The Ramsey Show - App - I Owe $200K in Student Loans (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "I owe over $200K in student debt, what do I do?" "My husband passed away and I don't know what to do", "How do I help my wife deal with mental health issues?" "Am I too old to take out a student loan?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Genesee is with us.

She is in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Genesee. How are you? Hi, I'm doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi, I'm doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. So I am a fresh new baby graduate, and I'm about $217,000 in debt.

Both of my parents didn't go to college, so I don't really have anybody to talk to about, like, loan repayment and things of that nature. I did luckily get gifted your course from a Facebook group that I'm in, and I'm on step two, but I'm wondering, so I'm a single parent. I'm 26 and she's 10. I had her at 16, and I just did school straight through, so no working in between high school, undergrad, and then I just graduated from veterinary school. Oh, wow. So I have my doctorate. Wow, good for you. Good for you.

Thank you very much. I'm just wondering how realistic it is, you know, because it seems like I'll never get to step three with that much debt. And I know, like I said, I'm on step two in the course, and I see a lot of, like, married couples. We work with a lot of veterinarians in Entree Leadership because a lot of them come through to learn how to run their business, the business aspect of being a veterinarian. And so what I'm discovering just in having conversations with them is that there are veterinarians working in a practice

that don't own the practice, lots of them that are making $100.25, $100.50. There are a whole group of them, too, that are making $60 and $70. and so you know what I would tell you is don't get too caught up in a certain area of veterinary medicine get caught up in the area that can make you the most money for a little while so I've actually signed on to a practice it is a corporate practice so I don't own it and I don't have any stake in it. I start Monday, actually. Okay. And my base is going to be $105,000 a year. Ding, ding.

Sounds like my information's accurate. Okay. And you'll be going up pretty quick in that. That's just your starting, and so you'll be at $105,000 within a short period of time. So I'm pretty close. All right. And you're used to living on nothing. Yeah. Because you've been a used to living on nothing. Yeah.

Because you've been a college student your whole life. Yeah. Okay. So if you lived on nothing, how much is nothing? My rent at my house that I was living in in my vet school was about $550. I was one of five roommates um and then my mom was helping me with my daughter at that point in time um so now when i move i've moved back to my hometown um my rent the rent here is pretty insane it's going to be about for me to rent and not you know

have a mortgage um rental homes and rental apartments are looking about 1200 1100 to 1200 a month okay and then you know that's 14 000 out of 105 yeah okay then we got to eat we got to eat and we got to pay lights and we're not going to go buy a car on payments yep i have i have a car i've owned it it is on its last leg you're not you're a veterinarian just Just prop the leg up. Yep. All right. And then, yeah, and then living expenses and then just I. So here's what I'm saying, all right? $55,000 a year minus taxes is the most you can spend to live. The other $50,000 goes on your debt, and in four years you're done.

Okay. So you think it wouldn't be worth signing up for, like, an income-based repayment? Why would you want to stay in debt the rest of your life? I don't. Okay. Let's get out of debt in four years. Okay. Or sooner.

Okay. I'm talking to a woman who, at age of 16 with most people trying to figure out how blinker works on their mom's car had a child and you have managed to be a mother and a daughter and a graduate student and now a veterinarian making 105 $105,000 at 26 years old. You cannot sell me on the fact that you can't quote-unquote do something. You can do anything. I wouldn't fight you for all the money in the world.

You're incredible. My friend, Jade Warshaw, who also co-hosts this show, her and her husband had almost half a million bucks and they did not have veterinarian in their holster they were music students and they did it you're here's what's going to be frustrating for you you have been waiting for this moment for so long in your doctor genesee now and that car is going to stay the same and that lifestyle is going to stay the same and that 10 year old kid that you promised, just wait, just wait, just wait,

is going to have like three more years to go. Now they've got to wait. It's going to take you four years. It's going to take you three to four years to do this. And you can also work shifts on Saturdays and Sundays and maybe even do emergency medicine overnight if you need to and let your kids stay with your mom every once in a while. If you go pick up another 50 grand doing that, you can be out of debt in two and a half years.

