The Ramsey Show - App - I Have Trouble Focusing on My Day-to-Day Tasks (Hour 3)

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

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live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. My name is Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube show, The Table, with Ayo, and co-hosting with me today is Dr. John Deloney, the host of the dr john deloney show uh youtube show and podcast man how are you enjoying that uh your show i mean it's it's i mean it's just huge i was looking at your numbers the other day and i was like who is this guy like it's been surreal man it's been you're getting 50 000 views 100 000 views 12 000 views and some of the conversations that you're having on there yeah

there's some hard dark stuff oh some stuff that you know I would just be a actually I would love to talk about it to be honest but you know I don't have the doctor in front of me so I mean you're you're having some great conversations really around all kind of things what's the best conversation you have had Dr. John oh man I think think to get away from a topical issue, I think the best conversation I've had, and there's been several of them, is when we can put down the automated responses, put down the political responses, and just listen to somebody on the other end of a phone on the other end of the phone who's hurting somebody may have hurt them they may have hurt themselves they may have done something they wish they could have back but at the end of the day sometimes beating somebody up over a topical issue when they're in pain does nothing but bury them right and so the beauty of this experience for me and hopefully for the caller is we can put all that stuff aside and I could sit.

Yeah. I was somebody and say, how can I help? Yeah. And then we're going to give you some steps to begin to walk in towards healing. And sometimes that's admitting I did something that was dumb. Sometimes it's building boundaries. Sometimes it's forgiving yourself. Sometimes it's forgiving other people in your life.

And sometimes, Anthony, we end those calls with real hard. This just sucks. Yeah. This just isn't going to be a great outcome here, right? One of them was, what do I do when there's no intimacy involved in my marriage? Right. And I was like, what? And how you handled that, I got to give it to you, bro. I was like, yo, that was a dope way.

You are real. And you helped that individual. And I just want to commend you, man. I appreciate that. And just tell the world that Dr. John is no fluff. This guy right here reminds me of me just with a doctor in front of him. He's not scared to have the hard conversations. Let's just do it.

Let's get in there. Let's face the truth and let's all move on together. Right. Yeah. And I really love your anxiety relief checklist. And I want you to go to John Deloney dot com. Download the anxiety relief checklist. And also, while you're there, I want you to go to his YouTube show and check out his podcast because he gets real. You know, he just, this man is. Appreciate you, man. I love having you on the team, man. You know what?

Let's keep the real conversation going on right here on the Dave Ramsey Show and go out to Texas and have a conversation with Alex. Alex, good afternoon. How can Dr. D and I help? Hey, good afternoon. This question actually is more specifically for Dr. Deloney. Sure thing. Yeah. So I work as a pool cleaner, and each week I have a set schedule,

but it's really flexible. So I clean about 15 pools a day, and at the end of the day, it's not hard work, but I struggle to stay focused each day. I struggle to finish those 15 because I know that there's flexibility in there. I know that if I don't make it, I can do a few the next day and stuff. And I run into working on Saturdays, and I don't mind it, but I know that I don't have to work Saturdays because I have the ability like I have the resources and I can finish them in that five-day span so I'm I'm just struggling to how to build that focus and that um just continuation of of um motivation throughout the day and not

get distracted this feels less like a focus question and more like a procrastination question, huh? Yeah, I can see that. So why are you a pool cleaner? How old are you? I'll be 25 this month. Okay. Do you own a pool cleaner business? Is this just a job you love? You like serving people and helping out? It's the only job you could get? Tell me about that. So actually, I started about a year ago, left a toxic workplace. And I don't own my company.

I work for a company, but I make good money for the hours that I work, if I work them right. I love the work I do because it kind of fits in my specialties. I love seeing a good job done, helping customers. It's fulfilling. But, yeah, I find myself procrastinating. I'm not worried about money. I'm not worried about kind of the major worries of the world. I just get distracted.

What do you get distracted with? It can be anything. For a while, it was Facebook, Instagram, just the usual. And I took those off my phone. But I just find myself just distracted, just on my phone or just taking too long at a pool. And it's not consistent. If I remove one distraction, another one pops up. So I struggle with the same exact thing we're talking about here, okay? And I'm going to pretend I'm talking to you for a second.

