late fees because that was how they made their money. They bet on, their company survived because their customer was failing. And eventually somebody said,

I'm taking that model away, right? If your company is built on helping your customer win, that's longevity, right? So this goes away at some point. It can't continue in the way it is. Yeah. Why dare all of you out there just try to put that credit card away for 90 days and see if it changes how you spend. If it doesn't go back to your old life, but I'm telling you, it'll change how you look at money. And it will be painful as the Motley Fool says, and it's worth it every time we'll be right back all right we are back this is the ramsey show 888-825-5225 let's go out to seattle

washington not to talk to pearl jam but to talk to emma what's up emma hi don i'm sorry about my friend, John. What's up? No, you two are like my daughter's favorite personality. I know. Is your daughter nine? Yes. See, I knew it. That's about our demo here

with our maturity level. What's up? Hey, thank you so much for taking the call. So I got a job during the pandemic for a big global company. I was told I was going to be remote. But worst case scenario, you know, I live very close to an office, so I could just go into that office. Everything was going to be great.

Well, I'm now being asked to relocate or resign my job. Unfortunately, I have about 30 days to make a decision. I've been told that if I decide to relocate, I'm going to have up to 12 months to relocate, which is good news. The company has gone through a few rounds of layoffs in the last year, so I'm a little bit concerned about kind of how things will continue to develop in the next 12 months. We've paid, well, Baby Step 2, we've paid $160K in debt in the last bit over a year. We have $40K to go, which we were going to try to pay off by November and just be done. But now I'm wondering if we should go into firm mode and really prepare for whatever's coming. Or if because we have in theory 12 months, we should pay off the debt and then really save up for whatever is coming.

All right. So George is going to answer this question, but I want to throw something at you. Is that okay? Yeah. And this is for you and everybody listening to the show. If you ever find yourself saying the word or, we have to do this or this, you've backed yourself into a corner without realizing it. And I always want you, I want everybody listening, no matter what decision it is, to do the intellectual exercise to think of one or two other options. They may be crazy options, but at least put another option out on the table. Because as you're talking, I'm thinking this company owns every bit of the cards because I guarantee you,

if you went to them and said, okay, I'll move, but you have to guarantee me three to five years, they would say, we can't do that. So you have to give up your home. You have to give up your community. You have to give up your original agreement with no guarantee that you get, you move and they're like, yeah, we laid you off. And you would ask him right now, like, no, no, we wouldn't do that. They have, but they won't, they won't put it in writing. They won't guarantee it. So I'm thinking as you're talking, if you are making this kind of money and you are this good, somebody else with a little more stability and integrity would hire you.

Yes. I agree, John. Have you thought of another job? I agree. Yeah. So, so I'm definitely, you know, looking at all options right now. Right. And, and that's definitely an option. I think, you know, what I don't want to do is to give up the job I have in the next 30 days. So, you know, either way, you know, it's good to have more time to then kind of see how things play out. We're just kind of wondering, you know, right now, you know, it's good to have more time to then kind of see how things play out. We're just kind of wondering, you know, right now, you know, do we just hold on to money, right, as we kind of explore these options? So, yeah. So where would you be relocating to?

I rather not disclose the location just because this is a very, very big company, but it is across the country. We would have to sell our home, lose one income because my spouse would have to resign his job as well. And then obviously moving away from family. Yeah. So it's a lot of big, big life change. Okay, and is there a pay bump that goes along with this? So I've asked for those details. I'm supposed to be given some more information on that next week. My guess is that it's going to be lower than what the cost of living change will be

because it will be anywhere from 15% to 20% higher cost of living where we're going. Okay. Are they covering all of the relocation expenses? All is not clear. Or is there a certain, are they giving you $20,000? Listen to what's happening. They won't tell you how much they're going to pay you. They won't tell you how much they're going to cover on their move. What is it about this company that has not,