Okay. So it doesn't seem unattainable. You can't do this. Here's the big math, okay? Take $200,000 and divide it by the number you're going to put on it a year. I put $50,000 a year on it out of your $105,000 a minute ago. Then John added some work to your life and we put another 40 or 50 on it so 50 a year into 200 is four right right this is attainable and by the way this is not

static you're not going to only make 105 for the next four years and the extra income you're not going to only want to do that forever so but if you go made another 30 or 40 thousand bucks and now we put 80 on this you know what is 200 divided by 83 not even okay two and three quarter right okay you following me here it's a big number math you don't have to do you have to have a master's degree in math and finance to pull this off you just divide 200 by the amount you're going to throw at it and that tells you how many years it's going to take for you to get this done you're going to get it done very very quickly and here's underneath the math my mom i've told the story on the show my mom at 42 the age of 42 took her first community college class one class and it was either geometry or algebra one of the

two we took it together i was in i was high school. Fast forward to 57 is when she graduated with her PhD, and she became a tenured professor at 63, and she teaches her last year at Oxford this summer in her 70s. I tell you that to tell you I had a ringside seat to a mom who completely transformed her life, and it was hard, and she was busy, and she had to miss games, and she was working on Saturdays and Sundays writing papers and reading

and doing grad school work and as an adult she took away every single excuse I could ever have because I got a ringside seat to watch a gangster be born. And so your son is going to watch you and you're going to feel guilty. I want you to think of the long game. He's going to watch his mom

teach him through action. He can do anything. He's going to watch his mom teach him through action. He can do anything. He's married to, I mean, his mom's a warrior princess. It's incredible. You're giving him the gift of a lifetime. Yep. Way to go. Proud of you.

Good work. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Hey, guys, if you like this show, and a bunch of you apparently do because you've been helping us, thank you. Share the show. Click the share button or share the link, depending on where and how you're listening. Subscribe or follow if you're on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcast

or let people know if you're listening to talk radio or watching us on TV and let people know that we're here. Speaking of Apple, are we going to do a virtual reality headset Ramsey show? A what? Headset? What are you talking about? I forgot. Your TV is still black and white.

Never mind. No, they announced their new VR headsets. Oh, those things. Oh, yeah. The Oculus. Apple announced theirs yesterday. It's not a headset. It's an Oculus.

What's wrong with you? Well, I live in the woods, so there we go. So, no, we're not. I saw James wearing ski goggles this morning and i thought that no you didn't apple announced their new version recently okay all right yeah yeah we're i was trying to make the show sound trendy and i just sounded dumb so there you go america way to go worked out well for you and uh yeah and well you got a couple of troglodytes here trying to figure this out but the uh uh we're like a far side so i think

i think that means we're not doing it that's what i think i'm gonna go with a no on that one yeah that's a no the stock market's been all over the place lately it's gone up and gone down and then back down and you're freaking out don't market dips don't mean you have to retire broke uh you got to keep a long-term perspective. Look at all the facts. If you invest $100 a month from age 25 to age 65, you'd have around a million dollars at retirement. No, that's not too good to be true. That's based on what the long-term average of the S&P 500 is. And a huge predictor of investing success is not the rate of return, but that you actually invest and you keep investing.

So no matter how old you are, no matter how much you invest and investing intimidates you you can invest with confidence and you get a pro in your corner to do it a pro helps you with the heart of a teacher so you start to understand what's going on because most of your freak out is just from lack of knowledge and you don't have to get a master's degree in finance you just gotta have somebody in your corner go hey dude this is how this works hey so we can connect you with a smart investor pro. They eat, sleep, and breathe investments, and they'll take the time to teach you, to work with you, so you understand what you are investing in. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash smart investor and find a smart investor pro today.

RamseySolutions.com slash smart investor. Carolyn, or Karen, rather, I'm sorry, is in Vermont. Hi, Karen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for being willing to talk to me. Sure. What's up?

So, four months ago today, my husband passed away. Oh, Karen, I'm sorry. Thank you. Karen, what happened? He was very sick for a long time, just a collection of severe vascular disease and cancer and lung disease. Oh, my. How old was he?

This past weekend was his 71st birthday. His what birthday? 71st. What was his name? Danny. Denny his name? Danny. Denny? Danny. Danny.

Awesome. I'm so sorry, honey. How can we help you? So I am working like a dog. Just trying to, I've gotten a lot of debt taken care of since he passed. But our mortgage caught back up. We were two months behind. So that's gone.