All right. And I wish there was some magic alchemy I could pass along to you. I wish I could tell you you were broken or something was wrong with you. But I'm going to be honest with you is I had to be with myself. And that is I've got to act like a grownup and be a professional. And there's a period at the end of that sentence. This doesn't have anything to do with cognitive ability or ability to focus. This has everything to do with setting a plan for a day and holding yourself accountable.

I wish it was harder than that. I wish it was more complex than that. And you may have childhood challenges. You may have learning disabilities. You may have a whole bunch of things. But I'm going to tell you right now as a guy who struggles with it too, I have to set a schedule for myself. And if I don't do it, I have to have somebody holding me accountable. I've invited people into my life to speak into me in those ways. I've got somebody who runs my day-to-day here. his name is Cody, and he has called me in his office and dressed me down.

I'm a grown man, but I have invited him into that space. And he says, you missed your deadline. That means you're a person who's lacking character, lacking integrity. You said you were going to do it. You didn't. And he's right. And so what I would tell you is start your day with a plan. Start your day with accountability. If you've got to ask somebody

to text you at a certain time to make sure you're doing what you said you were going to do, keep a, I, for many months, I kept a note card with me that I checked off. So something about procrastination is it's little wins, right? I got one, I got one, I got one. And there's something about little wins. And then you've got to acknowledge, stop for a second, and celebrate the end of a day of a job well done. My guess is you love talking to customers. This may not be a long-term job for you, and you may need to lean into something you're really passionate about. But at the end of the day, brother,

you've got to set up some accountability for yourself. You're 25. If you learn to do this now, I'm telling you you're going to save yourself 15 years of heartache. And this is me talking to myself at 25. You can do this. You just got to decide. The Rock says focus.

Every time he feels distracted, he tells himself and he speaks out loud and he says focus. There's no excuse to why you cannot become focused. It's a muscle to practice. Yes. It's a skill. Yes. So focus. Practice it, Alex.

Just say it. Focus. And you are worth practicing on yourself. Absolutely. Get it done. Absolutely. Over the years, I've seen so many families suffer by not having life insurance. It's not that they didn't care. It's just that they didn't know, so they did nothing.

That's a huge mistake. Listen, husbands and wives, moms and dads, think about it. If you died, how would your family pay the bills, the mortgage, food, and plan for a better future? This is what life insurance is all about, and term life is the only way to go. It's not expensive, and it's not complicated. Stop wasting money on cash value plans. You need 10 to 12 times your income in protection, and I recommend 15 or 20-year level plans.

I also only recommend Zander Insurance, and I have for over 20 years. These are the only people I personally use, and they only offer the plans I recommend. Call them at 800-356-4282 or get instant quotes online at zander.com. Trust me, these simple steps will let your family know how much you care. Dr. John Jaloney and myself, Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey Personalities, co-hosting the Dave Ramsey Show together. And we're excited because we get to go out to Atlanta and have a talk and a conversation with Sean. Sean, good afternoon.

How can Dr. D and I help? Hey, guys. Really appreciate the time. I'm on baby step two right now. My only two deaths are a little over $16,000 in student loans. Those are broken up over about five smaller loans ranging between $2,000 to $4,000 each. And then I have a $1,600 medical bill that I accrued about eight years ago that has been since put in collections. About four years ago, I stopped getting phone calls.

No one's bugging me about it or anything like that. So my question is, that medical bill is actually my smallest debt that I have. But since I'm not getting bugged by people, I was thinking, would it be okay to just continue the gazelle intensity on the student loans and then once i pay those off build up um you know anywhere between eight to six eight to a thousand dollars and try to settle with the collections agency or should i attack it first stop with the um with the extra payments on the student loans and try to pay that off first yeah follow the baby steps i mean i mean just follow baby step number two, which is the debt snowball, line up all your debt from smallest to largest,

making minimum payments, and then attack the first one aggressively. So you can still negotiate with the collection company, Sean. I would say, because you're not making monthly payments right now, the best time to negotiate with collection agencies are always the last three days of the month, because that's where, you know, the collector gets paid off of what they collect. And so they will tend to cut good deals towards the last three business days of the month. So if you wanted to wait to end of this month, just have an account ready for like if it's sixteen hundred dollars. They didn't they pay no more than 20 cents on the dollar for that thing sometimes even five ten cents so i will go in there and start very low i will offer them like 40 cents on the dollar and don't go any higher than 50 cents and then still be making payments on your