because if you were dating a guy like this, where are we going to live i don't know will you marry me you have to tell me in 30 days or we break up um what do you do for a living i'm not gonna i'll tell you later 30 days we're gonna break it you would you would tell that sucker to walk what is it about this job that has so captivated you you're gonna change you're to blow up your entire life for a whole string of maybes. Right. So yes, John, totally with you. I'm not, you know, we're not a hundred percent committed to making this change. In fact, you know, our preference would be to stay. You know, we're definitely looking at all the opportunities and I absolutely know where you're coming from. And that's how we feel. I feel a little bit bullied and pushed out, to be honest. That's exactly. I think you're going to be resentful no matter what happens.

And so for that reason, I would start searching for a different gig. But I also know I want you to be very careful about what you're saying because I don't want this to circle back to anybody, especially in these kind of times. So I totally get your discretion right now, right? Yeah. So the way I would look at this, George, and tell me if I'm wrong, this is as though the alarm goes off in my house. It says there's a tornado warning, which means one's been cited in my County and it may or may not be headed my way.

I'm probably going to go down in the basement until they give me the all clear. It's just not, I mean, it's not worth it. I have a bed down there. I'm just going to go chill. And so it sounds like that's what's happened to you. So it sounds like regardless of whether you move or not, your life is different in 12 months. And at least for me, I would go down to the basement. So the metaphor there is, yeah, I would store up and save some money there. Yeah, the key here is we need a clear deadline of how long, if we're going to save for one month.

I don't want you saving for the next seven months just in case, and we don't know. That's just too long of a time to pause the snowball when you could be making progress. So let's get some clear details of what's next. And maybe you tell them, hey, if you're going to do this, you have to give me 30 days from the time you give me all the details. Because right now, this is insane that you don't even know what's happening, and they're giving you a 30-day deadline. And I also know that big companies like this will make a move like this, George.

And then they'll say, oh, they just resigned. All these people keep resigning and not fully tell the full picture. No, we took them up to the very, very, very edge and started hitting them with a stick. And they just kept jumping. Right. Well, yeah, of course. We just walked them down the plank. They got the option to jump into the water.

And that's not how that works. Right. Yeah, that's definitely a tough tough situation a lot of variables here but it sounds like by the way you're talking you're not wanting to uproot your life and we've got to find another alternative then and let me tell you this emma um any frustration you hear in my voice is not at you not even a little bit oh no i know that i know that i listen to you every day i know it comes from love and well no no i it i'm so frustrated i'm so frustrated with the corporate culture in this country it's destroying this place from the inside out it's destroying families it's destroying individual workers it's destroying their own people are setting their own companies on fire from the inside out for the

sake of a quarterly stock price. And it's insanity. It doesn't make any sense. I can't wrap my head around it other than we got to hit this one little metric and we're going to burn a hole through our entire company from floor to ceiling in order to hit this one little dot so that those three guys at the top get this bonus. The whole thing is so enraging because this is the world my kids are going to inherit and it's on fire and they keep throwing gasoline on it instead of coming up with an actual solution. And this is a perfect example where they look at a family like you, who's finally established. You got your community, your husband's got a job, you got kids in school,

and we're not going to give you any info, any of this, any of this. We're going to send you halfway. I mean, all the way across the country. Let me know right now. Oh, you're fired. You're fired. You're fired. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Nobody can make a good choice like that, right?

And the whole thing is just so disgusting, man. So, man, you've got my high five to get on out of there, but I know that's easy for me to say in the seat that I'm in. Yeah, start developing that other plan so that you have a clear path of what's next if this doesn't work out. And I'll leave you with this, Emma. In these moments when these things happen, one of the things that resurfaces a lot for folks is self-doubt.