I'm a month ahead now on our budget, my budget, which we never were. We were always three months behind. I'm a month ahead. I've gotten there. But I'm working 95 hours a week. And I need to stop that. So I need to figure out how.

Okay, when you say you've got your budget caught up, you're current on all of your bills. I am. Okay. Do you have any money saved? No. Do you have any money saved no you have any debt oh i do yes how much um we owe i owe 22 000 on the car and 44 000 on the house and then um there's about two thousand dollars in miscellaneous things and what are you making right now i am making 4 400 a month okay cool and do you have any money saved at all? No. No.

I figured. I have nothing. Well, no life insurance either, I assume. No, because we were losing our house, so we had to do away with life insurance. Yeah. Now, you've gotten current on the house, and you're current on the car, right?

Yes. Now, okay, have you done a detailed written budget where you take $4,400 at the top of the page and assign every one of those dollars a number each month before the month begins? Yes. Okay, that's good. Very good. Does that give you a better sense of control than the chaos you were living in? Very much.

Good. Proud of you. Now it's the only thing I have control over. It's really the only thing I want control over. Yeah, but you've turned this whole thing around in the worst season of your life. What you've done is Herculean effort. I'm so proud of you.

It's very, very difficult to do what you've done. You've been a great help. I've listened and watched you on YouTube for years, and I have done Financial Peace University. How long ago? Several. My husband was not on board in any kind of way. How long ago did you do FPU?

I think probably somewhere between five and ten years ago okay i want you to go back through as our gift if i pay if i pay for it and give it to you we go back through it i'll do it yeah because that'll give you you have a fresh new um because you you've worked so hard to push the chaos to the side you've got a freshness to your hope in the middle of your grief and loss. But it's a weird sweet and sour moment for you in that sense. But there's a freshness to your hope. And so I think you'll see things in the class and learn things that you didn't have the ability to see before with the clouds. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. I'll pay for it for you. and you just go through as our gift. Is there anything in particular we can help you with today? I need to figure out how to expedite getting all of the debt taken care of, meaning the little $2,000, my car, the house, so that I can cut back. I'm doing two full-time jobs plus a part-time job.

Well, I mean, the shortest method is to clean the miscellaneous up and sell the car. Okay. And move to a cheap $5,000 car. How old are you, Karen? I'm 40. Okay. You're 40? We had a May-De december marriage that's fine i just making sure your phone is a little bit muffled i want to make sure i heard you i wasn't questioning i just didn't

know okay all right good so here's another thing that's going to happen you um and i've sat with new widows who look up and they say that what i think is one of those haunting questions what do i do now i got to go to work because there's no money in the house and they say what I think is one of those haunting questions, what do I do now? I've got to go to work because there's no money in the house. And that's what you did. And you've done that for four months now. And you're going to have to let your foot off the gas sometime in the near

future because you're running yourself into the ground, right? Yeah. When you do that, you're going to have to feel what just happened. Yeah. And that's going to be to feel what just happened. Yeah. And that's going to be terrifying, right? You've been able to run and sprint and run and sprint to survive, and you haven't had to sit in.

You lost the love of your life. Yep. So here's what I'm going to do. If you'll take me up on it, my friends, our friends at BetterHelp, I'm going to get you three to six months of free counseling, and you can do it from your house on the internet. Will you take me up on it if I get that for you?

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. It's going to give you somebody to talk to completely for free. Our BetterHelp's great friends, and so stay on the line, and Jenna's going to hook you up with that as well.

Yeah, so we'll put you in FPU and do that. So we walk with widows in a special way, Karen. Anything you need, you call us. We'll help you out. If you can hang on and pay off the car, that's fine. If not, if you need the relief faster, the fastest way to do it is dump the thing. So hang on. Jenna will pick up and take care of you.