student loans and then just pay that off and aggressively get back to paying your your 16k but if you do it right you may work in a student loan, I mean work in a debt snowball, you might be able to still continue aggressively going after your student loans. Just have, I would have at least $900 ready to pay a cash certified check to send

into that collection agency. Awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem at all, man. Thanks for calling in. So Anthony, you were a debt collector um for a season I was good one too I know you were I I tell me tell me if I'm right or if I'm wrong I have a sense of integrity when it comes to paying those back it becomes a moral issue for me and sometimes I over moralize things so thing. So tell me if I'm wrong. If I went to the doctor even 10 years ago and I said I need some help and they helped me, even if they gave me an outrageous charge, I went somewhere, they said I'm going to help you,

and then I just didn't pay them. Four years, five years, seven years later, people finally quit hassling me. They charged the debt off. It's even going to roll off my credit report at some point. Is it still the right thing to pay him back? I mean, absolutely. I think the right thing is to settle the account fair and square. Right.

You have a moral issue. I don't. Yeah. In that area. And here's why I do not have a moral issue. If I borrowed $100 from you, John, and then James buys it from you for $10

and he comes to me trying to collect $100, I don't have a moral problem paying him $50. Because I didn't borrow the money from James, our producer. Everyone's like, who's James? He's our producer. I'm just giving an example here.

But now if you feel morally obligated to go back and pay the full, cool, no problem. But no collection agency buys the debt for 100%. Zero. So the right thing to do, I believe, morally is to fair and square pay what both parties agree to pay. Shake hands and then move on shake hands and move on you know and so now if you're calling me seven years down the road saying hey you owe me a hundred dollars then yeah i don't need to ask you can i pay you 90 you know i need to say okay i'm gonna pay you back a hundred dollars but if i've sold it to somebody else

and i've i've agreed to discharge my request from you. Yes. Gotcha. Yes. Cool. Good question, man. I like you. I like how you're learning from me.

I'm getting there. I like this. I'm getting there. Going out to Texas to have a conversation with Seth. Seth, good afternoon. How can Dr. D and I help? Afternoon, guys. Well, my question is I'm 30 years old.

I make between $60,000 and $70,000 a year. I'm in debt about $18,000 roughly. A little over $9,000 of that is a written-off student loan. The rest of it is line of credits and credit cards. I'm wanting to buy a house within the next year. I've been renting for 10 years, and I want something of my own. Is that something that's feasible for me to do within the next year? Do you have any money in the bank account right

now, Seth? Actually, I'm really embarrassed to say it, but COVID has hit me extremely hard and I was stupid with the money that I had. I'm actually negative in my bank account. Negative. Hey, Seth, don't be embarrassed, brother. We're all learning together and we're figuring it out, okay? COVID hit a lot of people in the mouth and they weren't ready for it. It happens and now you made the first step being a call. Yeah.

Cool? Yeah. So, Seth, I agree with John. Let's not be embarrassed. But I love how you're being authentic here on the show. And we're going to be authentic with you. So with you being negative right now, and you are $18,000 in debt, but you're making it between 60 and 70, I think you need to take the next 24 months to one, get out of debt, two, get on a plan. And I want you to see yourself on this plan for at least 12 months current before you get into a mortgage.

Now, don't get it twisted. I understand. 30 years old, making pretty good money. You want to be a homeowner. And I get it. You're probably thinking I'm wasting money in an apartment. But right now, I think there are some things internally that we need to learn about money before we take on the responsibility of home. Because right now, America feels like, you know, hey, if I have a rent, I can have a mortgage payment that's cheaper than my rent. But the truth of the fact is, your house is not cheaper than your apartment. There's going to be so many other things that come up in your house that if you were renting, you would not be responsible for. And you know that I'm preaching to the choir. So to answer your question, can you buy a house in the next year? Can you? Yes, you can. Okay. You can go out there and figure out a way to, to do it. I mean, half of America

is doing it right now, doing it the stupid way. We're going to give you the right and the proper and a healthy way to do this. Then I think you take the next six months, six to 12 months to pay off your debt, to get you a fully funded emergency fund. And then from there, Seth, I really want you to see you starting even now. Get on a real budget and stick to that budget and then start practicing healthy money habits that will set you up to win in the next two years. So when you get in your home, there is no more negative. You're not paying over draft fees. You don't have bill collectors calling you. Make sense?