Why me? What about this? Why me? Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it. Do your best to not go there. If you have to get a couple of girlfriends that you all hang out and you talk, that you've got a place to vent, do that. If you and your husband can have regularly check-ins, walks around the neighborhood once a night or something like that, do that. You're not crazy in this situation. You're not the crazy one. You're not the one who lacks integrity. It's

the whole stupid ecosystem with how people are treating employees these days. And I just need you to hear me and George say, you're worth more than this. You are worth more spiritually. You're worth more emotionally. You're worth more financially. And if they were going to pay you all this, somebody else will too. And they'll treat you right. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Hey, all month long, we're giving away cash. You could win one of our $500 weekly prizes or the grand prize of $3,000. To increase your chances, enter daily at ramsaysolutions.com slash giveaway. You can also get our best-selling books like the Total Money Makeover, From Paycheck to Purpose, and Own Your Past, Change Your Future,

for as low as $12. George, you're right. You just turned in your manuscript for your first book. Nothing is more fun when Dave lowers the price and therefore the commission on your books to sell in his store. It's awesome. But hey, more people get more help at a lower price, John.

You know, I love a good deal. There you go. Someone's winning. The altruistic George. You can also pre-order my brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. You'll learn the six choices to break free from a life spinning out of control. Plus, if you pre-order my brand new book building a non-anxious life um you'll learn the six choices to break free from a life spinning out of control plus if you pre-order today it's 20 bucks 20 i'm gonna

send you a whole bunch of free stuff to bribe you to make it worth your while um at ramsey solutions.com store listen there's some life-changing stuff for the cost of a trip to to chipotle and i know that's your jam. It is, and it does cost $20 now. Yes. Inflation is real. Inflation is real. So you can get one meal.

It's delicious. Or you can change. Or a life-changing book. Your entire life. It's up to you. RamseySolutions.com slash store. Let's go out to North Carolina and talk to the great and wonderful Wesley. Hey, Wesley, what's up?

Hey, John, how you doing? We're doing all right, my brother. How are you? I'm doing good. Good. What's up, man? I'm calling today because our youngest son died recently. Oh, jeez, man.

And, yeah, we buried him in June. And my wife and I are looking to buy a couple burial plots next to him. But, you know, we're in baby step three, and they're pretty expensive. And, gosh, we just can't imagine not being able to be one day buried next to him. Yeah, of course. And leaving him alone out there. Yeah. What was his name? Asher.

Asher. How old was he? He was 10 weeks. So sorry, Wesley. Thank you. Dude, I'm so sorry, man. I'm going to walk you through the money part, okay? There's a couple things.

Is it okay if I talk to you pretty direct, just dad to dad? Sure. Okay. Okay. Often when there's such just insane, unthinkable loss like this, it's easy for us to get frozen there too. And so I want you to hear me say this. I know you know this intellectually, but I want you to know this in your soul. Asher's at rest right now. He's not hurting anymore. Okay. And Asher's, I want you

to make a fist. Can you make a fist real quick for me? Yeah, sure thing. And I want you to put that right in the middle of your chest. Asher's there. So I know it feels like he's alone in the middle of a field, out in some cold burial plot surrounded by strangers. He's right here. Okay? Now, there is some family legacy stuff. I'm all about that.

And we can talk through the math there. But on those moments when you can't breathe because your son's missing and he's scared and terrified and somewhere all alone, he's not. He's at peace and he's with you. And he's with his mama. Okay? Thank you. That was good. And just as you're walking down the street and you get overwhelmed with that anxiety, your heart's just beating on you, or you just find yourself crying in a parking lot somewhere

for no reason, take that, no, for a whole bunch of reasons, I'm sorry. Take that fist and just put it in your chest as a reminder, okay? He's right here. He's right here. I'm going to talk to George, but I'm going to be asking him questions about you, Wesley, because as you're speaking, I like the idea of figuring out a way to do that. Right. Just for family legacy sake. I like the idea, but I also know I'm a pretty emotional guy. Right.