Thanks for being with us america common sense for your dollars and cents and for your life right here on the ramsey show common sense is now so rare in america that if you have it it's like having a superpower open phones at 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Brandon is next in Maryland. Whoa, he's not there. Let me try that. I'm pushing the wrong buttons here. Dave, you ought to learn how to do radio. All right, Brandon is in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hey, Brandon, what's up? Hey, not too much. How are you today? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? Hey, so my wife and I completed paying off our debt about three years ago. And then following that, she decided to pursue her dream of writing, writing and trying to get traditionally published. And that was three

years ago. And to this point, she's still working on finding an agent and getting published. And over the past, I would say, year and a half, it's gotten tougher and tougher for her. And she's been battling a lot of anxiety and depression over all of the constant rejection that she gets in the querying process. And she has a very low self-worth. I do try to encourage her all the time that, you know, she's doing the right thing and, you know, this is, this is her dream and it's going to be hard and all of it's going to be worth it in the end. But all of the social pressures from friends and family about her not working

and not bringing in any income also bring her, bring her self worth down. So I'm, I'm really just trying to figure out how I can help her, um, how I can encourage her to, to keep pushing forward and what I can say that might, um, might help her through all of this. How, how, um, just husband to husband, how honest can I be with you, man? As honest as you want. Can I be pretty direct?

Yep. Unfortunately, in an effort to love her and really to keep her from hurting in the moment, man, it may not all work out. There's a high, high statistical probability that she's never able to get an agent and even if she does get an agent dave you'll know the number better than me but i think the average book sold in the united states is in the double digits maybe the triple digits and so i mean i i'm a youtuber for crying out loud. So I'm all about go for it, go for it, go for it, go for it.

But there's also a market reality. And I know that's hard because all the Hollywood movies tell you there's this one guy that just, you know, put all of his life savings into this thing and then it all worked out. They just don't tell you about the millions of people who did that and it didn't work out and so i think the greatest gift you could give her is this notion of reality and this come back to earth and this hey let's let's put a deadline and agree to agree that in three months by august 1st by september 1 let's sit down and not have a hard conversation about if you're a good writer. I'm certain she's a good writer. Not that you haven't written a great book,

not that, any number of things. But what's the deadline for how far we're going to keep pushing on this thing? What is she writing? She writes young adult fantasy fiction novels. Which is a very hot market and a very, very crowded market, right? Yes. Yes.

Very much so. What do you do? I'm currently with the U.S. military. What do you make? I've been in for almost 10 years. $90,000. Okay. And you said you guys are in what kind of financial condition?

You got out of debt so she was able to do this, right? Yes. So how much do you have in savings? We have about three and a half months in savings, about $13,000. Okay. All right. So I don't think this is what's going on, but I want to say it out loud so that everyone involved, including you, doesn't accidentally let this be what's going on but i want to say it out loud so that everyone involved including

you doesn't accidentally let this be what's going on okay we shifted about a generation ago uh or maybe even two generations ago to this idea that if we told people how wonderful they are that they are automatically wonderful that if we told them they had high net had high worth that they are automatically wonderful, that if we told them they had high worth, that they would believe it and have high self-esteem, when the reality is that high self-esteem comes from, the opposite of low self-esteem, comes from actually achieving things. You get calluses. You get some wins under your belt.

If you're a football coach and you lose every game for six seasons in a row you will have low self-esteem because you have lost every game something is substandard in your football coaching hello you're you're the people you're coaching there's some kind of a problem here this that is systemic and so this idea that somehow that now does that mean you're a bad person does that mean we hate you no it doesn't mean that but but but what goes with losing that much is um is is you know the struggle with self image right and so uh and and uh it's not to say that you can't but but getting some calluses getting some wins under your belt will do that. So I'm with John. I mean, I've published a whole bunch of books.

I've done them with publishers, without publishers. You know, we are a publisher now. We publish John's books as an example, bestsellers. Nothing in the genre that you guys are in. We don't have anything fiction out there. That's a wicked, weird, different market for sure than the one I'm in. It sells a lot more books if you get a hit, but it's harder to get a hit. Like my friend Brad Thor who writes crime novels, he sells 15 million on every book.

You know, I've got one book that did over 10 million, right? And I think I'm a big success. But every single one of those Brad Thor, Scott Harvath books goes 10, 15 million copies. It's wonderful for him and I'm pissed off about it but but that's what fiction is just a much bigger market than non-fiction so she's in a good market but it's also as John said it's a very thin market so if I were in her shoes I'd be looking for some wins or some exits and I would work this as a hobby while i had something else so it would sound like this we're going to get an agent and a publisher by uh the close of this

calendar year or we're going to put together some money and print 5 000 of these things and put it on amazon and try it self-published and you can go out and and do readings at libraries and coffee shops and try to get some young get in front of some young adults in some college classrooms or wherever your market is and get some people starting to read it and a few people buying it and see if you can get it to catch fire and we'll self-publish it and we'll push it out there. But we're going to have to do something rather than sit and waiting on the roast duck to come in.