Absolutely. Yeah. Have you ever taken Financial Peace University? No, sir. I actually just got turned on to the Ramsey program within about last three weeks. Three weeks. I went ahead and downloaded the every dollar and made myself a budget and uh looking at trying to find a side job that works with

alongside my my job that i currently have because the job i currently have'm kind of on call 24-7, so it's a little hard to have a side job. Yeah, yeah. So stay on the line. Kelly is going to get you into Ramsey Plus for free on Dr. D and myself. I like your heart, man, and I really want to just sow into your life. This is going to be for free. So now listen, you need to go in here and take advantage of this. I need you to watch all the classes. I need you to be very focused with this, okay? And you will see that if you can follow this over the next year, your life will change in the next six months. I promise you this, man.

I promise you this. I'm getting excited for you, Seth. And, Seth, you've known about us for three weeks. You're going to find real fast. We don't shoot our wounded. We're here to walk with you, not poke at you, Seth. And Seth, you've known about us for three weeks. You're going to find real fast. We don't shoot our wounded. We're here to walk with you, not poke at you. Stand up on your own two feet. Put your head up high. We're walking

with you, brother, and you're going to turn your whole life around. And Seth, I want to walk with you personally, so go follow me on YouTube. Go to youtube.com forward slash Anthony O'Neal, and I'm going to walk with you throughout this journey because you're in my age bracket, and I love you, brother. God bless you. This is the Dave Ramsey Personalities, co-hosting the Dave Ramsey Show.

And we're excited because we're going to have a conversation with Dominique out in Oshkosh. Dominique, how can we help? Hey, guys. So question. I'm 16 years old. I have about $600 in the bank. And I was wondering, what do you guys think is my path in terms of saving and investing for the future? Oh, man, that's such a good question, man.

$600 in the bank. Man, you're killing the game. 16 years old. I mean, do you have a job right now? Not right now because of school and sports. My parents are wanting me to focus on those things. I totally understand. So the very, from a financial perspective, I would say you're in a good place.

Keep working, keep saving up the money whenever you do work. The number one investment man that you can make into yourself right now is just pretty much focusing on you and your education okay so really diving into your grades diving into learning things and also start having a conversation with your parents now on hey what does college college look like for me mama dad what can you all do financially? I'm going to bring scholarships to the table.

I'm going to try and get a full ride. But what will you all be able to provide? Then from there, man, I think get through college 100% debt free. I really wouldn't worry about investing too much right now from a financial perspective because I want to make sure you get through college debt free. Now, let's say for an example, you look up at 18, you have all four years covered,

110%. The best thing you can do then is go ahead and open up a Roth IRA and go ahead and start putting money into that. Just $100, $200 a month may not sound like a lot to you right now, but if you just do that over a period of 40 years that's over a million dollars two million dollars actually yeah so uh but the

very first thing i don't want you to really worried about how to how to get get a lot of money no i want you to focus on how do i invest into myself how do i get the education how do i come out on the other side of education 100 100% debt-free with $5,000, $10,000 in a bank account, maybe a little bit of money invested into a Roth IRA. Make sense? Yep. That's perfect. Thank you. Oh, man. Thank you so much, man. What would you say if that was your son? I'm sitting here thinking the last thing on earth I thought about when I was 16 years old was, you know, I should be investing this money. It was how fast can I get it out thinking the last thing on earth I thought about when I was 16 years old was, you know, I should be investing this money.

It was how fast can I get it out of the hands of the guy paying me to mow his lawns into whatever thing I was going to buy. I was going to go on a date, pay for a movie, buy some just – I would go mow lawns and spend that money at like a corner store on the way home. Bro, I'm with you. I would do that and go to the movies and get me a bunch of Jolly Ranchers and licorice. And tapes. You know what my tapes are worth now? Tapes? What do you mean tapes?