And my emotions sometimes get the better of rational sense or mathematical sense. Right. So walk me through that well anytime there's been anything traumatic that happens whether it's a divorce a death whatever it is we always tell people don't make any big financial decisions right now because we're not thinking clearly and so that is my only caveat here is I don't know the timing and how soon this has to happen, if it's going to happen, all of that. But if this is something you're saying, we are doing this, I don't care what you guys

say, we are buying these plots, then we just got to figure out a plan to do that and do it in a way where we can somehow detach the emotion from the financial numbers of buying this thing. And knowing that, like John said, he's in the heart. And so this may not be a solution to the problem that you're currently facing. Is there a possibility that you can sit down with the funeral home that owns this property and say, hey, in six months, we're going to make this purchase? Are they demanding it right now? What's the deal here? Well, we spoke to them and they said that they can't hold plots. But at the same time, they said if you buy one plot, they could hold on to the other one for a short period of time.

So that's the best they can do for us. How much are the plots? Each plot just recently went up, but it's $1,000 a piece. Okay. So we're talking $2,000 total? Yep. Do you have that in your emergency fund, that Baby Step 3 fund you're building? I do.

I would buy it today. Would they negotiate with you if you were able to buy both at once now? No, unfortunately, no. It's run by the funeral home, but the city owns the plots, and so the money goes to the city, and their prices are set. Okay. Yeah, for $2,000, I would do it right now. What does that leave you guys with in your emergency fund?

If we were to pay for that today, that would leave us with about 2,500. Okay. And then how quickly could you build that back up? You know, I think we could probably build it back up in a couple months. Yeah. Because I also want you guys to have that financial security and foundation and stability under you because the last thing you need right now is a financial emergency to hit while you're grieving. And all of a sudden the HVAC goes out in the middle of summer in North Carolina, and it's $5,000, and we have $2,000. That's right.

And so we're trying to balance that reality with your other reality. And again, I'm talking, Wesley Wesley to both you and George here. I wonder if, I don't want to say a cool goal, but a goal that would be utilitarian, that would be helpful is to sit down with your wife and say, we're going to buy these today. And then I am going to sign up for fill in the blank, DoorD dash for whatever. And I'm going to use that driving time as I'm going to take some of this energy and some of this angst and some of this hurt and some of this grief, and I'm going to channel it into refilling that emergency fund for us. And it's going to be an honor of our little boy, right? And it's going to give you some angst and some

energy. And she might say hey i need you home right now and that's fine that's fine um i think george is right i think you have to balance this here and be careful that you don't blow it all out and you don't go do something silly and then all of a sudden your air conditioner goes out and this rush to make sure you keep the family together in spirit and keep these burial plots together indefinitely becomes a nightmare because, yeah, you have no heat in the coming up winter, right? Do you guys have any other kids? We do.

We've got two others, a 9-year-old and a 1-year-old. Are those plots there too? I'm sorry. Were you asking for them? I'm saying would you buy four eventually? And so you have all five people together? Yeah, I think that would be ideal is one day we get a whole strip. We're just, we're kind of worried that, you know,

somebody's going to end up buying plots up next to them. Yeah. But yeah. I think George is right. As much space as you can put between you and this purchase, I think is healthy. It keeps you from just rushing off

and trying to feel better right this second because you're hurting so bad. The nerves are so raw. But also for $2,000, I would probably, and you have the cash, I'd probably just do it.

And then you think a little bit more long-term about additional plots for the whole family. We love you, man, and we're grieving with you. I want to send you a copy of John Deloney's book on your past, change your future as well. Today's scripture of the day is John 15.2.

Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so it will produce more fruit. I love that quote. That was 1800s, John. It's never too late to be what you might have been. You said that in a way like, they had words back then, John. It just feels very hip, you know what I mean? Ah. So for 1800s George Eliot to be spitting bars like hip you know what i mean so for like 1800s george elliott to be spitting bars like he's just putting out a tweet for the day is just impressive to me

i like it i like it all right let's go out to phoenix arizona where it's 1 billion degrees and talk to the great noah what's up noah hey guys um just to give you a little background, I am a senior in college right now. I'm looking to do PhD school. I have about a six-month emergency fund. I've been working all throughout college and I have zero debt. So I have my emergency fund and I've been investing into retirement. But unfortunately, I don't have enough to completely pay for the PhD programs or basically any PhD programs without taking on debt. So I was wondering if that's something I should reach into my emergency fund for. Should I stop investing to a retirement and what your guys' recommendations are for that?

What's the program you want to go get a doctorate in? I wanted to do quantum computing, focus in electrical engineering. Have you sat down and met with an advisor of a potential university? Yes, I have professors lined up I've talked to. Most of those doctoral degrees, they pay you? Yes, but with some funding sometimes. So it's usually about $30,000, and there's no guarantee that you get the sponsorship for it. You can have some of the school paid off, but with a decent amount, like if there's a discount with the TA or any lab assistant, I still won't have enough without having to pull out some loans there.

Have you isolated yourself to a single school? No, not yet. Okay. I would ask around. My first PhD I paid for out of pocket. I borrowed a jillion dollars for it. My wife did too. My second one, I got my employer to help out with.

And I was able to cash flow the rest of it. But mostly the employer paid for almost all of it. And so it was a huge difference, but I also waited. I went to a little bit different program than I was, I was expecting on the, on the get go and ended up changing my life. So it was a good thing.

But it's kind of like finding, finding a house in a neighborhood. Like that's our dream home. It has to be this one. And you end up buying way more house than you can afford when there's a great house right over there that you can actually get into and have paid off in a couple of years. You see what I'm saying? So hear me say this. I just, I can't sit here in good faith and tell you need to take out a bunch of student loans to get a doctorate in quantum

computing. Do you want to go be a professor? Why do you even need a PhD? Most industry research is done with a PhD. Okay. So you want to use the big boy computers and learn how to do that. I got that. Yes, sir. Okay. Could you get into the workforce for a little while and continue to save up and punt this thing a year or two? I've thought about that, at least with some of the other professionals I've talked to who have gotten the PhD. They say it's pretty hard to do that and extends your PhD program, at least in that field by a year or two. So it'd be another year or two of dissertation prep. Yeah, but that's true. That is true. And also I'm going to tell you one important thing. I hired a whole bunch of people over the years. And one of the

biggest challenges I ran into was talking to really brilliant 26 year olds with doctorates and the problem was they had a phd or 26 or 27 and so they they needed a salary x to cover their their student loans and you can't have an entry level employee with a doctorate. That just is weird. But they did not have the work experience to have earned that level of leadership potential. Because I know that the degree is great, but man, you got to get in there and learn how to lead and learn how to run stuff and do stuff. And so I often found myself coaching students who had a master's degree or were considering that, go work for a few years

and get some wisdom, how this thing works, what's the avenue. And then you're going to find out, okay, here's the right way. Someone's, a company is going to look at you and say, hey, you're worth investing in, like what happened to me. And it changes everything. But I get what they're saying, dude, over the course of your life, an extra year on your dissertation, who cares? Who cares, man? It feels like eternity when you're in undergrad and you're doing your degree in three or four years. An extra year feels like your whole life. When you're in your doctorate and you're 36 years old and you took another year when you were 28, nobody cares, especially if you cash flowed the whole thing and your boss paid for 75% of it. Gotcha. Okay.

What's it going to cost if you did this out of pocket completely? Probably around, I think $150 without any of the assistance with TA. Good golly. What's the ROI? What's the quantum computing? If you had a PhD

and you walked out and got a job with one of the big companies, what would your starting salary be? Pretty high, I think. I'm pretty sure. I would do a lot. I would have some- You're good with numbers. Very, pretty high.

You know. About 350? Yeah. Yeah, around there. Yeah. So if you know what you're doing with those big boy computers, you can make some good money. So I'm not knocking the field.