We're going to leave with a gun and shoot the freaking duck, pluck the duck, and cook the duck. So we're not going to wait around anymore after the first of the year. And if you're not willing to do that, that's okay, I understand. But this other plan is not working. It's killing you right before my eyes, and I love you, and I'm not okay with that. Does that sound weird?

How does that sound? How does that hit you? No, it definitely puts a little fire under me you know and i'll tell you this i do want to see her succeed and everything oh i know you do i know you do and you want her to be whole and you want to be happy you want to see her laughing again and nobody probably more than her you would you're such a fan of hers you want her to have a number one bestseller on the fiction list and all that. Totally get that. Sometimes, not even sometimes, I would say the majority of the time,

after three years, four years, it's the wife that tells the husband, hey, this invention's not going to work. Will you try something else or can we try something else? And it gives him, he can finally drop his shoulders. Even if you keep writing and you keep putting it on the shelf, you've got to have a day job. That's right. Or you're getting some wins. She might be so relieved to hear you step in, is what I'm saying.

She may hate you. Maybe hit you with her manuscript. That could happen, too. You know what? I think it would be better. Just blame it on me. It's my fault. I'll take some, too.

Yeah. Tell her Dave and John are these two morons. These two morons are already on this YouTuber show. Yeah. Both of which have had number one bestselling books. But I like Dave. I like Dave's line. That is really important.

I'm watching my wife wither away in front of me, and I'll do whatever it takes. Yeah. Because I love you that much. Yeah. You just tell her the truth, man. That's the thing. But yeah, self-esteem does not magically appear without some success. Confidence doesn't come just when you can't read, but you are good at self-esteem.

This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Matthew 13, 16. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Brene Brown said, I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness. It's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude. Denya is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Denya. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey. Hey, what's up? Thank you for having me. Sure. Yeah, I just have me and my husband. I'm 52. My husband's 54. We don't have anything safe for retirement.

And I was trying to possibly go back to school. I'm a registered nurse, and if I went back to school, my income would go up. As an advanced nurse practitioner, that's what I was thinking of going towards. But we do have a lot of debt. I don't know if it's practical at my age and his age. He was concerned about that. It's 100% practical to go back to school. It is a dreadful idea to borrow money to do it.

I have 100% confidence you could get through an MPE program. Please don't borrow money against it. So where do you work? I work part-time in hospital, PRN, and also at a nursing home, PRN. I do a few days a week with both of them. So I would check out some of the local hospitals and see if they will hire you and then have an education program that pays for your NP. Where you are, they don't have that ed program.

But a hospital would. You work as a registered nurse in a hospital. They'll pay for you to get your NP. Yeah, the local hospital is probably about an hour away. I did work there years ago, and the distance was the issue. And it is a graduate degree. I don't know. They'll pay for it.

They want NPs. Someone will. Someone in corporate medicine will pay for an NP. Now, they're not going to the nursing home. They're not going to a nonprofit. They're not going to a hospice or a PRN situation. None of those that I've never seen one of those that has a program that pays for it. But hospitals and large doctor practices that are corporate-owned, most of them have an education program

and would love to have their registered nurses become in peace they need them gotcha i'll also tell you this it doesn't hurt to ask where you are one supervisor i went to at one point we didn't have a program and i said hey i really want to get this will you help me with it and he said no but i'll send you to harvard so he sent me to harvard for a program then another boss i said hey can i take this money and move it over here for graduate school? And she's like, I never even thought of that. Absolutely. Go for it.

And that's how I got my second degree paid for. And so it may be worth sitting down and saying, I'll go full time, but I need some help on this. Or here's what I want to do. Will you all help me get there? The worst I can tell you is no, and you're right back in the same spot, but they may surprise you. You may have to go to a full-time gig somewhere to get that, though. I think you have to go to a full-time gig wherever you are. You've got two part-time gigs right now, right?