That was before you, bro. Cassettes. They were awesome. I had cassette tapes. Then I got into CDs. John. Listen, man. You in your 40s.

I got that on a covered wagon, man. We'd go get it. Cassette tapes. You know your 40s. I got that on a covered wagon, man. We'd go get it. Cassette tapes. You know, let's have a conversation with Abby, man, out of New Hampshire. Man, you're making me sound like I'm too young. Abby, good afternoon. How can we help? Hey, I'm happy I got through.

My question is for Dr. Deloney. I have a husband who has struggled with long-term depression. We've been married 16 years. It's been a thing happening the whole time, but he's occasionally gone to counseling when I insisted, but no long-term changes have ever been made. It manifests with, you know, like extreme irritability, anger, that type of thing, which has like progressively gotten worse the last couple of years. I just recently told him it was not an option.

He needed to like address the depression. So he had his first appointment with a therapist this week. My question is, um, how long, like how far into his own treatment and therapy for depression does he need to get before marriage therapy would be effective? Like if we started marriage therapy around the same time, is that going to not be super effective? He needs to get good in on working on himself, you know, his own stuff before we go into marriage therapy.

I'm a huge fan of couples who have been married a long time. If you take a tact, if you take an approach that you are one and that you are in relationship with him and you are supportive of him and you want to grow yourself and by growing yourself, you're going to grow further together with the guy that you pledge the rest of your life to. I love couples going together because what you'll, you'll determine, you'll, you'll get to see in real-time patterns how this quote-unquote depression whatever that happens to look like how it plays out in relationship with other people and i'm a huge fan of that often folks will go the other way around and they'll go to counseling by themselves and then they will try to impose their new found

freedom on an existing relationship and it doesn, that framework doesn't work anymore. You're two different people. And so if you have a great marriage therapist who will walk with you, have really hard conversations, who will do what Terrence real suggests, which I love, which is they'll take sides when appropriate. I have,

I highly, highly support that. Here's where you have to take ownership of you in this. I'm proud of you for standing up and saying this is no longer an option. You have to take care of yourself and you've got to go see somebody. If you do that punitively, or let me say it this way, he can only get well through relationship, period. If you continue to use therapy as a punitive measure, you will do this or that's going to make it very hard for him to be engaged on his own and be a part of his own

healing. He's going to be doing it to keep you quiet, to stop the nagging. I know that's the issue. That's the problem because that's why we are where we are if you will say draw a firm boundary which you did you must do this for this relationship to continue and then you go full bore into connection you go full bore into how can i lean as far possible into this man i want to love him the best i can i have to know that nagging and complaining never solved a problem in the history of the world. It punted it. It switched to another problem but doesn't solve anything. That's different than drawing a boundary.

Then you can see some real healing. I want both of you to read the book, I Don't Want to Talk About It, by Terrence Real. I have read it. Good. I have read it. Did it speak to your soul? Oh, it was like, oh my my gosh this is it this is like i he said he would listen to it on audible if i bought it on audible he started but then said oh it hits too close to home so i just can't handle

listening to it and here's what a great marriage therapist will do they will back you up in drawing um relational goals that he's going to commit to. That's going to be different than you just complaining and nagging him through a book. Does that make sense? So what a good therapist is going to do is going to pick sides when appropriate, and there's going to come a moment in marriage therapy, if you've got a husband who is seriously depressed

and you've all been together for this long, I'm going to, like, spoiler alert, you've played a role too, right? And there's going to come a moment when he's going to look at you and alert, you've played a role too. Right. And there's going to come a moment when he's going to look at you and say, you've got to work on things too. But he will also, he or she, this therapist will help draw collective goals out of each of you and then help you guys learn to hold each other accountable. And so, yeah, that book hits real close to home. I haven't talked to a guy who's been through that book that it hasn't just melted from the inside out. And if you struggle deeply, yeah, that's hard to get through.