I'm all about it. And I've got two of them. So I'm all about getting a PhD too. I love the learning. I love being in that environment. I love it all. What I didn't love is not being able to breathe for 10 years. I didn't love looking at my wife who thought everything was okay. And I felt like I was lying to her every day because I was so scared and so anxious that we owed so much money and we weren't safe. Right. And her husband was a hothead who had the ability to get fired any day on a day's notice. Right. And so all I have to say is I can't in good faith tell you to go take out money on that. If you've got it in your emergency fund, and George, correct me if I'm wrong, I would not have a problem with that.

If you got the cash on hand, I'd quit investing and I would cash flow it. I'd be all about that, man. But if you're going to go take out loans, I wouldn't do that. Gotcha. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Thanks for the call, man. My conclusion just keeps going back to this guy. He's at least twice as smart as John, at least five times as smart as me. I'm like, he can find a way to do this without debt. I think that's going to be the best path. Imagine graduating with an emergency fund while investing, making $350,000 and no

debt. Versus... And the ability to run a computer that can, I don't know, alter humanity. Take over the world. I mean, this is some Doctor Strange level stuff. It is. It is. They are creating inception and reality. The quantum computing stuff is... So that's way beyond my pay grade but what isn't is saying we're going to find a way to do this without debt and that means getting creative and it might mean taking a pause and maybe he gets in the workforce and realizes actually what i really

want to do is this well and that's what i was trying to communicate it happens to a lot of graduates where i've uh gone to school from K through 12. And then I go straight into my undergrad. I crush it. My professors love me because they see themselves in me, right? Someone who loves learning. They love the material. They love the scholarship. They want to keep going in school. And so they're, of course, saying, dude, you need to go. You need to go. You need to go. And a year feels like your whole life. And that's when you have to talk to somebody who's been down the road and they say, no, no, no, I'm 40.

Slow down, right? Just take a year, go work. You're real, real smart. You may find out that, all right, I love quantum computing, but I can make 350 working for a hedge fund company because with my computing skills or my code writing skills, whatever,

you might find that, man, I don't want to make a four or five or six year investment into this one thing. Well, then there's the sunk cost fallacy. Because you're like, I'm already six years in. I have to do this. There's no other path now.

And that also frightens me. I mean, my career pivoted 17 times before I got to where I am today. It was music and then I was going to be in film. And I really like marketing. And then I jumped over and started communicating. And so- And now you're a YouTuber. When you're a YouTuber.

When you're in your 20s, it's the time to try a whole bunch of stuff. So this may be it. I mean, it sounds like he knows the exact path he wants to go down, but I was also very sure of myself in my 20s going, I know exactly what I'm going to do. And the next year it was something different. That's exactly right.

But he's so much smarter than me that I'm like, I trust this guy. I trust his ability. No question about that. For everybody out there wondering about school, I think what he did was wise. Always go talk to a couple of people who are on the other side of it,

on the other side of schooling, who are sitting in the career you want to be in someday. And that's usually a great, great, great place to find. And a good reminder, we've got a free live stream all about student loans. Oh, there we go. So you can go register for that at ramsaysolutions.com slash student loans. We've got Dave, Jay stream all about student loans. Oh, there we go. So you can go register for that at ramseysolutions.com slash student loans. We've got Dave, Jade, and Rachel on that.

September 12th, 8 p.m. Eastern time. You can register for free. Very, very cool. Emily, great job back there in the booth. The rest of you guys, y'all are getting there. Appreciate all your work. George, great show. Good times.

And for you, America, thank you so much for joining us and giving us your most precious resource, your time. Go out there and take care of each other. Good times. And for you, America, thank you so much for joining us and giving us your most precious resource, your time. Go out there and take care of each other. Be kind. Pay off your debts. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the Get Started button.

We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's RamseySolutions.com and click Get Started.