Yeah, about part-time, yeah. And, you know, you're making good money, probably, possibly, but you might make a little less money and have them pay for your degree. And do youall own your home we do we have a mortgage okay what does your husband make um he makes about 50 what do you make about 35 yeah you're not working much registered nurse ought to be making 70 if they're working 40 why aren't you working that much um well i just took a breather uh for a little while here um i've just been home with my and just kind of taking care of stuff at home what stuff is at home kids

well yeah i just i just got my hours cut a little bit i just uh i needed a break a little bit but i did how much debt have you got we have a lot um how much mortgage is 60 credit card debt is 330 um i do have a student loan that's 15 000 for000 for my bachelor's, which I took that when I was working at the hospital. You guys need to sit down and have some soul-searching conversations, didn't you? Because I've talked to two different women on this phone. One of them was willing to lay it all out on the line and go back to school and go in debt to get an advanced degree as a nurse practitioner so she could make more money to get out of debt.

The other one isn't even working much and doesn't do anything except sit at home. These are two different women, and I talked to both of them in the last few minutes. Did you hear me? I understand what you're saying. The woman that I'm talking to that doesn't want to work much doesn't need to go back and get a degree. Is there something else going on? No, I'm just...

You sound like you have some heaviness in you, like in your soul. You sound exhausted, but exhausted spiritually. Right. Yeah, I'm trying to figure that all out okay all right honey so the way we're going to get you out of debt is we're going to get your income way up but that's going to involve a lot of hours and i can get hope from that if I'm you because I can see that instead of making $35,000, I'm making $80,000, but I'm working all the time. And that extra $50,000 a year is going to clean up this debt really, really fast. And I'm not tired in that situation. I'm not exhausted.

I'm not fatigued to where I can't breathe. I might be tired, but it's a good tired because I'm getting traction and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel that's not an oncoming train. If you can find energy in the fact that you're going to accomplish the goal and gear back up, then you can clear the debt and you can start to make the moves towards nurse practitioner. The condition that you're in today where you want to work just a few hours a week, there's no point in going to be a nurse practitioner. The condition that you're in today where you want to work just a few hours a week, there's no point in going to be a nurse practitioner. It doesn't serve any point because you're not going to utilize the extra degree to get any extra income.

And I would not go to the expense or the trouble to go get the degree if that's going to be your plan. But I don't think that's your plan. I think that you've kind of surrendered because you lost hope that you were ever going to get out. Dave. And it also sounds if we had another hour to sit with our friend, it almost sounds like if she wrote home an extra $50,000, her husband would have that money spent before that check cashed. And she may just be saying, I'm done. Like I I'm, I'm tired of not being on the same page. And so there's something about sitting down and saying, if we're going to get out of debt, we're going to do the same together. Yeah. Yeah.

The two of you together sit down and say, all right, we're both going to work an extreme number of hours. And we're both going to knock this out in 12 to 18 months. And then I'm going to go get a nurse practitioner degree. And then we're going to go become wealthy. We're only 52. And we have 15 years before we're 67. You become wealthy and the double in a salary 52 and we have 15 years before 67 you could build substantial wealth in 15 years if you clear all the debt and you guys create extra incomes uh increase your incomes but simply going back to school as a an escape

mechanism is not going to work uh we see a lot of people do that, and then they've got an escape mechanism with a student loan attached to it. And this is a double dip. It's a double dip. You just don't want to do it, and bad things. So just not go there. Please, please, please don't go borrow money and go back to college right now.

No. It would be a bad idea. Do sit down with your husband and do say, what if we were to live on beans and rice? What if I was to pick up and double my hours? What if you doubled your hours? What could we do? How fast could we get this done? What do we need to sell? What do we got to do? And when are we going to grow up and be responsible with money? And I'll spend everything we make so that we can retire with some dignity because I'm tired of being scared. As a matter of fact, I'm exhausted from being scared. And let's of fact, I'm exhausted from being scared.

And let's step into that. Do that. That's going to make sense for you. So, hey, hang on. We'll send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. The two of you can sit down and read it this weekend together, and it'd be life-changing if you got on the same page. There's something really special that goes on when you do that. Dr. John Deloney, good hour.

Thanks for being with me. You got it, man. All right. And Jenna, Ben, James, Zach, and Andrew are all in the booth making this show happen. Thanks, guys. We appreciate you. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 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 ramsesolutions.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 ramsesolutions.com and click Get Started.