And so I love your heart on that. Good for you, Abby. Lean into that boy. Man, so, so, so good. Let me ask you this question, man. Well, young people like in their 20s and 30s, well, let me stop saying young people, but people who are battling with depression issues, what is the number one thing they need to be doing? So depression is this idea that the way I feel right now is always going to be this way, and it was probably my fault. Okay. And when you find yourself there in that pit,

when you start getting on that loop, that it's always going to be this way. Yeah. The boldest, most vulnerable thing you can do is go find somebody that you trust and tell them. Yeah. And then if you really trust them and they're a person of integrity and, um, they're honest with you, they will hold your hand and walk you through what healing is going to look like. And sometimes it's very minor. Sometimes you really got to change your diet and start caring about your heart and mind. Yeah. Sometimes is you got a long trauma history and you're going to need a professional walk through you for a season. Right. Yeah. Um, sometimes you need to go see a doctor, a medical doctor and get the medication you need to get you to the next season. Right. Um, but the, the boldness, the,

the, the little win there is telling somebody else. If you're 20, you're 30, and you realize the COVID season has not been nice to me, the election season has not been nice to me, and you are in a hole and you think it's always going to be like this, be vulnerable, call somebody, and say, I'm not doing well. Okay. Wow. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. The Scripture of Today comes from Habakkuk 2.3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time

It hastens to the end It will not lie If it seems slow, wait for it It will surely come It will not delay Michael Phelps says There will be obstacles There will be doub. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes.

But with hard work, there are no limits. I love that. I like that guy. I like that. Cheryl's in Alabama. Cheryl, good afternoon. How can we help? Hey, I'm good. So I'm, I'm calling just to see if we're just to get confirmation that we're okay. And what, how we're trying to help our son get through college debt free. We started late. Um, we had a little bit of money in a five to nine that we had started when our oldest daughter was little, but that was a long time ago. We hadn't put any in it.

So his first semester of college was last semester. And basically we told him if he would help us come up with the full semester tuition, that then after his first semester, we would look at his grades, and if he made A's and B's, which he's capable of, but he doesn't want to do the work, then we would reimburse him for those classes, the credit hours that he made A's and B's in, and that could pay his next semester. And he doesn't think that's fair. He thinks we should have to pay for it, but you know, we could, because we paid for our first daughter's college, but we didn't pay for all her college. There's a whole nother story around that. He doesn't get a vote with what you do. Cheryl, he doesn't get a vote with what you do with your money. I know. I agree with that.

Let me ask you this question, Cheryl. Do you believe that you and your husband are being fair between your son and your daughter? Can he look at this situation and say, well, this is not right. You did this for my sister, but you didn't do this for me. Is there any way he can say that? Or do you and your husband feel like, yeah, we maybe did more for her and we're not doing it for him? So we did. When we sent her to college, and of course, as a parent, John, you know, you learn with your first one and, you know, do with your second one or whatever. With our first one, we sent her to college.

We asked her if she would get a job for her spending money and if she would pay her um and we we bought her a car and paid for her insurance while she was down there in her second year she came home at christmas and said she was going to have to drop two classes in her major because she was failing in them and we told her she was going to have to either figure out how to pay for it or come home that we weren't going to pay for it if she was just going to play. So she came home after a year and a semester. Okay. So with that, we wanted him to have a dog in the fight from the very beginning. I like. I love it. Have you sat down, and the way you just explained that to me and Anthony, I want him to get the full picture because he's worth it, number one,

and treat him like an adult. Say, here's our thinking process. We made a mistake first time around with your sister. Y'all are different people. Y'all act different. Y'all have different personalities. Y'all have different life ambitions. But we made a mistake.

You've got to have skin in the game. That's a part of this. And so we're going to flip it around. And we want you to put money on the table first. And every time you succeed, as we know you can, then we're going to make that worth your while. I totally agree. And he does know that because we've had that conversation several times. He doesn't understand.

He keeps going, why are you doing this for me why aren't you just paying for it and why do you care if i have student loans um because i love you i care because i want him to have the best start in his financial life that he can have, and he can go debt-free if he will. Yeah. He makes me – no, I allow him to make me feel guilty. Look at you, Cheryl. Look at that. You allow him. Yes, so you can –

I want a confirmation from Anthony and from you that we're not actually in the wrong. So, number one, you can do whatever you want with your money. Anytime, you can look at him and say, I paid for all seven of your brothers and sisters, full pay. I'm paying for nothing for you. Bye. And that's your money, right? Is that cool? No. But you can do what you want with your money. Number two, I think a great teaching opportunity for your young son,

a great wisdom opportunity, is to use words like, you have to have skin in the game. We know more than you do. We are wiser than you. And I know you're 18. You think you know everything in the world. You don't. You're not going to get student loans. Or we're going to not send you a dime.

We want you to be successful like we know you can be. Here's our grade standards. And every time you are, we're going to offer you X, Y, and Z. I wouldn't use it as a reimbursement. Then you're getting dangerously close into borrowing money and getting into all kind of weird arrangements. Well, I'll do the insurance while you do the, be clear and direct. And then at the end of the day, man, you don't need his permission on what you want to do with your money. Treat him like a grownup. What do you think, Anthony? I'm nothing to say. I want to talk to Kelly out in Chicago.

All right. Hey, Kelly, good afternoon. How can we help? Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. I am super excited to talk to both of you, actually. Great. We're excited to talk to you, too.

Thank you. So I have a car. I'm very upside down on it. I owe about $28, and it's worth about $19, Kelly Blue Book. I bought it brand new. And everyone keeps telling me to take a line or refinance my home so I can pay down my car, and I just don't feel that that's the best choice, and I just kind of want some guidance. Yes. Your friends said that?

They are not your friends. Oh, yeah. They might be your friends. They don't know how calculators work. Yeah, Kelly, in the financial part, your friends are not wise. I was going to say something else, but I want to be respectful. It's actually my parents. It's your parents?

Oh, man. I'm so glad I didn't say what I wanted to say. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. parents it's your parents oh man i'm so glad i didn't say what i wanted to say yeah uh yeah so that advice is not wise and let me educate you to why because your car will continue depreciating and so what you don't want to do is put a depreciating thing onto your home and you really don't want to add nothing else onto your home what kind of car is it kelly it's a 2019 toyota camry okay so you have you have a quality car you have a toyota all right you just the What kind of car is it, Kelly? It's a 2019 Toyota Camry. Okay, so you have a quality car. You have a Toyota, all right? The fullest thing you did was you bought it brand new, all right?

And so how much do you make a year right now? I make $70,000. You make $70,000. Okay, what other debt do you have outside of your Toyota? I have about $25 about 25 in student loans. Okay. So you're about 45, 50K in debt right now? Yeah. Yeah. Making 70. Okay. So I'm saying this.

I say you need to get on an aggressive budget and you need to pay it off because it's going to be very hard for you to get out of that unless you just put 10K on top of that and just go sell it to someone. So I would say just aggressively attack this uh your student loans and your car you're making good money but i would definitely not refinance your home don't pull out anything from your 401k don't pull from any investments just gonna get on a strategic budget um lower your expenses so if you have like netflix if you have Hulu, if you have this, if you have that, lower everything down.

So the next 12 to 18 months, you can just really, really focus on attacking this car, paying it off. And the reason why I'm saying go ahead and keep it is because it is a quality car. A Toyota is a great car. It's going to give you 200, 300,000 miles on that car. A Toyota is a great car. It's going to give you 200, 300,000 miles on that car. So I'll go ahead and pay it off and just ride that joker till they cannot ride anymore and then attack your student loans. So no, don't do not refi your home. This is the second or third call we've had today around that. That's right. And I saw a study the other day talking about

the trillions of dollars in earned home equity across the country against what the trillions of dollars of mortgage debt that's out there. And I know it feels like people have this invisible savings account, Anthony, but it's not wise, right? No, it's not wise, man. Why would you want to say that? Listen here, America, your home is an asset. Don't put liabilities on your home. It's there to generate income. It's there to help build you wealth. Don't do anything stupid with that. Live in it and let it build equity.

Okay? Bottom line. It's not a revolving credit line for you. No, man. No, it's not. Don't do nothing stupid. Yo, Dr. D, it's always fun with you, brother. Man, Dr. I was about to call him Dr., but our producer, James Schaaf, and his social producer, Kelly Daniel,

want to thank you both for always keeping it real and having fun with us here on the show. Remember, America, the caliber of our financial future will be determined by the decisions we all made today. You all made the right one by joining us here on the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you've heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes or head to DaveRamsey.com. Thanks for listening.